Trump poised to sign raft of orders after taking oath of office

Washington — Donald Trump pledged to rescue America from what he described as years of betrayal and decline in his inaugural address on Monday, prioritising a crackdown on illegal immigration and portraying himself as a national saviour chosen by God.

“First, I will declare a national emergency at our southern border,” he said. “All illegal entry will be immediately halted and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.”

Trump, 78, took the oath of office to “preserve, protect and defend” the US constitution inside the US Capitol, administered by chief justice John Roberts. Vice-president JD Vance was sworn in before him.

Trump intends to sign a raft of executive actions in his first hours as president, incoming White House officials said, including 10 focused on border security and immigration, his priority. In addition to declaring an emergency, the president will send armed troops to the border 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.

Trump officially announced the creation of an advisory group aimed at carrying out dramatic cuts to the US government, attracting immediate lawsuits challenging its operations.

The group — dubbed the department of government efficiency — is being co-run by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, and is intended to eliminate entire federal agencies and cutting three-quarters of federal government jobs. Despite the name, the committee is not a department and has little official power to carry out any reorganisation, let alone the head-spinning cuts proposed by Musk and Ramaswamy.

The inauguration completes a triumphant comeback for a political disrupter who survived two impeachment trials, a felony conviction, two assassination attempts and an indictment for attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss.

“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.”

Trump on Monday said he would tariff and tax countries to enrich Americans, promised an overhaul of the trade system, and said the US would establish an “external revenue service”.

“Many people thought it was impossible for me to stage such a historic political comeback,” he said. “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.”

He also said on Monday that the US would take back the Panama Canal, but gave no further details.

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.

Numerous tech executives who have sought to curry favour with the incoming administration — including the three richest men in the world, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Musk, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg — had prominent seats on stage, next to cabinet nominees and members of Trump’s family.

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.

Biden, in one of his last official acts, pardoned several people whom Trump has targeted for retaliation, including former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci, former Republican US representative Liz Cheney and former chair of the joint chiefs of staff Gen 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 would also sign an order ending diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the federal government on Monday. Some of the executive orders are likely to face legal challenges.

Trade memo

Trump would issue a broad trade memo that stopped short of imposing new tariffs on his first day in office, but directed federal agencies to evaluate US trade relationships with China, Canada and Mexico, an administration official said.

After weeks of intense global speculation over which duties Trump would impose immediately after being sworn in, news that Trump would take more time on tariffs drove a relief rally in global stocks and a dive in the dollar against major currencies.

Trump mentioned no specific tariff plans in his inaugural address, but repeated his intention to create an external revenue service, a new agency to collect “massive amounts” of tariffs, duties and other revenues from foreign sources.

“I will immediately begin the overhaul of our trade system to protect American workers and families,” Trump said. “Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.”

Even as he prepared to retake office, Trump continued to expand his business ventures, raising billions in market value by launching a “meme coin” crypto token at the weekend that prompted ethical and regulatory questions.

Earlier Trump and incoming first lady Melania Trump arrived at the White House, where Biden and outgoing first lady Jill Biden greeted them with handshakes.

“Welcome home,” Biden said.

As he did in 2017, Trump enters office as a chaotic, disruptive force, vowing to remake the federal government and expressing deep scepticism about the US-led alliances that have shaped post-World War 2 global politics.

Reuters