From Valletta Cafés to EU Boardrooms: How Trump’s ‘Department of War’ Rebrand Echoes Across Malta

Trump’s ‘Department of War’ Rebrand Sends Ripples Through Valletta’s Café Bars

By Luke Vella, Hot Malta Correspondent

Valletta – At 10 a.m. on a humid Thursday, the chatter inside Caffè Cordina was not about the latest Pastizzi Festival, but about Donald Trump. The former U.S. president had just hailed the proposed re-naming of the Pentagon’s bureaucracy from “Department of Defense” back to its 1947-era title, “Department of War.” For Maltese ears, the phrase carries the clang of British air-raid sirens and the ghost of a two-year siege that once starved these islands into resilience.

“War is a word we keep in museums, not in breakfast conversation,” remarked Etienne Bezzina, a history lecturer at the University of Malta nursing his espresso. Around him, tourists snapped photos of the baroque ceilings while locals scrolled through Reuters alerts on their phones. The news had broken overnight, and by sunrise, Maltese radio stations were replaying Trump’s sound-bite: “It sends a message of victory, not apology.”

Malta’s own Department of Information issued a terse one-line statement—“Malta remains committed to dialogue and multilateralism”—but on the ground the re-brand stirred deeper chords. Grandparents who survived the 1940-42 blitz recalled how “Department of War” was stamped on ration cards and blackout orders. To them, the phrase is not rhetorical flourish; it is childhood hunger, shelters dug beneath Upper Barrakka Gardens, and the day HMS Illustrious limped into Grand Harbour on fire.

For younger Maltese, the debate is filtered through TikTok and NATO memes. “It feels like we’re watching another country’s identity crisis in real time,” said 23-year-old game-design student Maria Micallef, waiting for a bus outside City Gate. She points out that Malta’s Constitution still enshrines neutrality, a hard-won clause cemented after Independence in 1964. “We’ve built our brand on peace—Blue Lagoon, UNESCO temples, safe Mediterranean hub. The last thing we need is a linguistic arms race.”

Business leaders on the island are already calculating consequences. Mario Grech, CEO of a fintech firm in SmartCity, notes that three U.S. defense contractors rent Maltese-flagged vessels for Mediterranean logistics. “If Washington doubles down on a war footing, EU funding for cyber-defence could trickle down to start-ups like ours,” he says, “but it also risks spooking investors who come here precisely because we’re not on any frontline.”

Across the water in Sliema, the American Chamber of Commerce hosted an emergency Zoom with its Washington lobby. On the call, Maltese entrepreneurs asked whether EU neutrality rules might clash with future U.S. procurement contracts. The answer was diplomatic but vague: “Stay agile.”

Cultural commentators, meanwhile, see the re-brand as a cautionary tale about language itself. Dr. Ruth Briffa, director of the National Archives, argues that words shape collective memory. “When we renamed our own War Headquarters tunnels to ‘Lascaris War Rooms Experience,’ we did it with context boards, audio guides, survivor testimonies. We didn’t just revive a word; we curated its meaning.” She fears that uncritical resurrection of “Department of War” could flatten nuance into slogans.

Yet slogans travel fast. By evening, souvenir stalls in Republic Street were already hawking ironic fridge magnets: a knight in shining armor holding a shield emblazoned “Department of War – Malta 1565.” The reference to the Great Siege is tongue-in-cheek, but the vendor, 19-year-old Karl Camilleri, says sales are brisk. “Tourists love the drama,” he shrugs.

Back at Caffè Cordina, Etienne Bezzina sums up the mood. “Malta has spent centuries turning battlefields into heritage sites. We know that what you call something today decides how your grandchildren will remember it.” As church bells chime noon over the Grand Harbour, the conversation drifts to tonight’s Eurovision semi-final. For a small island that has seen Carthaginians, Romans, Knights, and bombs come and go, the latest American word-war feels both distant and oddly intimate—another chapter in the long Mediterranean story of how language itself can wound or heal.