‘Immediate action’: Everything Donald Trump did on day one of presidency
Trump has wasted no time making good on promises made during his election campaign – declaring the US government will only recognise two genders.
Donald Trump has wasted no time after being sworn in as America’s President for the second time.
After a fair bit of pomp and ceremony, the United States’ 47th Commander in Chief took the stage at Capitol One Arena’s inaugural “parade”, where he signed the first of an anticipated 200 executive actions – some of them symbolic, and others more substantive.
Many of his proposed orders also reverse the policies of his predecessors (particularly Joe Biden’s), and reinstate actions from his first term in office.
“I’m revoking nearly 80 disruptive, radical actions of the previous administration,” Mr Trump declared.
“They’ll all be null and void within about five minutes.”
Let’s run through a few of the executive orders signed by the President thus far.
Ending DEI programs, defining ‘sex’
Mr Trump announced “immediate” executive actions to end diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in the US government, and recognise “only two”, biologically distinct sexes.
“As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female,” Mr Trump said in his speech.
Under the change, government agencies will be required to use the definitions on documents like passports, visas and employee records, an incoming White House official told NPR.
“These are sexes that are not changeable, and they are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,” the official said.
Taxpayer funds will not be allowed to be used for “transition services”.
Policies aimed at creating a more diverse workforce in the American public service will also be abolished.
“This week, I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life,” Mr Trump said.
“I will forge a society that is colour blind and merit based.”
IRS, Paris climate agreement, regulations targeted
Mr Trump is going to freeze the workforce of the Internal Revenue Service, the equivalent of Australia’s tax office, meaning there won’t be new hires.
He will require public servants to work from the office, not from home.
There will, as well, be “a regulatory freeze … preventing bureaucrats from issuing any more regulations until we have full control of this government and this administration”.
Mr Trump said he would mandate an end to tips being taxed – which is not really an issue here, where tips are still rare, but in the US many workers rely on tips to get by.
He’s going to withdraw “from the unfair, one-sided Paris Climate Accord rip off”.
“The United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity,” Mr Trump said.
This one will have ramifications for Australian policy, given how negligible our carbon emissions are compared to America’s and China’s.
Mr Trump is directing his cabinet secretaries to “marshall every power at their disposal to defeat inflation and rapidly bring down the cost of daily life, because your costs have gone through the roof in the last four years”
Immigration
As anticipated, at least 10 of the executive orders Mr Trump intends to sign concern immigration.
These focus, in particular, on the American border with Mexico. Indeed, Mr Trump has already taken steps to clamp down on migration across that southern border.
Mr Trump had promised, on the eve of his inauguration, to swiftly declare a “national emergency” along the nation’s southern border with Mexico, and to issue a series of executive orders dealing with the crisis – which he has now come good on.
“All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came,” Mr Trump, who has pledged to conduct mass deportations, said.
“I will send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country.”
Within minutes of becoming President again, he shut down the US government’s CBP One app, which launched in 2020 as a way to handle cargo inspections for commercial trucking companies – but whose role was expanded, in January of 2023, to be used for asylum applications.
“Effective January 20, 2025, the functionalities of CBP One that previously allowed undocumented aliens to submit advance information and schedule appointments at eight southwest border ports of entry is no longer available, and existing appointments have been cancelled,” the government said today.
There are, by most estimates, well over ten million undocumented migrants living in North America. Those doing the stereotypical sneaking across the border are the most salient group, politically, and have been Mr Trump’s main concern since he first proposed his border wall in 2015.
The people using the CBP One app weren’t in that main problem category; they were asylum seekers trying to follow the US government’s preferred method for lodging applications. An avenue that now, quite suddenly, no longer exists for them.
United States will exit World Health Organisation
Mr Trump also made good on his vow for the US to exit the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The President accused the global health agency of mishandling, among other health crises, the Covid-19 pandemic, and had failed to act independently from the “inappropriate political influence of WHO member states”.
“World Health ripped us off, everybody rips off the United States,” Mr Trump said as he signed the order.
“It’s not going to happen anymore.”
The US will leave the health agency in 12 months’ time, stopping all financial contributions to its work – an issue for the WHO, given America is by far its biggest financial backer.
Renaming The Gulf of Mexico, Mount Denali
According to The New York Post, Mr Trump will also order the renaming of The Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Mount Denali.
The Gulf of Mexico will be renamed The Gulf of America, and Denali, the highest mountain in North America, will revert to Mount McKinley – the name it was known by until former President Barack Obama changed it in 2015 to honour the indigenous name of the mountain used by the Koyukon Athabaskans, the original inhabitants of Alaska.
The renaming of the two natural features is to honour “American greatness”, according to a preview of the orders, The Post reports.
“President Trump is bringing common sense to government and renewing the pillars of American Civilisation,” the document says.
The executive orders will direct the secretary of the interior to change the names – meaning they will be used in federal communications and on official naps.
In a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort earlier this month, Mr Trump said that the “Gulf of America” has a “beautiful ring” to it.
“What a beautiful name, and it’s appropriate,” he told reporters.
Reinstating service members
Mr Trump pledged to “reinstate any service members who were unjustly expelled from our military for objecting to the Covid vaccine mandate with full back pay” this week.
“I will sign an order to stop our warriors from being subjected to radical political theories and social experiments while on duty,” he said.
“It’s going to end immediately.”
‘Bring back free speech to America’
Finally there will be an executive order designed to “immediately end federal government censorship of the American people”.
Mr Trump has vowed to “bring back free speech to America”. This is not at all surprising, given he agreed that his “threats” against Mark Zuckerberg had “probably” influenced the Meta founder’s recent decision to end Facebook and Instagram’s fact-checking program to “restore free expression”.
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“After years and years of illegal and unconstitutional federal efforts to restrict free expression, I will also sign an executive order to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America,” Mr Trump said.
We’ll wait to see the text of this order before judging what, if anything, it will actually do – free speech is of course already protected, quite strictly, by the First Amendment to America’s constitution.
– with The New York Post
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