DC business owners say they support Trump's ‘return to office' order

Golden Triangle businesses are hoping for a golden opportunity.

“That’s definitely going to help us quite a bit,” 68 Café owner Ryan Nguyen said.

Nguyen believes his business could benefit from an executive order President Donald Trump signed on Inauguration Day mandating that all remote federal employees return to work in person.

“Actually, today we have seen more office people that we’ve never seen before,” Nguyen said. “So, I don’t know if he’s already starting it.”

News4 spoke with the executive director of the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District, Leona Argouridis.

“This is great news for the downtown and the District of Columbia as a whole,” Argouridis said.

Argouridis says the pandemic hit the neighborhood hard, with 120 businesses closing the first year.

She also told News4 the area’s business vacancy rate sits between 20 and 25%, the highest in the city. She says the rate was only 10% prior to the pandemic.

“We have noticed some steady improvement,” Argouridis said. “Are they where we used to be? No. Will this latest announcement by the federal government help? It will absolutely help.”

This executive order and others regarding the federal workforce are drawing backlash from some Democratic lawmakers.

“They could potentially lose their jobs and they could potentially be forced to relocate out of the DMV,” Senator Tim Kaine of Virigina said.

The largest union representing government workers, the American Federation of Government, is also against the order, issuing a statement, saying, in part, “This directive turns back the clock to before 2010 when Congress required federal agencies to expand telework by law. … Providing eligible employees with the opportunity to work hybrid schedules is a key tool for recruiting and retaining workers in both the public and private sectors.”