(personal underlines)
Nine reasons why Trump means business this time
Since Franklin D. Roosevelt, every new US administration has been judged on its first hundred days, but it is in the first 24 hours, with a flurry of executive orders and memorandums, that a president sets the tone for the coming four years. The first 24 hours hint at nine themes that will define Donald Trump’s second administration.
Trump is determined to settle scores
Theme one: Trump II will see ‘America First’ placed at the heart of White House policy even more so than during Trump I.
Among the memorandums issued from the Oval Office after noon on Monday was one outlining an ‘America First trade policy’, a revival of Trump I positions linking trade and national security, emphasising the interests of American workers and manufacturers, and interrogating Chinese trade practices and infringement of US intellectual property. Similarly, there was a memorandum revoking US participation in the OECD’s global tax deal, which Trump’s people regard as an infringement on US sovereignty and economically harmful to American enterprise.
‘America First’ will not be about trade alone. One executive order undertook to ‘put the interests of the United States and the American people first’ in negotiating international agreements on climate change, which ‘must not unduly or unfairly burden the United States’. This order re-withdraws the US from the Paris climate agreement, Trump having taken America out during his first term and Biden having taken it back in. It also revokes American assent and funding to all accords under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Foreign policy, too, will be anchored in what Trump perceives to be US national priorities. An executive order instructed the Secretary of State to ‘champion core American interests and always put America and American citizens first’ in foreign policy. Another executive order paused all foreign assistance for ninety days, instructed reviews into current spending commitments and stated that only those ‘fully aligned with the foreign policy of the President of the United States’ would be restored.
Theme two: Trump intends to enforce America’s borders and reverse the tide of illegal immigration.
Among the pile of immigration-related missives fired out from behind the Resolute desk was a proclamation recognising mass illegal entry via the US-Mexico border as an ‘invasion’, and another proclamation barring entry into the United States by anyone involved in this incursion. In addition, there was an executive order providing for the building of a wall along the border, prevention of illegal entry into the country, and the detention and deportation of unlawful aliens. A further executive order undertook to ‘faithfully execute the immigration laws against all inadmissible and removable aliens, particularly those aliens who threaten the safety or security of the American people’. This will be done by hiring more enforcement officers, identifying and deporting illegal aliens, denying government benefits to illegals and refusing federal funds for sanctuary cities.
To underscore how seriously Trump takes the issue, he penned an executive order commanding the US Armed Forces to ‘prioritise the protection of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the United States along our national borders’. This reframes illegal immigration as a national defence issue and not only a border control issue. This was girded by an executive order denying citizenship documents or recognition to anyone born in the United States to a mother who was in the country temporarily or unlawfully. This addresses right-wing concerns about ‘anchor babies’, children whose parents entered the US illegally to give birth and gain for their offspring and themselves the benefits of American citizenship.
Theme three: National security, public safety and refugee screening will be leading priorities.
Trump has always been a law-and-order guy and he clearly intends to step this up over the next four years. He drew up a memorandum reorganising the National Security Council and signed an executive order designating Mexican drug cartels and criminal gangs including MS-13 as foreign terrorist organisations, allow for tougher measures to be taken in countering them.
The threat to public safety from dangerous people who enter the country as refugees was addressed by an executive order suspending the US Refugee Admissions Programme, meaning no further refugees will be admitted except on a case-by-case basis if jointly agreed to by the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security. Every 90 days, the suspension will be reconsidered to see if Homeland Security is confident that the programme can be resumed in a manner that prioritises public safety and national security, will admit ‘only those refugees who can fully and appropriately assimilate’, and would preserve resources for US citizens.
In a similar vein, there was an executive order pledging to protect US citizens from ‘aliens who intend to commit terrorist attacks, threaten our national security, espouse hateful ideology, or otherwise exploit the immigration laws for malevolent purposes’. This will mostly take the form of enhancing visa vetting and screening of refugees. Trump is an ardent believer in capital punishment and so it was unsurprising to see an executive order restoring the federal death penalty. Thirteen federal prisoners were given a lethal injection during Trump I but the Biden administration paused further executions. The order instructs the Attorney General during Trump II to pursue capital punishment in more cases and to seek federal jurisdiction in state crimes that involve the murder of a law enforcement officer or in which the offender is an illegal alien.
‘America First’ will not be about trade alone
Theme four: The second Trump administration is committed to undoing Joe Biden’s legacy in the White House.
Biden used executive powers to wipe the slate clean of Trumpism when he took over and now Trump will return the favour. He signed an executive order rescinding dozens of Biden-era executive orders, including those relating to racial equity, gender identity, climate change, immigration, refugee resettlement, pandemic response, and Biden’s sanctions against Israelis living in Judea and Samaria. Among the initiatives to fall foul of Trump’s slashing pen are the White House Gender Policy Council, the Climate Change Support Office, and the President’s Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement.
A major theme of Trump’s election campaign was blaming the cost of living crisis on Biden’s tax and spend policies, which Trump deemed inflationary. As such, he inked a memorandum directing the federal government to provide price relief, including by reducing the cost of housing, increasing supply, scrapping ‘unnecessary’ healthcare expenses, encouraging the unemployed into the workforce and doing away with climate policies that drive up gasoline and grocery costs.
The frequency with which political control of the executive branch changes means there is a see-sawing quality to US policy. Trump lodged an executive order withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organisation. (He originally withdrew in 2020 in response to its handling of the Covid pandemic and the undue influence of China over the organisation, but Biden reversed that move.) More controversially, even among otherwise sympathetic right-wingers, was an executive order pausing enforcement of Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, the legislation which effectively bans TikTok in the United States. Trump’s team have signalled scepticism towards concerns that the video and music app is harmful to the United States to the advantage of Communist China. Many who generally praise Trump’s national security believe he is perilously wrong on this one.
Theme five: Understanding how the issue motivates his base and pries away moderate voters from Democrats, Trump will push back against ‘woke’.
No one is about to mistake Donald Trump for a radical feminist, yet his executive order making it US government policy to ‘recognise two sexes, male and female’ affirms a fundamental principle of gender-critical feminism. The directive requires federal agencies to ‘enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations to protect men and women as biologically distinct sexes’, putting down in black and white that women’s single-sex spaces should be safeguarded. Another executive order revoked diversity, equity and inclusion programmes and racial preferences in the federal government, while an additional executive order promised to protect freedom of expression and enjoined the federal government from participating in any abridgement of speech rights.
A little further down the hierarchy of culture war battlefronts, Trump set out an executive order instructing federal agencies to ‘honour the contributions of visionary and patriotic Americans in our nation’s rich past’ when naming natural landmarks and works of art. The order reverses Barack Obama’s 2015 directive which renamed Mount McKinley, the tallest mountain in the United States, ‘Denali’, the name traditionally assigned to the peak by local indigenous people. But the order will garner most attention for its announcement that the United States will now refer to the Gulf of Mexico as ‘the Gulf of America’. Meanwhile, there was also a memorandum ordering federal officials to ensure that all new public buildings ‘respect regional, traditional, and classical architectural heritage in order to uplift and beautify public spaces and ennoble the United States’. This is one area where classical conservatives and the very online MAGA movement are in agreement.
Theme six: Energy security will be a key area of action for Trump II.
Monday saw an executive order declaring a national energy emergency and directing federal agencies to expedite exploration and production of domestic oil and gas resources. There as also an executive order encouraging ‘energy exploration and production’; safeguarding ‘economic and national security and military preparedness’ by ensuring ‘an abundant supply of reliable energy’; cancelling Biden’s electric vehicle mandate; reviewing any agency action or policy that might impede energy security; speeding up oil and gas permits; and withdrawing funding for the Green New Deal. That represents a veritable bonfire of Biden administration policies and could also be designed to inflict the maximum pain and anxiety among climate-alarmed liberls. To make matters worse for them, there was an executive order allowing gas exploration in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, something environmentalists have fought against for decades. Trump also sent out a memorandum suspending any further permits for wind farms on the US outer continental shelf and another one ordering that water reserves be directed to southern California rather than to the protection of marine life.
Theme seven: Having learned the lessons of his first term, Trump is putting his people in key positions for his second term.
There were the usual memorandums appointing acting Cabinet secretaries, nominating full-term Cabinet secretaries, nominating sub-Cabinet appointees, and designating chairmen of various federal commissions. Such things are run of the mill for every incoming administration. But there was also a memorandum decreeing that the process of security-clearing Trump appointees to sensitive roles within the President’s executive office must take no more than six months. The memo blames ‘a backlog created by the Biden Administration’ and a ‘broken security clearance process’ for Trump appointees not having received access to the White House to take up their new posts. Allied to this was an executive order strengthening accountability for federal employees in policy-influencing positions, reflecting Trump’s grievances about senior agency staff attempting to resist the MAGA agenda during his first term.
Theme eight: Trump plans not only to stack government with MAGA people but to reform the size and structure of government.
As expected, there was an executive order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and a memorandum implementing a hiring freeze, which will prevent federal departments and agencies from filling vacancies or creating new positions. (Defence, immigration, national security and public safety agencies are exempt.) Reflecting the innovation-minded thinking of Trump’s inner circle, another memorandum instructed that no further regulations be created unless approved by the Trump administration. This was accompanied by a memorandum rescinding any arrangements allowing federal employees to work from home, an executive order reforming the federal hiring process so that it prioritises merit, ability and commitment to government efficiency over immutable characteristics, and a memorandum shaking up the organisation and performance of senior federal staff.
Theme nine: Trump is determined to settle scores.
Donald Trump is one of life’s great grudge-bearers and his initial executive actions reflected this trait. There was a proclamation pardoning or commuting the sentences of those involved in the January 6 insurrection and an executive order directing that the US flag always be flown at full-staff on inauguration day. (Old Glory was flying half-staff on the morning of Trump’s inauguration in honour of the late Jimmy Carter.)
These were joined by an executive order mandating an investigation of the Biden administration for a ‘systematic campaign against its perceived political opponents’, including by setting law enforcement and intelligence agencies on them. This reflects Trump’s belief that investigations and prosecutions brought against him and his associates were a form of political warfare waged by the previous White House and its ideological fellow travellers.
The biggest score Trump wants to settle is one he believes played a role in shifting public opinion ahead of the 2020 president election. He issued an executive order addressing the political misuse of US intelligence services, which revokes the security clearances of former officials who signed a letter during the 2020 election dismissing the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story as Russian disinformation. It also withdraws clearance from John Bolton, Trump’s former National Security Adviser, for a 2019 book ‘rife with sensitive information drawn from his time in government’.
Donald Trump didn’t get much done in his first term, but he appears to mean business this time. His first day back in the Oval Office proves it, and he has another 1,460 days to put his agenda into effect.
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