Trump landed at Palm Beach International Airport after delivering remarks at a White House digital assets summit.
Elon Musk and President Trump in Palm Beach after ride on Air Force One
President Donald Trump makes his fifth visit to Palm Beach bringing along Elon Musk on Air Force One
WEST PALM BEACH — President Trump arrived Friday evening for his fifth Mar-a-Lago visit this term at a time when his home county is increasingly more vocal and visible in opposition to his policies.
Trump landed at Palm Beach International Airport just before 8 p.m. With him on Air Force One were billionaire and special government employee Elon Musk, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and aide Walt Nauta.
Trump arrived after delivering remarks at a White House digital assets summit. Trump touted an executive order he issued Thursday creating a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” and “Digital Asset Stockpile” saying it will create a “virtual Fort Knox.”
“That’s a big thing,” he said, adding: “This is a tremendous opportunity for economic growth and innovation in our financial sector … We feel like pioneers, in a way.”
The measures have received a mixed reaction among crypto hedge and investment fund managers while others point out that Trump’s financial stake in a crypto platform could raise conflicts of interest.
After the late afternoon roundtable, Trump departed Washington for the Winter White House, ending a week in which he attempted to quell tumult within his own government by clarifying who exactly is in charge of the federal budget’s crash diet. And one in which he partially flipped on his decision to implement punitive tariffs on America’s closest trading partners — and which economists have said could prove costly to U.S. consumers.
The White House claimed the administration this week continued “racking up major wins” citing liquefied natural gas deals, the arrest of the ISIS-K terrorist accused of leading the deadly bombing in Afghanistan that killed 13 U.S. servicemembers in 2021 and a plummet in “illegal border crossings” last month that was 94% less than in February 2024 and “down 96% from the all-time high of the Biden Administration.”
Trump in Palm Beach County as residents grow restless over his policies
On March 4, more than 100 people gathered for the West Palm Beach version of the National Day of Action demonstration in front of the Palm Beach County Courthouse. For two hours, they alternately condemned Trump’s slew of executive orders, efforts to end diversity programs, a nationwide immigration crackdown and other initiatives.
Two days later, in a meeting with local Hispanic and community leaders, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said the county’s deputies would not engage in broad immigration sweeps but only seek to detain undocumented “bad guys” with existing warrants and criminal records.
“I am not doing immigration sweeps. Haven’t, won’t,” Bradshaw said, while also adding: “Send your kids to school, go to the hospitals when you need to go there, go to the grocery store, go wherever you want. I want people to be safe. Don’t be afraid of us.”
South Florida’s congressional Democrats have also fired broadsides at the administration, which has been in office for just six weeks. U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel of West Palm Beach said she was “appalled” by the Trump administration’s plan to eliminate 80,000 jobs from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“As the mother of a U.S. Marine war Veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, I know firsthand the service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform,” said Frankel, a former mayor of West Palm Beach whose district includes the Winter White House, in a statement. “Veterans’ benefits are a sacred promise, earned through their service to our country … Slashing tens of thousands of VA jobs will mean longer wait times, delayed treatments, and increased reliance on private providers —many of whom lack the expertise to treat service-related conditions. This cruel decision doesn’t serve those who served our country — it abandons them.”
On Friday, U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick along with her Democratic colleagues from Florida sent a letter warning the Trump administration that reducing resources for meteorologists and weather forecasts will imperil the Sunshine State, particularly during hurricane season.
“Here in South Florida, families have been hit hard by severe hurricanes, catastrophic flooding, and other natural disasters,” wrote Cherfilus-McCormick, whose district covers swaths of Palm Beach and Broward counties. “Abrupt workforce cuts at NOAA and NWS will only make it more difficult for our communities to get ahead before the next storm arrives.”
Week ends with back-and-forth on tariffs
It wasn’t just locals pushing back hard on Trump’s initiatives. After implementing long-threatened and steep tariffs, the president soon was backpedaling.
After a call with leaders of America’s automotive industry, Trump removed automobiles from the list of items facing 25% duties. Another import, potash needed by farmers for fertilizer, was also added to a widening exempted list.
The partial retreat nonetheless elicited taunting from Canadian officials who called Trump’s trade back-and-forth a “psychodrama.”
“There’s too much unpredictability and chaos coming out of the White House right now,” Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly was quoted as saying.
After a call with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, Trump said he would not apply tariffs on imports covered by an existing trade agreement he negotiated in his first term.
Florida has a lot at stake with Canada, Mexico tariffs
Trump’s adopted home state has plenty at stake as Canada and Mexico are among Florida’s top trade partners. In 2022, Florida imported close to $9.6 billion worth of products from Mexico and around $5.8 billion from Canada.
The trade war is one factor that has taken a toll on Wall Street. On Friday, the S&P 500 closed down nearly 400 points from its highwater mark of 6,144.15 last month. And the Dow Jones industrial average was off just under 2,000 points since February.
Trump, who often touted his first-term success by noting stock market wealth increases, said this week he was “not even looking at the market” because he did not doubt the strength of the U.S. economy.
Trump also walks back orders to Musk, DOGE
The president also walked back his orders to super-billionaire Musk and his efforts to take a chainsaw to the federal government budget and workforce.
Last month, Trump wrote in an all-capitalized post on his social media platform that “ELON IS DOING A GREAT JOB, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM GET MORE AGGRESSIVE. REMEMBER, WE HAVE A COUNTRY TO SAVE, BUT ULTIMATELY, TO MAKE GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE. MAGA!”
That led to mass firings of workers and controversial weekly emails from Musk to all federal employees ordering them to detail how they were spending their work hours.
But on Thursday, after weeks of protests, criticism and missteps in terminating vital federal employees, Trump recast his order saying the goal now is to to employ a “scalpel” and not a “hatchet” to reductions. Trump also stated he instructed that his Cabinet secretaries, and not Musk, the richest man on the planet, make the final decision on workforce reductions.
The role of Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, Trump stated, is “to work” with the Cabinet members in order to “be very precise as to who will remain, and who will go.”
Debris from SpaceX Starship seen from West Palm Beach after explosion
Pieces of the unmanned Starship spacecraft are seen in the sky a half mile south of Southern Boulevard in West Palm Beach on Thursday. The spacecraft was SpaceX’s eighth flight test of its Starship. Video by Tim Lewis, West Palm Beach
Musk’s SpaceX venture also suffered its own setback when a rocket it launched on Thursday exploded in flight. The debris field over the skies above Florida was vast enough to delay flights at PBIA, Miami International Airport and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
A PBIA spokesperson said there was a ground stop at the airport Thursday that lasted until 7:30 p.m. It was unclear how many flights were affected.
Palm Beach Post reporters Valentina Palm and Julius Whigham II contributed to this story.
Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.