President Donald Trump is said to be personally overseeing efforts to renovate Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. — all while reportedly advocating for the hub to be renamed after himself.
The president met with half a dozen construction and infrastructure firms at the White House earlier this month, and had executives taking turns pitching their ideas to overhaul the airport, people familiar with the plans told the Washington Post.
The companies, which included AECOM, a firm working on Trump’s White House ballroom project, shared proposals.
Within the pitches were plans to build new terminals, revamp the airport’s layout and do away with the airport’s shuttles — often referred to as people movers.
Some of the proposals even tried to win Trump over by embodying his penchant for naming things after himself, with one company proposing to rename the shuttles “Direct Jet Transports,” or DJTs — the president’s initials, according to the report.
Trump — who has worked to rename several Washington facilities, including the Kennedy Center and the Institute of Peace, after himself — reportedly proposed the airport be renamed in his honor last month.
The proposal came as part of a funding standoff with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York. The White House reportedly told Schumer that the president would unfreeze more than $16 billion for the long-planned Gateway Tunnel project, which will add a new rail line between New York and New Jersey – if he agreed to rename New York City’s Penn Station and Dulles airport, near D.C., after the president.
However, Schumer swiftly rejected the offer, saying he did not have the authority to rename the transportation hubs.
About 27 million passengers travel through Dulles each year — including 10 million international travelers — yet it ranks below many major airports in passenger satisfaction.
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which oversees Dulles, already had a plan to overhaul the antiquated facility and phase out the shuttles within the next 15 years.
However, Trump officials reportedly feel those plans are moving too slowly, and are instead looking to find ways to make rapid improvements to the airport without waiting for Congress to set aside additional funding, sources told the Post.
The White House declined to comment on Trump’s meetings with the Post, but said the administration was focused on improving “the international gateway to our nation’s capital.”
“Dulles should inspire pride and awe in foreign travelers visiting our country and American citizens returning home,” spokesman Kush Desai said. “The Trump administration is committed to using every tool at our disposal to ensure that Dulles lives up to our nation’s majesty as we seek to both Make America and our Airports Great Again.”
The Transportation Department said it was “exploring a host of public-private partnership opportunities to remake Dulles at the speed of Trump.”
Trump’s reported plans to revamp Dulles, including renaming the airport after himself, comes as the president has put his name on numerous government properties since the start of his current term.
Since returning to office in 2025, Trump has affixed his name to prominent Washington buildings, a planned class of Navy warships, a visa program for wealthy foreigners, a government-run prescription drug website, and federal savings accounts for children.
He has also taken on several ambitious construction projects, including the demolition of the historic East Room, to be replaced by a 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom that is set to cost a whopping $400 million.
Trump plans to have the ballroom built and open to guests by summer 2028, giving builders roughly a year and a half to construct the new event space.
The president has also expressed interest in building a 250-foot tall “Independence Arch” in Washington, D.C., near the Potomac River. It has been nicknamed the “Arc de Trump” in a pun on France’s Arc de Triomphe.
