After storming a frigid Washington D.C. during his extended inauguration festivities on January 20, Donald J Trump, America’s 47th and 45th President, launched a very public campaign to institute wide ranging changes to much of America’s current way of life and of doing business. Using his preferred method of bypassing Congress, which his party effectively controls at this point, the comeback President issued nine Executive Orders in a high visibility Inauguration Day signing ceremony at Washington’s Capitol One Arena, a large sports venue where the inaugural parade was moved inside due to freezing temperatures.
More Executive Orders and memoranda were signed later by the incoming President in the Oval Office (118 in total on January 20) and this process has accelerated in the following days, with new pronouncements being issued faster than even tech oligarch and Trump ally Elon Musk’s SpaceX could launch rockets. A large part of Trump’s early work focused on undoing decisions taken by the Biden administration, many of which themselves focused on reversing steps taken during the first Trump presidency, yielding a dizzying yet distinctly American version of political ping pong.
And of course, not to be forgotten is the strong element of showmanship in this public process, a well-honed Donald Trump specialty, which this time included a heady dose of nostalgic American “manifest destiny,” covering everything from a U.S. manned landing on Mars to re-taking the Panama Canal. To the relief of many in Copenhagen and elsewhere, he did not reiterate his threat to take over Greenland during his inauguration speeches.
Getting down to the particulars, it makes sense to review the incoming Trump administration’s actions taken during the President’s first work week (one hundred hours or so) in office, broken down here into thematic categories:
Domestic security and immigration
It came as no surprise that the top Trump campaign issue, immigration, was first among the subjects Trump tackled. And tackle them he did on his first day in office with as much public focus as was possible. After the White House issued the names of numerous sub-cabinet level appointments and federal agency heads, the President moved rapidly to declare a state of emergency at the U.S. southern border. This step authorized, as had long been expected, the direct deployment of U.S. military and National Guard units to the border as needed as well as releasing some resources for immediate physical construction of the border wall, although unquestionably not enough for the entire project.
In conjunction with the emergency declaration, the President suspended refugee admissions into the U.S. effective on midnight January 27, with a tightly defined window for a few special exceptions, and set up continuing 90-day review cycles for this suspension, under the core principle that resumption of refugee admissions is declared to be in the interests of the United States, rejecting all other considerations.
The President also signed a controversial Executive Order which redefined the concept of “birthright citizenship” as laid out in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Although immediately challenged and for now blocked in Federal Court, the measure seeks to deny citizenship to those born in the U.S. when the mother is either illegally or temporarily (but legally) in the United States. The purpose of the Order was to stop the large number of people who attempt to receive immigration benefits from a foreign mother’s presence in the U.S. at the time of a child’s birth. Trump administration officials have indicated they believe a Supreme Court challenge will ultimately be decided in their favor, and welcome it.
Tom Homan, a veteran of immigration law enforcement, returned to Washington from retirement to serve in one of the Trump administration’s newest roles: a so-called “border czar.” Based in the White House, he is now overseeing the launch of Trump’s mass deportations of illegal immigrants, initially those with criminal records or otherwise involved in illegal narcotics trading. Military aircraft are now being utilized for the initial deportation flights, as opposed to the much cheaper charters the federal government has normally used.
On January 26, Colombia turned back two U.S. deportation flights preparing to land, creating the first serious bilateral crisis over Trump’s deportation policy – Trump responded by immediately ordering new 25 percent “emergency tariffs” on Colombian products arriving in the United States and a travel ban including some visa restrictions. Colombia responded in kind regarding the tariffs, but then allowed the situation to move towards resolution by agreeing to accept U.S. repatriation flights, removing Washington’s complaint.
Just as he promised, President Trump is sending a strong message to the world: those who enter the United States illegally will face serious consequences. pic.twitter.com/yqgtF1RX6K
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 24, 2025
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, who was confirmed on January 25 to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), pledged during her hearings to restore the “Remain in Mexico” policy, also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, which requires that some categories of migrants must wait in Mexico for their legal hearings in the United States.
Trade, investment and energy pronouncements
Concrete decisions on trade and investment issues were relatively few in the first days of the Trump “America First” administration, with substantially more focus on energy issues. In general, however, beyond the Trump promises of tariffs for all which is predicted by most economists to be inflationary in the long run, the White House pronouncements on inflation reduction were centered on de-regulation in the hope that rapid removal of many Biden- and Obama-era regulations would magically reduce inflation. Time will tell if this yields more than minimal results.
It should not be forgotten however that Americans voted for a President who promised to lower prices for the average citizen, not to simply contain inflationary pressures at current price levels – Biden and the Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) accomplished that. During the campaign voters consistently demanded that prices return to the pre-Covid levels seen under Trump’s first term, during which the economy was benefiting from a slow but steady pre-Trump growth cycle, as if any President could actually order up such changes. Expect voter disappointment on this front to surface in the 2026 mid-term elections.
With the U.S. dollar riding high since the elections, thanks to the so-called “Trump-bump,” the President laid out a series of trade policy reviews in his “America First Trade Policy” Executive Order. These reviews are set to trigger most of the administration’s fresh tariff decisions in the next 90-120 days, but the President later promised to announce tariffs for Canada and Mexico at the start of February. Curiously, the dollar has lost ground slightly since it became apparent the new tariffs were delayed somewhat.
President Trump authorized the development of a Federal regulatory framework governing digital assets, including stablecoins, and evaluating the creation of a strategic national digital assets stockpile.
President Trump used his remarks (via teleconference) to the World Economic Forum (Davos) on January 23 to reiterate with startling directness his intention to move aggressively on his new tariffs, unsettling many members of the assembled global economic brain trust at Davos, including a fair contingent of his favored tech oligarchs.
There were no indications that the President is moderating his campaign rhetoric in any way, at least at this point. His main message was simple, companies must manufacture in the U.S. or face his new tariff barriers. This included Canada as he even suggested that joining the U.S. was a simple way to avoid trade disputes and new tariffs. He had little to add about any plans to manage the surging U.S. national debt, other than to use tariffs as a magical new revenue source and he continued to tout future tax cuts. The President did, however, launch a barb at some of the bankers assembled at Davos, claiming that some U.S. banks had “debanked” or opted to drop their financial relationships with companies that supported Trump. Rebuttals by the bankers were fast and furious, trending for a day on X.
The President also highlighted his plans to remove almost all existing (Biden-era) environmental restrictions on U.S. domestic energy production and to de-emphasize green energy, summed up with the now famous Trump slogan, “Drill baby, drill.” He has started issuing Executive Orders to that effect. In addition to opening up Alaska for more oil exploration, Trump also effectively terminated the Biden administration’s EV mandate.
Trump also told the business elite gathered at Davos that he would be working hard to reduce oil prices, not only by ramping up U.S. production but also diplomatically. He called lower oil prices the key to ending the Ukraine war, and he argued this would convince Russian President Vladimir Putin that his oil revenues would then be so constrained as to make the war unaffordable for Moscow, forcing Russia to negotiate a peace deal sooner.
Foreign policy: As in trade, its “America First”
In terms of foreign policy, any change of administration in Washington is always a frenetic time, simply because of the massive level of U.S. global engagement and the requirement to establish working relationships with foreign leaders relatively quickly. President Trump’s first foreign telephone call as President went to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. Trump has been in touch with so many foreign leaders since his November election victory — many of whom he has worked with in his first term — that an official “first” call is relatively insignificant and in this case more a matter of record.
Trump’s new Secretary of State, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, was the first new member of the Trump cabinet to be confirmed by the Senate, and that vote was unanimous. He was quickly sworn in on September 21 as the 71st Secretary of State and the first one of Latino descent (his parents immigrated from Cuba in the 1950s). President Trump issued an Executive Order tasking Secretary Rubio with fleshing out an “America First” foreign policy.
On arrival, Secretary Rubio delivered highly positive remarks to his new Department’s assembled staff, noting his long experience working with State when he was a Senator, and said he wanted the already top notch State Department “to be at the center of how America engages the world,” a message starkly different from that delivered by Trump’s almost forgotten first Secretary of State appointee Rex Tillerson in 2017 who as a former top corporate executive focused on the need to massively restructure the Department (he was ousted by Trump in 2018 without making any visible progress there, replaced by Mike Pompeo).
In addition, it should not be forgotten that former Secretary of State Antony Blinken took one of the strongest actions in history to undermine the U.S. diplomatic corps by removing the former hard requirement to pass an almost impossible written examination to join the Foreign Service before going on for oral and medical tests, enabling the Blinken State Department to increase hiring of new diplomatic personnel under various federal Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) criteria. The fabled written test still exists, but it is not a goalpost; currently the applicants’ scores are simply considered in the total hiring process. Hopefully Secretary Rubio will take steps to address this quality control imbalance quickly. And who could forget the non-stop flow of commemorative press releases/messages from the Blinken State Department regarding every holiday/anniversary about (sometimes marginal) American social issues? Again, a bit of quality control regarding the U.S. global image is needed; not every issue merits a State Department press release.
Rubio quickly engaged in the day-to-day business of the Department and met with the Australian, Indian and Japanese foreign ministers on day one in the office, sending Beijing a message about the major U.S. focus on countering threats in the Indo-Pacific. He has also been working his way through a very long list of telephone calls to diplomatic counterparts globally. Rubio will also have his hands full with personnel concerns at the Department since a substantial number of senior career officials were suddenly “asked to resign” in the week before the Trump inauguration, something that is normally done over a period of several months under a new President, not all at once.
The main foreign policy decisions and proclamations coming out of the Trump White House this week follow:
–Notification to the UN of the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
–Notification to the UN that the United States is withdrawing from the WHO.
–The America First Trade Policy (mentioned earlier).
–The America First Foreign Policy (see above), but with no reference to the “manifest destiny” themes heard in Trump’s inauguration speech.
–A review of U.S. foreign assistance programs was ordered to ensure they fully support U.S. interests. The State Department issued a “stop-work order” after Rubio’s arrival that froze most assistance programs (pending review) and possibly some military aid, generating loud protests from the large Washington foreign assistance NGO community. Any U.S. assistance that supports population control through sterilization or abortion was also specifically curtailed.
–Designating cartels and other organizations as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists.
–Freezing any commitments made by the prior administration on behalf of the United States to the OECD with respect to the Global Tax Deal, absent an act by the Congress adopting the relevant provisions of the Global Tax Deal.
–Initiating the process by which Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, shall be considered for designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, reversing the Biden administration’s own reversal in 2021 of the Houthis’ previous designation by the Trump administration.
Reconfiguring the Federal government and other issues
It is impossible to categorize so many of the remaining actions taken in Trump’s first one hundred hours. But here we list some of the more significant presidential proclamations, orders and pronouncements with apologies if some favorite topics did not make the list:
Reconfiguring the Federal government was a top Trump priority and generated many pronouncements. By Executive Order, Trump renamed the U.S. Digital Service into a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that will be managed by a number of tech oligarchs including Elon Musk. At this point, the White House-based institution has an 18-month lifespan but that is extendable.
Other management steps Trump has taken include a limited federal hiring freeze, several measures to reform the federal hiring process, and a head on assault designed to eliminate all federal Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) hiring initiatives and to guarantee that federal hiring decisions are merit-based. Moving with deliberate force to challenge the so-called “Woke Agenda,” Trump also ordered the federal government to recognize only two genders, and to prevent U.S. embassies from flying anything other than the American flag (no activist/commemorative flags). The Department of State has already stopped issuing new passports with the X (neutral) gender designation, which began in 2022.
On geographic names, Trump issued orders for the Department of the Interior to reinstate the name of Mount McKinley, the highest peak in North America, to the Alaska mountain that had been designated as Denali, an indigenous and widely used name, under President Obama. Trump also signed an Executive Order renaming the U.S. section of the Gulf of Mexico, bordering the states of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, to the Gulf of America.
President Trump issued an Executive Order freezing any already legislated actions against TikTok for 75 days while he tries to resolve the issue.
Keeping an oft-repeated campaign promise, Trump signed an Executive Order granting a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, the so-called “J6 hostages.”
President Trump signed an Executive Order that will lead to the federal government’s full release of its records concerning the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Previous U.S. Presidents, including Trump himself, have all signed off on withholding/redacting some parts of the federal government’s trove of information that will now be released after a short review period.
