US president Donald Trump has begun his promised flurry of executive action on his first day back in the White House.
With his opening rounds of memoranda and executive orders, Mr Trump repealed dozens of former president Joe Biden’s actions, began his immigration crackdown, withdrew the US from the Paris climate accords and sought to keep TikTok open in the US, among other actions.
He also pardoned hundreds of people for their roles in the January 6th, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
Here is a look at some of Mr Trump’s initial actions and upcoming plans:
– Pardons in the January 6th, US Capitol attack
As he promised repeatedly during the 2024 campaign, the president issued pardons for around 1,500 people convicted or criminally charged in the January 6th, attack on the US Capitol as Congress convened to certify Mr Biden’s 2020 victory over Mr Trump.
Separately, Mr Trump ordered an end to federal cases against “political opponents” of the Biden administration – meaning Trump supporters. He said he would end “weaponisation” of federal law enforcement but his actions seemed targeted only to help his backers.
– The economy and TikTok
In a made-for-TV display at the Capital One Arena on Monday evening, Mr Trump signed a largely symbolic memorandum that he described as directing every federal agency to combat consumer inflation. By repealing Mr Biden’s actions and adding his own orders, Mr Trump is easing regulatory burdens on oil and natural gas production, something he promises will bring down costs of all consumer goods. Mr Trump is specifically targeting Alaska for expanded fossil fuel production.
On trade, the president said he expects to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canada and Mexico starting on February 1st, but declined to flesh out his plans for taxing Chinese imports.
Mr Trump also signed an order intended to pause Congress’s TikTok ban for 75 days, a period in which the president says he will seek a US buyer in a deal that can protect national security interests while leaving the popular social media platform open to Americans.
– America First
As he did during his first administration, Mr Trump is pulling the US out of the World Health Organisation. He also ordered a comprehensive review of US foreign aid spending. Both moves fit into his more isolationist “America First” approach to international affairs.
In more symbolic moves, Mr Trump planned to sign an order renaming the Gulf of Mexico, making it the Gulf of America. The highest mountain in North America, now known as Denali, will revert back to Mount McKinley, its name until former president Barack Obama changed it. And Mr Trump signed an order that flags must be at full height at every future inauguration day. The order came because former president Jimmy Carter’s death had prompted flags to be at half-staff. Mr Trump demanded they be moved up on Monday. Another of Mr Trump’s orders calls for promoting “Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture”.
– Immigration and national security
Mr Trump reversed several immigration orders from Mr Biden’s presidency, including one that narrowed deportation priorities to people who commit serious crimes, are deemed national security threats or were stopped at the border. It returns the government to Mr Trump’s first-term policy that everyone in the country illegally is a priority for deportation.
The president declared a national emergency at the US-Mexico border, and he plans to send US troops to help support immigration agents and restrict refugees and asylum.
Mr Trump is trying to end birthright citizenship. It is unclear, though, whether his order will survive inevitable legal challenges, since birthright citizenship is enshrined in the US constitution.
He temporarily suspended the US Refugee Admission Programme, pending a review to assess the programme’s “public safety and national security” implications. He has also pledged to restart a policy that forced asylum seekers to wait over the border in Mexico, but officials did not say whether Mexico would accept migrants again. And Mr Trump is ending the CBP One app, a Biden-era border app that gave legal entry to nearly a million migrants.
Meanwhile, on national security, the president revoked any active security clearances from a long list of his perceived enemies, including former director of national intelligence James Clapper, Leon Panetta, a former director of the CIA and defence secretary, and his own former national security adviser, John Bolton.
– Climate and energy
As expected, Mr Trump signed documents he said will formally withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreements. He made the same move during his first term but Mr Biden reversed it.
Additionally, Mr Trump declared an energy emergency as he promised to “drill, baby, drill,” and said he will eliminate what he calls Mr Biden’s electric vehicle mandate.
– Overhauling federal bureaucracy
Mr Trump has halted federal government hiring, except for the military and other parts of government that went unnamed. He added a freeze on new federal regulations while he builds out his second administration.
He formally empowered the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which is being led by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man. Ostensibly an effort to streamline government, Doge is not an official agency. But Mr Trump appears poised to give Mr Musk wide latitude to recommend cuts in government programmes and spending.
World Trump issues pardons for January 6th Capitol riot… Read More
– Diversity, equity and inclusion and transgender rights
Mr Trump is rolling back protections for transgender people and terminating diversity, equity and inclusion programmes within the federal government. Both are major shifts for the federal policy and are in line with Mr Trump’s campaign trail promises. One order declares that the federal government would recognise only two immutable sexes: male and female. And they are to be defined based on whether people are born with eggs or sperm, rather than on their chromosomes, according to details of the upcoming order. Under the order, federal prisons and shelters for migrants and rape victims would be segregated by sex as defined by the order. And federal taxpayer money could not be used to fund “transition services.”
A separate order halts DEI programmes, directing the White House to identify and end them within the government.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
