President Donald Trump’s planned ‘Triumphal Arch’ will tower far higher than previously thought at a massive 250 feet, according to insiders.
Sources told the Washington Post that the dimensions for the proposed monument will see it dwarf other popular landmarks including France’s Arc de Triomphe and the White House.
Trump unveiled his plans for a monument to mark America’s 250th birthday back in October.
He said the arch will sit on a traffic circle on the Virginia side of the Potomac River between the Lincoln Memorial and the Arlington National Cemetery.
Funding for the project will come from leftover private donations from the White House ballroom renovation.
At 250 feet, the proposed arch will be taller than the nearby Lincoln Memorial at 99 feet and the White House at 70 feet.
The president previously considered smaller versions of the monument including designs that were 165 and 123 feet which he shared last year.
However, sources told the Post that he decided that ‘250 for 250’ makes the most sense and would be more likely to wow tourists and visitors.
For comparison, Paris’s Arc de Triomphe is 164 feet tall.
Trump pitched the arch as a centerpiece of the country’s Semiquincentennial celebrations and told Politico the project enjoyed broad enthusiasm among supporters.
Last year Trump told Politico that construction on the ‘Triumphal Arch’, nicknamed the ‘Arc de Trump’, would begin shortly.
‘It hasn’t started yet. It starts sometime in the next two months. It’ll be great. Everyone loves it,’ he said from Mar-a-Lago. ‘They love the ballroom too. But they love the Triumphal Arch,’ he added.
The arch was planned alongside other high-profile initiatives, including a UFC fight night on the White House South Lawn timed to his 80th birthday and a large-scale light display projected onto the Washington Monument.
Trump described the UFC event as featuring ‘many matches, like 10,’ adding that Dana White would select the card. ‘Well, Dana’s picking them.
He’s the best fight-picker there is, right? He’s going to pick all of the top fighters. Going to be all championship matches. It’ll be the best ever, I think. Really incredible.’
The monument signifies Trump’s latest foray into construction and comes off the heels of his divisive renovations at the White House.
In meetings with donors last fall, Trump argued that both projects would ‘beautify’ Washington.
He earmarked the empty traffic circle near Arlington Memorial Bridge and declaring that something monumental always ‘belonged’ there.
‘Every time somebody rides over that beautiful bridge to the Lincoln Memorial, they literally say something is supposed to be here,’ Trump told donors.
‘We have versions of it … this is a mockup,’ he added, noting that planners in 1902 considered a Robert E. Lee statue for the site. ‘Would have been OK with me – would have been OK with a lot of people in this room.’
But some architects and historians warned that a 250-foot structure would block historic sightlines and distort views between Arlington House, Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial.
Art critic Catesby Leigh, who previously proposed an a temporary pop-up 60-foot concept arch in a 2024 opinion piece, objected to Trump’s supersized vision.
‘I don’t think an arch that large belongs there,’ Leigh told the Washington Post. ‘If you’re going to build an arch that big, you should build it in another part of town and one possible site that comes to mind is Barney Circle .there’s nothing around it competing with it.’
The White House has commissioned architect Nicolas Leo Charbonneau, who Leigh recommended, to develop the arch, with designs ranging from classical stone to gold-gilded variants.
Calder Loth, a retired Senior Architectural Historian for the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, warned that a 250-foot-high arch could obstruct pedestrians’ views of the Arlington National Cemetery.
‘I would be very concerned about the scale,’ told the outlet. ‘It would make Arlington House just look like a dollhouse – or you couldn’t see it all, with the arch blocking the view.’
Daily Mail has reached out to the White House for comment.
