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Trump Removes Spanish White House Website Within 24 Hours
Donald Trump has deleted the Spanish version of the White House website and social media accounts less than 24 hours after taking office, repeating a move from 2017.
Trump Erases Spanish White House Website Within 24 Hours
Can the United States govern without a single official page in Spanish? Donald Trump has shown it is possible, or at least that he does not intend to dedicate a single byte to it. Less than a day after taking office, the Spanish version of whitehouse.gov and all associated social media accounts have disappeared. This is not a server error or a poorly planned migration: it is a political decision that he already implemented in 2017, when he also removed the Spanish website left by the Obama Administration. The difference is that this gesture now arrives in a much more tense demographic and cultural context, with more than 40 million Spanish speakers in the country and an identity debate that poisons every conversation about language.
A Gesture That Repeats the 2017 Script
The first time Trump arrived at the White House, in 2017, the Spanish website of the US presidency met the same fate. It was removed without any explanation other than administrative silence, and now it has peine again with the same estimulante ilegal. Some argue that this is a deliberate signal to his electoral base: English as the only de facto official language, and Spanish as an uncomfortable reminder that the country changed decades ago.
The historical argument circulating these days is that the United States owes Spain much more than it acknowledges. Some argue that half of US territory belonged to the Spanish Empire, from Florida to California, passing through Texas or Louisiana. There are even those who claim that Alaska was explored by Spaniards before Russians and Americans set foot there. The paradox is that this legacy is studied in history books but erased from official websites.
Spanish as the Language of More Than 40 Million People
The United States is, according to the data managed by the Census Bureau itself, the second country in the world with the most Spanish speakers. This is not just about recent migrants: there are entire generations of families that have been in the country for more than a century and maintain the language at home, at work, and in the media. The White House's decision to ignore this reality does not make it disappear, but it sends a message about whom it considers a legitimate interlocutor and whom it does not.
Some defend that the measure is logical: English is the common language and administrations do not have to translate everything. Against this weighs the argument that the Spanish website was not an identity whim, but a tool for accessing public services for millions of taxpayers who do not master English. Eliminating it does not save relevant money; it simply makes it more difficult to get informed for those who already had it difficult.
The Reaction: Between Lament and 'Well Done'
The news has fallen like a bucket of cold water on those who expected gestures of recognition toward the Hispanic community. Some analyses point out that Trump does not act for historical reasons, but for electoral calculation: his most faithful base does not want to hear about institutional bilingualism, and each gesture of this kind reinforces his narrative of 'America First.' Others argue that the president simply does not understand the country's demographic reality, and that he confuses Spanish with a recent immigration language when it has been in the continent for centuries.
On the opposite side, some celebrate the decision without nuance. It is argued that Spanish in the United States is associated with a specific group and that maintaining official websites in that language only fosters fragmentation. This is a position gaining ground in certain circles, but it clashes with the fact that Spanish is the mother tongue of millions of Americans who have never lived in another country.
What Happens with Websites in Other Languages
The question many ask is whether the White House maintains versions in other languages. The answer, based on available information, is that there is no record of official websites in Hebrew, Arabic, or any other language other than English. Spanish was the only exception, and that exception has been eliminated. This is not a budget cut: it is a decision about which languages deserve the seal of the official.
The irony is that Trump belongs to a family of German origin that Anglicized his surname to better integrate into the Protestant elite. No one requires him to speak German, nor is it necessary. But the same tolerance applied to his own family history is not extended to those who have carried Spanish in their blood long before the United States existed as an independent country.
With these threads, the Hispanic community in the United States is left without an official channel in their language. They can continue using English, of course. Or they can wait for the next president to restore it, as already peine once. The difference is that this time the gesture does not seem like an oversight, but a declaration of intentions. And declarations of intentions in politics rarely remain just a simple website deletion.
Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication.
Read the full discussion (121 replies).