What Trump might do on day one in the White House

Donald Trump has promised he will “make heads spin” on his first day back in office on Monday, with a blitz of executive orders expected in the hours after he is sworn in as the 47th US president.

He will call for a “revolution of common sense” according to extracts released in advance of his inauguration. At a rally on Sunday, the Republican promised to act unilaterally on a wide array of issues, including illegal immigration, climate rules and diversity policies.

It is common for presidents to sign a range of executive orders when they enter office. Such orders carry the weight of law but can be overturned by subsequent presidents or the courts.

But the scale of what Trump has planned could be unprecedented, with legal challenges expected. “You’re going to have a lot of fun watching television tomorrow,” he told supporters at the rally.

Deportations

Trump has vowed to “launch the largest deportation program in American history”, starting from day one.

He is expected to declare a national border emergency, and order the military to help secure the southern border, according to Fox News.

Trump has also said he will end a longtime policy that has kept federal immigration authorities from conducting raids on churches and schools.

Any mass deportation programme is expected to face logistical difficulties, billions in costs and a flurry of legal challenges.

Remain in Mexico

Trump may quickly move to re-implement his “Remain in Mexico” policy, which during his first term returned about 70,000 non-Mexican asylum seekers across the border to Mexico to await hearings.

End birthright citizenship

Trump has called the 150-year-old constitutional right that says anyone born on US soil is an American citizen “ridiculous” and vowed to scrap it on day one.

But doing that is much more difficult than simply issuing an executive order, because birthright citizenship is explicitly guaranteed by the US Constitution.

Closing the border on health grounds

A 1944 measure called Title 42 allows the US government to curb migration to protect public health. It was last used during the pandemic, but US media reports that the incoming administration is looking for a disease that would help justify its plans to close the southern US border with Mexico.

Drug cartels

Trump is expected to classify drug cartels as “foreign terrorist organisations”, putting them on a list alongside groups like Al Qaeda, so-called Islamic State and Hamas.

Build the wall

When Trump was first elected president in 2016, he signed an executive order to build a border wall. Although parts of the wall have been built, there is still much left uncompleted, and he may try to finish what he started.

Tariffs

Trump has vowed sweeping tariffs on imported goods as part of his promise to prioritise American manufacturing.

Trump introduced tariffs in his first term, including some on China that Joe Biden retained.

But this time he is promising 10% tariffs on all imports, 25% on Canadian and Mexican goods and 60% on things coming from China. He has said he will begin signing executive orders imposing these on day one.

Tariffs are likely to make consumer goods more expensive and could fuel inflation, experts say. Some countries are considering retaliatory tariffs.

Crypto pile

Trump has championed cryptocurrency and his election saw the value of Bitcoin increase by 30%.

Some believe Trump will move quickly to create a federal “Bitcoin stockpile” – a strategic reserve similar to the US’s stockpile of gold and oil – that he has said would serve as a “permanent national asset to benefit all Americans”.

Scrap Joe Biden’s climate policies

The outgoing president sees the series of directives, laws and funding programmes he championed to boost green jobs, regulate pollution and fund infrastructure as one of his biggest accomplishments.

Trump has made it clear he wants to undo much of it, including spending on the Green New Deal.

He is expected to use executive orders to remove drilling restrictions offshore and on federal land – fulfilling his promise to “drill, baby drill” and increase US energy production and independence.

He has also pledged to ban new wind projects and cancel electric vehicle mandates.

Pull out of the Paris Agreement (again)

Within six months of taking office in 2017, Trump withdrew from the Paris climate agreement – a landmark international deal designed to limit rising global temperatures.

Biden moved to rejoin the accord on his first day in office in 2021, but Trump is expected to again pull out of it.

Free Jan 6 “hostages”

Hundreds of people convicted after the 2021 US Capitol riots are awaiting potential pardons when Trump returns to office.

Trump has referred to them as “hostages”, and promised on Sunday that everyone would be “very happy” with his decision-making.

​​”I am inclined to pardon many of them,” he previously told CNN. “I can’t say for every single one, because a couple of them, probably they got out of control.”

More than 1,500 individuals were arrested in relation to the event. At least 600 were charged with assaulting or impeding federal officers.

Also at his rally on Sunday, Trump said he would release classified documents related to the assassination of President John F Kennedy in 1963, a subject of countless conspiracy theories.

He said he would do the same for files related to the 1968 killings of Senator Robert Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Ukraine war

Trump claimed during the campaign that he would end the conflict on day one of his presidency. He has since said that he may need six months. It’s unclear what he might do in his first days.

Cuba and Venezuela

Trump could use executive orders to undo Biden’s recent decision to remove Cuba from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. He could also reinstate sanctions against Venezuela. Both countries were frequent targets of his ire during his first administration.

Trump is also expected to issue orders that would form his new Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) – an advisory body that he expected to be co-led by Elon Musk in a bid to cut costs from government.

He also reportedly wants to amend laws around hiring and sacking federal employees.

DEI

In recent years, schools and businesses across the US have adopted policies designed to support women and racial minorities.

These practices, often classified under “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI), have angered many conservatives and faced legal challenges. Trump has promised to dissolve them and major corporations including Meta, Walmart and Amazon have already begun rolling back related initiatives.

Trump could use an executive order to forbid federal funding going to schools or other institutions that have DEI programmes. He could also ban funding for schools that teach “critical race theory” (CRT).

During Sunday’s rally, he also pledged to take aim at “wokeness” in the US military.

Abortion

Like most Republican presidents before him, Trump is expected to reinstate the “Mexico City policy”, which bans federal aid to international groups that provide abortion counselling.

He is also expected to reinstate an abortion rule that prohibits Title X federal health providers, a low-income family planning programme, from mentioning abortion to patients. The change effectively stripped tens of millions of dollars from organisations that offer abortion or provide referrals.

Transgender women in sports

Trump has repeatedly criticised what he calls “transgender lunacy” in schools and healthcare, and has specifically vowed to bar transgender women from competing in women’s sports – a vow he repeated during Sunday’s rally.

On Sunday morning, Trump promised to issue an executive order that would postpone a law banning Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok from being implemented.

TikTok welcomed the pledge, and started restoring its app’s services in the US – having briefly switched them off to comply with the new US law.

Trump said his order would give the TikTok’s parent company a longer time to find a US partner to buy a 50% stake in the app.

He previously backed a TikTok ban, but recently reversed his stance, pointing to the billions of views he says his videos attracted on the platform during last year’s presidential campaign.