Trump administration abruptly pulls list of 443 properties for sale
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The news: The Trump administration has reversed its decision to list for sale 443 federal properties – including some of the US government’s most iconic ones – less than a day after posting them.
On Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT), the General Services Administration (GSA) published the list, which included agency headquarters, historic buildings and taxpayer service hubs across 47 states, Washington DC and Puerto Rico.
The numbers: The list of 443 federal properties initially considered for sale included several high-profile buildings. Among them was the Old Post Office in Washington, previously home to the Trump International Hotel, as well as skyscrapers in Chicago, Atlanta and Cleveland.
The headquarters of more than a dozen federal agencies, including the GSA’s own building, were also listed.
The inventory also included critical government facilities such as a major tax-processing centre, the Food and Drug Administration’s 3.1 million-square-foot research lab in Silver Spring, a specialised satellite facility for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration in Maryland, and a Northern Virginia campus long linked to the Central Intelligence Agency.
Within five hours, more than 100 properties were removed, and by Wednesday morning (Thursday AEDT), the entire list had been taken down and replaced with a message that read “Non-core property list (Coming soon).”
The context: The GSA has not explained the abrupt reversal. The proposed sell-off was part of Trump’s effort to shrink the federal government, led by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has claimed to have saved USD105 billion so far, in part by cancelling leases, though budget experts question the figures.
The administration has faced new legal and financial hurdles, including a court-ordered pause on federal job cuts and a Supreme Court ruling requiring it to pay USD2 billion to contractors.
