Trump gives longest US presidential speech to Congress

US President Donald Trump took a victory lap in an address to Congress on Tuesday, drawing catcalls and interruptions from some Democratic lawmakers who held up signs and walked out mid-speech in protest in the longest presidential speech to Congress.

The partisan rancor was reflective of the tumult that has accompanied Trump's first six weeks in office upending US foreign policy, igniting a trade war with close allies and slashing the federal workforce.

The primetime speech, his first to Congress since taking office on January 20, capped a second day of market turmoil after he imposed sweeping new tariffs against Mexico, Canada and China.

At 100 minutes, the speech was the longest presidential address to Congress in modern US history, according to The American Presidency Project.

The speech was reminiscent of Trump's campaign rallies though he largely avoided his habit of straying from prepared remarks to deliver asides. The president assailed his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, attacked immigrant criminals as "savages" and what he called "transgender ideology."

He vowed to balance the federal budget, even as he urged lawmakers to enact a sweeping tax cut agenda that nonpartisan analysts say could add more than $5 trillion (AED 18 trillion) to the federal government's $36 trillion (AED 132 trillion) debt load. Congress will need to act to raise the nation's debt ceiling later this year or risk a devastating default.

World leaders were watching Trump's speech closely, a day after he paused all military aid to Ukraine. The suspension followed an Oval Office blowup in which Trump angrily upbraided Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in front of TV cameras.

Trump said Zelenskyy wrote him a letter on Tuesday saying Ukraine was prepared to sign a rare earth minerals deal that had been left in limbo by their clash.

The pause in aid threatened Kyiv's efforts to defend against Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion three years ago, and further rattled European leaders worried that Trump is moving the US too far toward Moscow.

While Trump has appeared to fault Ukraine for starting the war, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found 70 per cent of Americans - including two-thirds of Republicans - say Russia was more to blame.

Democrats held up signs with messages like "No King" and "This Is NOT Normal," and dozens walked out mid-speech.

Trump spoke in the House of Representatives, where lawmakers huddled in fear for their lives a little over four years ago while a mob of Trump supporters ransacked the Capitol in an unsuccessful effort to overturn Democrat Joe Biden's 2020 victory over the then-incumbent Trump.

The president praised billionaire businessman Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which has downsized more than 100,000 federal workers, cut billions of dollars in foreign aid and shuttered entire agencies.

Trump credited Musk with identifying "hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud," a claim that far exceeds even what the administration has claimed so far. Musk, seated in the gallery, received ovations from Republicans.