The Most Important Presidential Proclamation Trump Should Make

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers his inaugural address after being sworn in as the the 47th president of the United States in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on January 20.
CHIP SOMODEVILLA/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

The Most Important Presidential Proclamation Trump Should Make

Forget about “the first 100 days” of a presidency. Since taking office, President Donald J. Trump has been a blur of action. In just his first 100 hours he issued executive actions, executive orders, proclamations and other decisions rapid-fire. Every day, practically every hour, he has been getting things done that have been long overdue and undoing things that never should have been done.

He is securing the national border using marines, capturing and deporting criminals, and freeing people who were wrongly imprisoned. He is responding to areas hit by environmental disasters. He is tackling federal wastefulness in payrolls and grants. He is restarting the engines of American energy production and trying to bolster big tech. He is undoing radical policies that have caused racial division and sexual perversion. He is revoking taxpayer funding of abortion. He is calling for Americans to again take pride in their nation. He is overhauling the sick, divided, subversive United States military. He is pressuring and threatening terrorist organizations, international elites and many foreign governments in his push to “make America great again.”

The cover of our newest issue of the Philadelphia Trumpet summarizes this moment in American history: “The Resurgence Begins.” This issue is online today.

But even amid all these promising moves, there are also some worrying signs. Two articles in this same Trumpet issue address threats that will undermine America’s resurgence.

In fact, all the actions President Trump is taking will likely be overwhelmed or undone unless he makes one particular presidential proclamation—the most important he could make.

What happens next for America could be wonderful, or it could be catastrophic—depending on this.

In this “Resurgence Begins” Trumpet issue, publisher Gerald Flurry’s first article addresses the unprecedented wildfires in Southern California. This has been a sobering curse amid all the excitement of Trump’s early days. Such tragedies continue to plague America and to intensify. Why? The blame does not lie solely with specific leftist politicians. This article explains: These are warnings from God! There is indeed a specific message God is communicating through that disaster. This is crucial to think on as this new presidential administration begins.

Also in this Trumpet is Mr. Flurry’s article “President Trump Betrayed Israel.” He gave this bold, urgent message in a Key of David television program just before we sent this issue to press. We rushed to include it because it pierces right through to a painful truth that most people are ignoring or minimizing. What happened in the disastrous Israel-Hamas hostage deal could not be more important! It is a terrible, self-inflicted curse on America and on Israel. It portends tragedy not only for the Jewish state but also for the Trump presidency.

With so many of the substantial actions Trump is taking, it is impossible to clearly foresee the consequences. Many of them promise to be a boon to America. Many also could bring unexpected effects, blowback, counteractions by criminals, terrorists and foreign governments.

Consider Trump’s pledge to take back the Panama Canal, about which Mr. Flurry has another feature article in this Trumpet. This is a splendid reversal of American wimpiness. Reasserting control of the canal would be an enormous boost. Yet the costs of victory are uncertain. It will certainly provoke America’s enemies. How will China, which seeks to surpass the U.S. as the world’s dominant superpower, retaliate? Unexpected contagion effects are certainly possible.

The tariffs Trump is touting could rectify trade imbalances and boost domestic manufacturing. In the short term at least, they could also make life more expensive for Americans. And they could accelerate the development of a prophesied mart of nations that bands together in economic alliance against America.

So many of the president’s directives are positive moves, yet there is no guarantee they will work. Too many factors are in play, the strength and size of the forces that oppose them are uncharted and fluctuant, and the ultimate outcome is unknowable. The threat of tariffs swiftly brought little Colombia into line over accepting deportees. At what point will a more powerful nation up the ante and elevate hostilities rather than caving in? In the Hamas deal Trump already showed he is willing to abandon his rhetoric to keep peace and preserve the appearance of success.

Then there is the fact that it is impossible to foresee black-swan events beyond our control: a natural disaster, a terrorist strike, a pandemic, a foreign attack.

We witnessed just last weekend how swiftly the floodwaters of change can overtake us. A few days ago, America was the world’s artificial intelligence leader, and Nvidia was the world’s most valuable company (market capitalization: $1.9 trillion). Over the weekend, China’s DeepSeek app went meteorically viral, showcasing China’s ability to build solid AI tools at a fraction of the energy consumption and about 1,000th of the cost as American firms using Nvidia processors. On that news, Nvidia instantly lost $700 billion. America suddenly finds itself scrambling to retain or even reclaim its pole position.

Those sweeping effects were caused by a mere business move from a foreign company—not a hypersonic nuclear-armed missile striking an American metropolis. Far more catastrophic events are bound to happen during the next four years. The president says everything is fixable—but he cannot even predict what he will have to deal with, let alone fix it all. His confidence rests on an unstable foundation.

The fact, illustrated by this Trumpet issue of contrasts, is that America faces two pathways into the future: potential for sensational success and danger of catastrophic failure. And the determining factor in which of the two becomes reality is not Donald Trump.

The determining factor is whether God is blessing this nation or cursing us.

The Bible repeatedly emphasizes that God blesses the nation that obeys Him and curses the nation that defies Him. Proverbs 14:34 records, “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.” Sin weakens individuals and families, which vitiates the country and invites God’s punishment. America is guilty of terrible sins: unbridled abortion, sexual deviancy, genital mutilation, transgenderism and countless more. Some of these, President Trump is trying to reduce, which is laudable. It is a return to common sense more than a turn toward righteousness, but still a move in the right direction.

America has suffered curses for its sins for decades, and with increasing intensity. Now, as Mr. Flurry writes in his new article “Why God Is Saving America Through Trump,” God has offered a temporary reprieve in spite of our sins.

In this moment, far more people should be talking about God and asking for His pardon, mercy and favor. But almost nobody is talking about repenting of the sins that got us into the messes we are in. God is angry about those sins that some of the president’s actions aim to curb. Ignoring Him, and failing to ask for forgiveness, is a mistake.

The most important presidential proclamation Trump could make right now could rectify this omission. Every day he overlooks it, this nation proceeds further down the perilous path in which we take credit for everything and repent of nothing.

This president must use his courage, strength, capability, persuasiveness, leadership and everything he can possibly marshal to proclaim words that Americans should know and must heed!

Whereas the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the supreme authority and just government of Almighty God in all the affairs of men and of nations, has by a resolution requested the president to designate and set apart a day for national prayer and humiliation; and,

Whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God … and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord;

And, insomuch as we know that by His divine law nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

This is part of Abraham Lincoln’s March 30, 1863, “Proclamation 97—Appointing a Day of National Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer.” He proclaimed that one month later, “I do hereby request all the people to abstain on that day from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite at their several places of public worship and their respective homes in keeping the day holy to the Lord and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.” All this in the hope “that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high and answered with blessings no less than the pardon of our national sins and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace.”

Nothing could affect the nation more powerfully than such a message as is contained in that and other similar presidential proclamations. And nothing can save this nation except for Americans responding to a message of humiliation, fasting and prayer—repentance toward God and obedience to His law.

We desperately need God to remove the curses and replace them with blessings. For all the actions our president is taking to have truly positive outcomes, and to not be undermined by commensurate curses, God must be behind them.

At this crucial moment, with two futures before us, we Americans must humble ourselves, repent before God, and beseech His favor. That is the most important proclamation our president could possibly make.