At first, it was supposed to be under 60 feet. Then it grew to 76 feet. Then it shot up to 164 feet and more.
Now the new “triumphal arch” that President Trump wants to build across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial is set to stand 250 feet from bottom to top — making it the tallest in any of the world’s capital cities.
On Thursday, the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts — a federal agency tasked with reviewing the “design and aesthetics” of all construction in Washington, D.C. — considered plans submitted by the president and the U.S. Department of the Interior. Packed with Trump appointees, the panel voted to move ahead with the project (just as they previously did with the president’s new 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom).
“This is personal for the president,” commission chairman Rodney Mims Cook Jr. said at the meeting.
The commission also noted that, of the nearly 1,000 public comments submitted prior to the vote, “100% … were against the project.”
So will the president’s so-called Arc de Trump — official name: United States Triumphal Arch — actually get built? And, if so, when? Here’s everything we know so far.
What is Trump proposing?
According to the official architectural renderings unveiled last week, the United States Triumphal Arch would stand 250 feet tall — nearly 100 feet taller than Paris’s Arc de Triomphe, which it resembles.
Like its French counterpart, Trump’s arch would be constructed mainly of stone, with various classical elements — lintels, cornices, friezes, parapets — carved out of the same material.
Unlike the Arc de Triomphe, the U.S. Triumphal Arch would also sparkle with gold — lots of it. Golden lions would flank the stairs on either side of the main structure. Gold medallions would adorn the coffers of the vault. Gold decorations would encircle the attic, including “One Nation Under God” and “Liberty and Justice for All” inscriptions. Three golden statues would top the arch itself: two eagles and a winged, crowned figure reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty.
An artist’s rendering of President Trump’s proposed arch.
(U.S. Commission on Fine Arts via Reuters)
“The one that people know mostly is the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France, and we’re going to top it by, I think, a lot,” Trump said in December. “The only thing they have is history.”
The winning design by architect Nicolas Leo Charbonneau gained the president’s attention “because of its ornamentation,” according to the New York Times, defeating a “smaller, less decorative” proposal. Trump has also undertaken a “goldening” of the Oval Office since returning to the White House last January.
When a CBS reporter asked Trump last year who the monument was for, he pointed to himself and answered: “Me.”
“It’s going to be beautiful,” he added.
The U.S. Triumphal Arch would be built on Memorial Circle, a grassy roundabout near Arlington National Cemetery directly across the Arlington Memorial Bridge from the Lincoln Memorial.
How do other triumphal arches compare in size?
According to the Times, “ancient civilizations often built grand arches to commemorate their military or civic achievements. The Romans decorated their cities with arches to celebrate imperial conquests like the sacking of Jerusalem. The French originally commissioned the Arc de Triomphe to symbolize Napoleon’s military victories.”
In recent decades, however, just a handful of countries have built triumphal arches, including Indonesia, North Korea and Iraq. Still, Washington remains “the only major Western capital without a monumental arch,” according to a 2025 article by Catesby Leigh, an architecture critic who encouraged Trump to erect one of his own.
If built as planned, the U.S. Triumphal Arch would supplant Mexico City’s 220-foot Monument to the Revolution as the largest structure of its kind. Pyongyang’s 197-foot Arch of Triumph would slip to third place.
The 250-foot measurement was also chosen to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which the United States is celebrating this summer. In comparison, the Lincoln Memorial is 99 feet tall; the Washington Monument is 555 feet tall.
Leigh originally proposed a temporary structure no taller than 60 feet that could be built in time for this summer’s celebrations. “And if the arch were considered to be of enduring value in its design, then it could be rebuilt in permanent form,” Leigh told the Times.
But the proposal then grew to 76 feet to symbolize the year of America’s founding — before Trump insisted that it exceed the 164-foot Arc de Triomphe.
At Thursday’s Commission of Fine Arts meeting, vice chairman James C. McCrery II — who was also the original architect for Trump’s ballroom — objected to the statues on top of the arch.
“I wonder if you need those up there,” McCrery asked. Without the statues, the height of the structure would shrink to about 166 feet.
When will the arch be built?
There’s no chance the United States will have enough time to construct a massive classical arch before this year’s big July Fourth celebrations. Instead, the administration “anticipates breaking ground on the site this summer with construction completed before the end of Mr. Trump’s term,” according to the Times.
A rendering of this summer’s “Great American State Fair” released Thursday by the Freedom 250 organization, which is planning “presidential-level celebrations for our nation’s 250th birthday,” showed a smaller, possibly temporary version of the design at one end of the National Mall.
How much will it cost (and who will pay for it)?
The administration has not released a budget or even a cost estimate for its arch.
As with his White House ballroom, Trump has suggested that donors could pay for the project. But the latest National Endowment for the Arts “spend plan” shows that taxpayers are also set to chip in $2 million in special funds and up to $13 million to match any private donations.
A White House official told the Times that “the cost of the arch was still being calculated but that it would likely be paid for through a mix of public and private money.”
What’s next? Any hurdles ahead?
The White House has said it will “follow all legal requirements” to build the U.S. Triumphal Arch. After Thursday’s approval by the Commission of Fine Arts, the proposal is expected to go to the National Capital Planning Commission (the federal government’s central planning agency for the Washington, D.C., region).
But whether the plans go to Congress is another story. In October, Trump abruptly tore down the East Wing of the White House to make space for a 90,000-square-foot ballroom financed with at least $350 million from corporate donors and political allies. A federal judge has halted that project multiple times — including again on Thursday — because he says it exceeds what a president can change about a historic building like the White House without congressional approval.
In February, a group of Vietnam War veterans and an architectural historian sued to block Trump’s arch project as well, arguing that “congressional approval is required for construction of symbolic and commemorative works in the Nation’s capital” and that a “host of other statutes impose procedural requirements that must be satisfied before erecting a monument on Memorial Circle.” They also claim Trump’s arch would disrupt the sight line between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.
According to CNN, the U.S. Triumphal Arch will soon face “other more challenging reviews that require public input, including under the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act.
As part of those reviews, “stakeholders are expected to be consulted, including Arlington National Cemetery, the National Park Service and the DC State Historic Preservation Office,” CNN reported.
What supporters and critics are saying
This “will be the GREATEST and MOST BEAUTIFUL Triumphal Arch, anywhere in the World. This will be a wonderful addition to the Washington D.C. area for all Americans to enjoy for many decades to come!” —Trump, on social media
It “will be an architectural masterpiece to celebrate our history right here in Washington, D.C. … Great nations build beautiful structures that cultivate national pride and love of country, and this triumphal arc should be a project that all Americans of all political persuasions can support.” —Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary
“The cemetery is supposed to be doing the speaking. This arch is just a rude interruption. No matter what you may think of it aesthetically, it just is the wrong place for it.” —Calder Loth, architectural historian who is suing to block the project
“It’s way too big for that site.” —Catesby Leigh, the architecture critic who initially encouraged Trump to build an arch
It “would be profoundly out of scale with its surroundings” and “appears to disregard established norms that prioritize harmony with existing structures, preservation of sight lines and respect for the symbolic hierarchy of the capitals and landmarks.” —an anonymous public comment read aloud at Thursday’s Commission of Fine Arts meeting
“Permitting that Arch to be built without appropriate congressional authorization and review could lead to the unchecked proliferation of monuments, the erosion of public space, and serious constraints on future generations’ ability to memorialize their own losses and achievements. … Washington D.C. is not the President’s backyard to renovate, relandscape, and build in as he sees fit.” —Democratic members of Congress in a March amicus brief filed in support of the lawsuit to block construction
