Trump Signs Proclamation Reinstating Columbus Day

The president said the national flag will be displayed on all public buildings on Columbus Day.

President Donald Trump (C) holds up signing documents recognizing days honoring Leif Erikson and Christopher Columbus while he speaks during a Cabinet meeting, alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio (L) and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (R), in the Cabinet Room of the White House, on Oct. 9, 2025. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Oct. 9 recognizing Oct. 13 as Columbus Day in honor of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus.

“Columbus Day, we’re back, Italians. We love the Italians,” Trump said after signing the proclamation at the White House.

This marks a departure from President Joe Biden’s practice since 2021 of issuing dual proclamations that observed both Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples’ Day on Oct. 13.

In his proclamation, Trump hailed Columbus—whose 1492 expedition from Spain reached the Caribbean and marked the beginning of sustained European exploration and colonization of the Americas—as “the original American hero” and “a giant of Western civilization.”

“As we celebrate his legacy, we also acknowledge the contributions of the countless Italian-Americans who, like him, have endlessly contributed to our culture and our way of life,” the president stated in his proclamation.

Trump denounced who he called “left-wing radicals” who attempted to “erase our history” and “attack our heritage” by toppling Columbus statues and tarnishing the explorer’s character.

“Under my leadership, those days are finally over—and our Nation will now abide by a simple truth: Christopher Columbus was a true American hero, and every citizen is eternally indebted to his relentless determination,” he stated.

Trump called on U.S. citizens to observe Columbus Day with “appropriate ceremonies and activities,” and directed that the U.S. flag be displayed on all public buildings on that day.

The proclamation follows Trump’s earlier post on social media in which he vowed to commemorate Columbus Day “under the same rules, dates, and locations, as it has had for all of the many decades before.”

Columbus Day is a federal holiday in the United States, which is celebrated on the second Monday of October to honor Italian Americans and Christopher Columbus.

The federal holiday was still known as Columbus Day during Biden’s term, but also as Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Activists had long wanted to shift the focus from commemorating Columbus’s navigation to the Americas to his and his successors’ exploitation of the indigenous people he encountered there.

Biden’s 2021 Columbus Day proclamation acknowledged “the painful history of wrongs and atrocities that many European explorers inflicted on Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities.”

During his first term, Trump stated in a 2020 proclamation that “radical activists have sought to undermine Christopher Columbus’s legacy,” amid reports of vandalism targeting statues of the Italian explorer in some states. In October 2019, vandals threw red paint and sprayed graffiti on two Columbus statues in Rhode Island and California.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.