Donald Trump has signed a raft of executive orders after being sworn in as US president for the second time, following through on several promises he made during his election campaign.
He signed orders making the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) official, declared a national emergency at the US-Mexico border, and again withdrew the US from the Paris Climate Agreement.
Within hours of taking office, he had revoked 78 of former president Joe Biden’s executive actions, exited the US from the World Health Organisation (WHO), frozen government hiring and new federal regulations, and
Trump also pardoned roughly 1,500 people involved in the and commuted sentences of 14 members of the far-right groups Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.
Among the Biden-era programs that were chucked out was a policy allowing certain migrants who had fled to the US to remain in the country temporarily on humanitarian grounds, as well as measures to support racial equity and combat gender-based discrimination.
Other new directives included a policy Trump said was aimed at “restoring free speech and ending federal censorship” and an action described as “protecting women from radical gender ideologies”.
Trump spoke to journalists while signing the slew of orders, and was questioned over how he planned to make good on an earlier commitment to immediately end the war in Ukraine. He said he would “have to speak” with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the conflict.
“Most people thought that war would have been over in about one week and now you’re into three years, so he can’t be thrilled,” Trump said.
“It’s not making him look very good.”
Throughout his action-packed first day, he touched on several foreign policy issues, expressing doubt over the recently brokered Gaza ceasefire deal and promising to make “defeating America’s enemies” the main focus of the nation’s powerful military.
Although he repeated his long-held assertion that other countries are “taking advantage” of the US and floated the idea of implementing universal tariffs on imported goods, Trump stopped short of taking action.
“We’re not ready for that yet,” he told reporters.
Trump sworn in for the second time
Trump, 78, took the oath of office to “preserve, protect and defend” the US constitution at 4.01am AEDT, inside the US Capitol in Washington DC. His vice president, JD Vance, was sworn in just before him.
The inauguration completes a triumphant comeback for a political disruptor who survived two impeachment trials, a felony conviction, and an indictment for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss.
Trump is also the first felon to occupy the White House after a New York jury paid to a porn star.
“The golden age of America begins right now. From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world,” Trump said at his inauguration.
Trump pledged to rescue America from what he described as years of betrayal and decline, prioritising a crackdown on illegal immigration and portraying himself as a national saviour chosen by God.
As well as declaring an emergency on the border with Mexico, Trump will send armed troops there and resume a policy forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their US court dates, officials told reporters.
He will also seek to end so-called birthright citizenship for US-born children whose parents lack legal status, a move some legal scholars have said would be unconstitutional.
While Donald Trump refused to attend Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration, falsely claiming electoral fraud by the Democrat, Biden has been eager to restore a sense of tradition. Source: AP / Kenny Holston
‘Saved by God’
Trump’s speech echoed many of the themes he sounded of crime and job loss he said had ravaged the country.
“The journey to reclaim our republic has not been an easy one, that I can tell you,” Trump said before referring to the assassin’s bullet that grazed his ear in July.
“I was saved by God to make America great again.
“Many people thought it was impossible for me to stage such a historic political comeback.
“I stand before you now as proof that you should never believe that something is impossible to do in America. The impossible is what we do best.”
While Trump sought to portray himself as a peacemaker and unifier, his speech was often sharply partisan. He repeated false claims from his campaign that other countries were emptying their prisons into America and voiced familiar and unfounded grievances over his criminal prosecutions.
The ceremony was moved inside the Capitol due to the cold, four years after a mob of Trump supporters breached the building, a symbol of American democracy, in an unsuccessful effort to forestall Trump’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden, 82.
Following his address, Trump stopped by the Capitol’s visitor centre and delivered an even longer, informal speech to supporters reminiscent of his freewheeling campaign rallies.
In the later remarks, Trump struck a sharply different tone, voicing suspicion about election processes, calling people charged with taking part in the January 6 attack “hostages” and suggesting the congressional investigation into his actions around that day was illegal.
“I think this was a better speech than the one I made upstairs,” Trump said.
Biden and outgoing vice president Kamala Harris, who lost to Trump in November, were on hand inside the Capitol’s Rotunda, along with former presidents Barack Obama, George W Bush and Bill Clinton. Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in 2016, arrived with her husband Bill, but Obama’s wife, Michelle, chose not to attend.
Numerous tech executives — including the three richest men in the world, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and — had prominent seats on stage, next to cabinet nominees and members of Trump’s family.
Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, Alphabet’s CEO Sundar Pichai and businessman Elon Musk attended Donald Trump’s inauguration. Source: AAP / Shawn Thew
Trump, the first US president since the 19th century to win a second term after losing the White House, has said he would pardon “on day one” many of the more than 1,500 people charged in connection with the January 6 2021 attack.
He skipped Biden’s inauguration and has continued to claim falsely that the 2020 election he lost to Biden was rigged.
Biden issues preemptive pardons
whom Trump has targeted for retaliation, including former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci, former Republican US representative Liz Cheney and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley.
Trump will restore the federal death penalty, which Biden had suspended, and require that official US documents such as passports reflect citizens’ gender as assigned at birth, incoming administration officials told reporters.
They said he will also sign an order ending diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the federal government on Tuesday, which is also Martin Luther King Jr Day, a national holiday in memory of America’s most famous civil rights leader.
Some of the executive orders are likely to face legal challenges.
— Additional reporting by Reuters
