I’d be surprised if this doesn’t pass, quite frankly…
Lawmaker proposes renaming airport after President Trump
Republican Florida State Representative Meg Weinberger has introduced a proposal to rename Palm Beach International Airport to Donald J. Trump International Airport. As she explained in a statement:
“President Trump is the most consequential president of our lifetime and a resident of Palm Beach County, which makes it only fitting to honor him, like many other presidents before him, by naming our airport Donald J. Trump International.”
This wouldn’t be the first that her efforts have caused something to be renamed after Trump. In February 2025, Weinbeger co-sponsored bill HB 987, to rename a four mile stretch of Southern Boulevard in Palm Beach County (near Mar-a-Lago) after Trump. While the bill was signed into law, the actual signage change is still in the works.
With Republicans holding a majority in the Florida Legislature, odds are decent that this proposal will pass. Trump has reportedly been pushing to have an airport named after him, and of course people love to score brownie parts for proposals like this.
I do wonder if this airport is “enough” for Trump, or if he’s going to hold out for a bigger airport being named after him (or who knows, I guess there could be multiple airports). In the past there was talk of Washington’s Dulles Airport (IAD) being named after him, but that didn’t have sufficient support.
Currently, more than 10 commercial airports in the United States are named after former presidents, including New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK), Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport (DCA), Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH), Grand Rapids’ Gerald Ford Airport (GRR), and Little Rock’s Clinton National Airport (LIT), among others.
I’m not a fan of airports being named after politicians
My opinion on this is the same as it has been about every proposal to rename an airport after a politician, whether a Democrat, Republican, or whatever (and if you don’t believe me, see my post about Las Vegas being renamed after Democrat Harry Reid).
I’m just no a fan of airports being named after politicians:
- Why can’t we just keep airport names simple, and name them after their location, or the cities or regions they serve? There’s no need to complicate things
- It’s one thing to name an airport after someone a vast majority of people can agree on, but to me it’s a bit different to name an airport after a politician, which is always going to be divisive
- At some point this renaming stuff just comes down to partisan politicians ruling in favor of one politician over another, and that just seems like a rabbit hole that’s better avoided
But at this point over 10 airports in the United States have been named after presidents, so I guess there’s no reason to stop now…
Bottom line
A Florida lawmaker has proposed renaming Palm Beach International Airport after Donald Trump. Given that the Florida Legislature is Republican, this could very well pass. It would be far from the first time that an airport would be named after a president, even if it’s a practice that I find to be rather questionable.
