DONALD Trump has officially been sworn in for the second time as president of the United States of America.
The 47th president took his oath of allegiance inside the Capitol building in Washington DC, with the ceremony being moved indoors due to bad weather.
Trump began his speech by saying: "The golden age of America begins right now."
He thanked his predecessors Joe Bide, Barack Obama, George Bush and Bill Clinton for attending the ceremony, but immediately struck a partisan tone by saying he would end the "weaponisation" of the justice system, a reference to the numerous criminal cases he has avoided by being re-elected.
In a 40-minute speech, the US president said he would take back the Panama Canal, put humans on Mars, mount troops along the Mexican border and give free reign to fossil fuel extraction.
Trump announced that he would declare a "national emergency" at the country's southern border with Mexico where he would deploy the US army, promising that illegal migration would be halted "immediately".
He said: "All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. We will reinstate my 'remain in Mexico' policy."
Federal and state governments will be ordered to use their "immense power" under the the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to "eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to US soil", Trump said.
Companies will be given permission to "drill, baby, drill" as the president pledged to use America's vast resources of fossil fuels in a bid to bring down energy prices.
He said: "We have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have, the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth. And we are going to use it."
Trump said that government would use America's "liquid gold" to make the country a "rich nation again".
The Democrats' "green new deal" would be axed, the president said, as would their electric vehicle mandate, which put duties on car manufacturers to reduce polluting emissions.
Tariffs will also be imposed on foreign countries, possibly including the UK, enforced by the "external revenue service", Trump said.
He added: "Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.
"For this purpose, we are establishing the external revenue service to collect all tariffs, duties and revenues. It will be massive amounts of money pouring into our treasury coming from foreign sources."
Elsewhere, the US president said that he would bring to an end efforts "to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life" adding: "As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female."
Members of the military who were expelled for refusing to get vaccinated against Covid will be reinstated and given "full back pay".
America would retake the Panama Canal, which Trump insists is operated by China.
He said: "American ships are being severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape or form, and that includes the United States Navy, and above all, China is operating the Panama Canal, and we didn’t give it to China. We gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back."
Also in attendance were Twitter/X and Tesla owner Elon Musk, who will be tasked by the Trump administration to but government spending, his opponent in last year's election Kamala Harris, his children and wife, Melania.
In a reference to Musk's interplanetary ambitions, Trump added: "We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars."
Trump also said he wanted his legacy for his second term – only the second in American history to be served non-consecutively – to be remembered as a "peacemaker".
He said: "We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end, and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.
"My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. That’s what I want to be, a peacemaker and a unifier."
Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who called Trump a "a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath" in 2018, praised Trump on his "historic return" to the White House.
He tweeted: “I look forward to further strengthening the special relationship over the years to come.”
First Minister John Swinney said: "I congratulate Donald Trump on his inauguration as the 47th president of the United States. We greatly appreciate the strong and lasting social, cultural and economic ties Scotland has with the United States.
"The Scottish Government will work to ensure these ties continue to flourish, according to the values shared by both of our countries."
