United States President Donald Trump is addressing a joint session of Congress for the first time during his second term, taking a victory lap after 43 days back in office.

    But Democrats greeted his speech with heckling from the audience, with Representative Al Green escorted from the chamber at Speaker Mike Johnson’s order.

    His speech coincides with the first day of sweeping 25-percent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, prompting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to accuse Trump of launching a “trade war that will first and foremost harm American families”.

    Trump read aloud a conciliatory letter from Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, after he paused all military aid for Ukraine on Monday, following an Oval Office spat last week.

    Democrats hit out at ‘unelected bureaucrat’ Elon Musk

    Several Democratic lawmakers have pounced on Trump’s assertion that he is taking on “unelected bureaucrats” to rebuke the US president’s ally, Musk.

    “Trump said, ‘The days of being ruled by unelected bureaucrats is over’,” Congressman Brendan Boyle wrote in a social media post.

    “Meanwhile, shadow president and unelected billionaire Elon Musk watches from above, making sure Trump sticks to the script.”

    What are the big foreign policy revelations from Trump’s speech?

    Big news lines coming out of there.

    First of all, obviously Ukraine. We were expecting him to say something on that. The fact that [Ukrainian] President Zelenskyy has said that he wants to get around the negotiating table — he wants to sign the deal — perhaps suggests that what happened on Friday didn’t go the way that he wanted.

    There was pressure on him to do a deal. And he’s willing to accept what Donald Trump is ready to offer at this point, which includes access to rare-earth minerals in his country, in exchange for some level of American support.

    There was also the breaking news in that Donald Trump revealed that the man behind the Abbey Gate bombing, as the United States was pulling out of Afghanistan, had been apprehended. He thanked the Pakistani government for doing that as well.

    Also in foreign policy, there was very little said, if anything, about Gaza. I’m just checking my notes. I don’t think he actually said anything at all about Gaza, other than a passing mention talking about the release of captives there and how he wanted to see an end to the war. And he talked about his success with the Abraham Accords during his first term.

    And then there was a change of tone when talking about Greenland. We’ve heard Donald Trump say that he would like to take over Greenland. He suggested, at one point, he may actually do it by force.

    This time, it was an appeal to the people of Greenland to come on board – to say that they wanted to be part of the United States.

    And then that slightly jokey – some may call it sinister – thing he said, that  if it doesn’t happen, we’ll look at other ways, which could suggest some sort of action is still on the table.

    ‘Racism and xenophobia at the centre of everything’

    Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, a prominent progressive, calls for fighting back against Trump’s agenda and delivering for working people across the US.

    “I went there because I was insistent that I wanted to hear directly from him what he had to say,” Jayapal said in a video message. “But after hearing him — lie after lie after lie, racism and xenophobia at the centre of everything — I walked out.”