U.S. President Donald Trump will address Congress Tuesday night, capping some of the most consequential first weeks of any U.S. presidency.

Usually known as the State of the Union in non-inauguration years, the address will provide Trump with a public stage to lay out his vision for the U.S. economy and immigration policy, and allow him to defend recent controversial decisions to cut the federal workforce and confront Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

But the most pressing challenge for Trump will be to unite Republican majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives to pass a budget funding the government past a March 14 deadline. Republicans differ on whether to cut popular social safety net programs such Medicaid, which provides health insurance to those with low incomes, to pay down the U.S. debt and pay for an extension of the 2017 tax cuts passed during Trump’s first term.

Trump has called for “one big, beautiful bill” to fund his domestic policy agenda.

“We have a lot of hard work ahead of us, but we are going to deliver the America First agenda,” Johnson told reporters last week. “We’re going to deliver all of it, not just parts of it.”

Congressional Democrats have criticized the budget for benefiting the wealthy.

“Make no mistake, it will rob seniors, kids and the disabled to pay for the rich to get richer,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said last week.

Trump will also likely speak about the rationale behind the U.S. imposing tariffs on other countries. He confirmed that 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico would go into effect on Tuesday.

“They’re going to have to have a tariff,” Trump told reporters Monday. “So, what they have to do is build their car plants, frankly, and other things in the United States, in which case they have no tariffs.”

But one analyst told VOA that was unlikely.

“Probably what’s going to happen is most manufacturers are going to just move to other countries where the tariffs are not imposed, or they will just move,” said Shannon Bow O’Brien, associate professor of instruction at the University of Texas at Austin.

“They will ship it [business] to other places, and then ship it to those here to try to avoid tariffs. Or we’re going to see other countries making it even cheaper, so then when the tariffs are imposed, the price is going to stay. I don’t believe it’s going to achieve what he wants, which is to have manufacturing come back to the United States or concede to certain issues,” O’Brien said.

Trump’s first weeks in office were also marked by executive orders addressing one of the key issues of his campaign: immigration reform. He is expected to highlight changes to the security of the U.S. southern border with Mexico in his speech Tuesday.

He could also address the establishment of the Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE, led by billionaire Elon Musk.

While domestic issues are traditionally the focus of presidential addresses to Congress, several pressing foreign policy challenges are likely to come up in Trump’s speech.

Trump told reporters after his Oval Office confrontation last Friday with Zelenskyy that he does not feel Ukraine has sufficiently acknowledged the United States’ nearly $200 billion contribution to the conflict that began when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

Trump is also expected to address the ceasefire in Gaza and his plans for real estate development in the conflict-ridden region.

Senator and former CIA analyst Elissa Slotkin will deliver the Democratic response to Trump’s address. Slotkin won the swing state of Michigan by focusing on the economy in her outreach to voters.

VOA’s Kim Lewis contributed to this story.