Donald Trump calls time on turning the clocks back

Donald Trump wants to nix daylight saving time altogether, with the president-elect saying the practice is inconvenient and "a big waste of money."

Trump said Saturday that a Republican-led Congress will use every effort to scrap daylight saving time, which sees clocks jump forward an hour every March and back an hour every November.

"The Republican Party will use all available efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time (DST), which has a small but powerful lobby, that shouldn't be!"

Trump complained that "Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and a big money and effort drain on our Nation," in a post on his Truth Social account.

Many US states change clocks forward one hour in March and backward an hour in November to make the most of daylight during the warmer summer months.

But the practice has long been the subject of debate, not only in the US but in countries such as Britain.

Daylight saving time was first introduced in Germany as the country tried to save fuel during WW I, which saw widespread shortages and air-raid blackouts across German and British cities.

The US later embraced the practice, but only for seven months in 1918 and 1919 before doing away with it until 1942, when it was brought back as part of the war effort.