Donald Trump launched his second term as US president with a barrage of executive orders reaching into broad swathes of American life, from pardoning hundreds of supporters who attacked Congress on January 6, including rightwing extremists convicted of seditious conspiracy, to rolling back LGBTQ+ rights and environmental rules while declaring an immigration emergency on the southern border.
Trump and his allies had long promised a “shock and awe” approach. They did not hold back.
The first round of orders were signed on stage at the Capital One Arena in downtown Washington, where the inaugural parade was moved to avoid freezing temperatures outside. Many more orders were signed in the Oval Office.
Among measures signed on stage to cheers from a raucous crowd was an order for the US to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, a step Trump took in his first term before Joe Biden recommitted the US to that attempt to tackle the climate crisis.
Gleefully, Trump said about his signing ceremony: “Could you imagine Biden doing this? I don’t think so.”
Earlier, Biden left Washington after hosting Trump at the White House. At the arena, Trump performed a mocking impression of Biden, centered on his age. Biden is 82. Trump is 78.
From the White House, Trump gave what he called “full, complete and unconditional” pardons to around 1,500 people convicted of crimes over the deadly January 6 attack on Congress he incited by telling supporters to “fight like hell” in support of his lie about electoral fraud in his 2020 defeat by Biden.
Trump said he signed sentence commutations for six unnamed offenders. Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys street gang, convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 22 years in jail, was among those set for release.
Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic former House speaker who was in that role on January 6, lamented “an outrageous insult to our justice system and the heroes who suffered physical scars and emotional trauma as they protected the Capitol, the Congress and the constitution”.
At the Capitol, in remarks after his inaugural address; at the arena; and in back-and-forth with reporters in the Oval Office, Trump delivered rambling grievances and inaccurate claims including repetitions of his lies about 2020. Even his formal inaugural address included attacks on political opponents.
At the White House, Trump complained about Biden’s decision to issue pre-emptive pardons to members of the House January 6 committee, high-profile public officials who criticized Trump, and members of Biden’s own family, all believed at risk of political prosecution.
Trump said he was “surprised” Biden took such actions, “because that makes them look very guilty”. He did not issue such pardons when he left power after January 6, he said, because it would have made him look guilty and ended his political career.
He signed a slew of other high-profile orders.
Among them was an order for the US to withdraw from the World Health Organization. On immigration, Trump declared a national emergency at the US-Mexico border; designated criminal cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations”; and redefined birthright citizenship, a move against children of undocumented migrants born on US soil that contravenes the 14th amendment to the US constitution, which guarantees citizenship to anyone born on American soil.
Other measures included making federal workers easier to fire; a recision of 78 Biden-era measures; a federal regulatory freeze; a freeze on all federal hiring except in the military and some other categories; and a requirement that federal workers return to full-time in-person work. Trump directed every department of government “to address the cost of living crisis”, and issued directives “preventing government censorship” and ordering the end of the “weaponization of the government against the adversaries of the previous administration”.
Trump rescinded Biden’s removal of Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, announced just last week, and removed Biden-era sanctions on Israeli settlers and entities in the West Bank. He told reporters he would impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico from 1 February.
Reaching into the top drawer of the Resolute Desk, Trump removed an envelope apparently containing a letter from Biden, traditional when presidents leave power, Biden having said that four years ago Trump left him a “shockingly gracious” note.
Back in the flow of invective, untruths and orders, Trump signed an measure “unleashing Alaska’s energy potential for the entire nation”, related to his promise to focus on fossil fuels and “drill, baby, drill.” He also signed a declaration of a “national energy emergency”.
He reversed a Biden order that sought to reduce the use of private prisons. He signed an order “protecting women against radical gender ideologies”.
He signed an order delaying the federal ban on TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media app, as mandated by a law passed last year. Trump told reporters his order gave him the right to close or sell an app his campaign used effectively, amid the push to ban the app on national security grounds, a push Trump once supported. The chief executive of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, attended Trump’s inaugural address.
That set-piece was also moved indoors. Trump spoke in the Capitol rotunda, a hallowed space through which his supporters once rampaged. Back at the scene of so many crimes, Trump completed an astonishing political escape.
His national emergency at the southern border, he said, would halt “all illegal entry… [and] begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.”
Crossings at the southern border are currently low, as a result of policies under Biden. The number of undocumented migrants on US soil convicted of crimes does not run anywhere close to “millions and millions”. Undocumented migrants offend at a lower rate than US citizens.
Regardless, Trump promised to “send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country”, adding: “By invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 I will direct our government to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to US soil, including our cities and inner cities.”
Shifting to domestic policy, Trump said he would “end the Green New Deal” – a name for progressive environmental goals, rather than laws passed under Biden – and moved to end government support for electric vehicles. He also took shots at Biden and others for supposedly failing to tackle climate disasters in North Carolina, hit by Hurricane Helene, and in California, where Trump claimed not “even a token of defense” had been mounted against devastating wildfires.
Trump promised an External Revenue Service, to “tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens”; and established the “department of government efficiency”, a cost-cutting effort championed by the tech billionaire Elon Musk, a key ally and donor. The project is already the subject of legal challenges. At the arena, Musk appeared to give two fascist salutes.
Trump ordered the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, as the Gulf of America, and Denali, as Mount McKinley. He vowed to “take back” the Panama Canal and to “launch American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars”.
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