Hegseth slams law on women in conflict signed by Trump during first term

Nick Wadhams, Bloomberg News on Apr 29, 2025

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WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday that he was ending Pentagon participation in an initiative on women and conflict that President Donald Trump signed into law during his first term with backing from prominent members of the current administration.

The Women, Peace, and Security Act is “yet another woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative that overburdens our commanders and troops,” Hegseth wrote on his personal social media account. “Politicians fawn over it; troops HATE it.”

The broadside ignored Trump’s role in codifying the initiative in 2017 as well as that the law was cosponsored in Congress by Marco Rubio and Kristi Noem, who are now Trump’s secretary of state and homeland security secretary, and passed unanimously by a Republican-controlled Senate. It also had the backing of Mike Waltz, who was a founding member of the Women, Peace and Security congressional caucus and is now Trump’s national security adviser.

The law also received a recent endorsement from Dan Caine, Trump’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a retired Air Force lieutenant general. In his April confirmation hearing, Caine said he didn’t think it was linked to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives denounced by Trump and called it “a program that really helped us to understand the full spectrum of challenges that are in front of us.”

The Women, Peace, and Security Act grew out of a 2000 United Nations Security Council resolution that urged nations to boost women’s participation in decisions on preventing and resolving armed conflict.

In his social media post, Hegseth said the Pentagon would act on the law only to the minimum required by statute and would seek to end the initiative for good. He called it a United Nations program “pushed by feminists and left-wing activists.”

The Pentagon chief later tried to clarify his statement, writing in a follow-up post that the Biden administration “distorted & weaponized the straight-forward & security-focused WPS initiative.”

“Biden ruined EVERYTHING, including ‘Women, Peace & Security,’” he wrote.

Spokespeople for the Pentagon, the State Department and the National Security Council didn’t respond to requests for comment on the post.

Hegseth’s attack on the law highlights yet another move by the current administration to cancel initiatives that Trump had championed during his first term concerning women’s empowerment and diversity. It’s also the latest move in a continuing push by Hegseth — who has come under criticism for a series of missteps — to lean into Trump priorities, such as shutting down the southern border and dismantling DEI initiatives, that are favorites of Trump’s MAGA base.

Hegseth’s strategy seems to have worked for now. In a recent interview with the Atlantic, Trump said Hegseth was “safe” despite staff turmoil and revelations that he disclosed sensitive and possibly classified information in Signal group chats.

On Tuesday, Trump told ABC News he hoped Hegseth would be “a great Defense secretary” while dismissing a question about if he had 100% confidence in his embattled Pentagon chief.

“Only a liar would say, ‘I have a 100% confidence,’” Trump said.

In a 2019 strategy document, the Trump administration boasted about the US being the first country to enact a law over the issue of women in conflict.

“The United States embraces these concepts and recognizes the powerful role that women can play as peacemakers and political agents in societies that are transitioning out of conflict and toward peace,” according to the 2019 document.

Democrats pounced on Hegseth’s social media post. Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, one of the bill’s sponsors in 2017, said in a statement that Hegseth can’t “unilaterally terminate” the program

“Every combatant commander who comes through my office highlights the strategic advantage WPS gives US forward deployed forces,” Shaheen said. “This is further proof that Secretary Hegseth is hopelessly in over his head.”

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(With assistance from Courtney McBride.)