ORLANDO, Fla.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Florida lawmakers this week approved renaming the international airport in West Palm Beach after President Trump, just days after the Trump family company filed to trademark the use of the president\u2019s name on airports.<\/p>\n
The legislation to switch the name of the Palm Beach International Airport to the President Donald J. Trump International Airport awaits the signature of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis after it passed the state Senate on Thursday. If the Republican governor signs it into law and it\u2019s approved by the Federal Aviation Administration, the name change will take effect in July.<\/p>\n
When asked if the governor planned to sign the legislation, his press secretary, Molly Best, said Friday that DeSantis hadn\u2019t yet received the bill. When he does, \u201che will review it in its final form,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what to know about the airport\u2019s renaming.<\/p>\n
What the legislation does<\/p>\n
The legislation gives the power to name large commercial airports in Florida to the state. In doing that, lawmakers kept the names of Florida\u2019s six other major commercial airports the same, while changing the one in West Palm Beach, which is nearby Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach. <\/p>\n
The legislation also specifies that the state\u2019s airport names are \u201cbranding designations\u201d only, without the need to create new legal entities. The changing of the West Palm Beach airport\u2019s name is expected to cost as much as $5.5 million for new signage, branding and other updates.<\/p>\n
Trump trademark<\/p>\n
The approval of the airport name change came just days after the Trump Organization filed applications with the federal trademark office seeking exclusive rights to use the president\u2019s name on airports and dozens of related items found there, from buses shuttling passengers to umbrellas and flight suits.<\/p>\n
The Trump Organization said that the first-of-their-kind applications were triggered by the Florida bill and that it didn\u2019t seek any profit \u2014 only protection against \u201cbad actors\u201d given that the Trump name is the \u201cmost infringed trademark in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike past U.S. presidents, Trump isn\u2019t waiting for future generations to name things after him. <\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s handpicked board voted last year to rename Washington\u2019s leading performing arts center as the Trump Kennedy Center. Congress originally named the center for President John F. Kennedy in 1964, after his assassination. Trump\u2019s allies also put his name on the U.S. Institute of Peace and a new class of battleships that\u2019s yet to be built.<\/p>\n
There are also the \u201cTrump Accounts\u201d for tax-deferred investments, the TrumpRx government website offering direct sales of prescription drugs and the \u201cTrump Gold Card\u201d visa that costs at least $1 million. <\/p>\n
Local reaction<\/p>\n
Palm Beach County historically was a Democratic-dominated, liberal enclave. But in the last decade, its politics have swung to the right because of an influx of MAGA influencers and billionaires, especially in the town of Palm Beach, which is Trump\u2019s home, and surrounding wealthy communities. Palm Beach County voters in 2024 picked Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris over the Republican Trump by the narrowest of margins \u2014 less than 6,000 votes out of more than 748,000 votes cast.<\/p>\n
GOP state Sen. Debbie Mayfield, who sponsored the Senate bill, said the new name was a good fit for the county since Trump had made it his home.<\/p>\n
Calling the name change \u201cmisguided and unfair,\u201d U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, a Democrat whose district includes the airport, said the GOP-controlled Florida legislature had ignored public input by pushing ahead with the name change without properly consulting local residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cDecisions about naming major infrastructure should wait until after an honoree\u2019s service has concluded \u2014 and should include meaningful input from the local residents and communities most directly affected,\u201d Frankel said.<\/p>\n
Schneider writes for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Florida lawmakers this week approved renaming the international airport in West Palm Beach after President Trump, just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[17478,77944,77943,28,5239,30,49630,29,128,77942,7334,30966,10862,9105,77945,77414,2684,24214],"class_list":{"0":"post-163004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-application","9":"tag-art-center","10":"tag-exclusive-right","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-florida-bill","13":"tag-florida-headlines","14":"tag-florida-lawmaker","15":"tag-florida-news","16":"tag-legislation","17":"tag-mar-a-lago-home","18":"tag-name","19":"tag-name-change","20":"tag-palm-beach-international-airport","21":"tag-president-trump","22":"tag-republican-governor","23":"tag-state-senate","24":"tag-trump","25":"tag-trump-organization"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}