Donald Trump has made the first step towards running for the White House in 2016.

The real estate mogul and reality TV star has today launched a presidential exploratory committee. The launch of the presidential exploratory commission will allow Trump to raise funds for the opening stages of a campaign.

The billionaire today released a statement announcing that he is “the only one who can make America truly great again.”

“(America) is a country that is in serious trouble,” he said.

“Americans deserve better than what they get from their politicians – who are all talk and no action!,” he added. (Punctuation in original).

Trump highlighted several areas of political intent in his statement, with an emphasis on military and industrial goals.

“We must rebuild our infrastructure, control our borders, support local control of education, greatly strengthen our military, care for our veterans and put Americans back to work!” he said.

The New Hampshire Union Leader reports that Trump will not be renewing his contract with NBC for reality TV series “The Apprentice”.

Trump has assembled a team of political advisors and staff across the US.

As of this morning 192 candidates (excluding Trump) had filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission to register as a candidate for the 2016 presidential election.

This is not the first time Trump has made noises about running for the White House, having talked about a bid in 2012, but it appears to be the most concrete move yet.