On Friday evening, President-elect Donald Trump declared that the Republican Party will do its best to end Daylight Saving Time (DST) in the United States, which the MAGA leader called “inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation.”
Daylight Saving Time, which basically consists of moving the hands of the clock forward 60 minutes during the spring and summer months to make the most of the longer evenings, has been in effect in most of the U.S. since the 1960s, but in recent times it has often been the subject of debate.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said that DST has a “small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t!”, and that the GOP will try to end it.
In March 2022, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to make Daylight Saving Time permanent, but the effort stalled in the House after lawmakers said they could not reach a congruent consensus. In March, a bipartisan group of senators made a new attempt to make DST permanent.
Those in favor of daylight saving time argue that it results in brighter afternoons and evenings and greater economic activity during the winter months. Critics, on the other hand, say the “manual” shifting of clock hands twice a year causes sleep disturbances and health problems.
Congress has not held new hearings on the issue for more than two years, and the Senate is expected to take up the issue again. The United States began moving clock hands seasonally in 1918, during World War I, in an effort to save fuel. The measure, however, was somewhat unpopular among farmers and was repealed after the conflict.
Daylight saving time later came back into effect during World War II and became permanent in 1966.
As of 2015, about 30 states have introduced or passed laws to end the biennial time change. Countries that have ended DST include Mexico, although in some regions bordering the U.S., it has been maintained for economic reasons.
Other nations such as Russia and Turkey, however, have decided to adopt permanent daylight saving time.
