Stage is set for an explosive first day as Donald Trump hits the ground running
Donald Trump will prioritise his crackdown on illegal migrants and plan for mass deportations on day one, as the world looks for insights into how he’ll wield US power over the next four years | WATCH: Trump hosts victory rally.
Mass deportations, sweeping tariffs and pardons for the January 6 rioters are among the key executive orders expected from Donald Trump on his first day in office, with the world looking for initial insights into how the incoming president will wield US power over the next four years.
Mr Trump will claim the White House for a second time at 4am on Tuesday AEDT, with the president-elect travelling to Washington with his family on Saturday after announcing he would shift the inauguration ceremony to inside the Capitol Rotunda for the first time since 1985 due to freezing conditions.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong and the nation’s ambassador to Washington, Kevin Rudd, are attending the inauguration ceremony to represent Australia, although several other Australians will also be present in Washington – including billionaires Anthony Pratt and Gina Rinehart.
After touching down at Dulles International Airport in Virginia on Saturday afternoon local time, Mr Trump travelled to his golf club overlooking the Potomac river where he and his wife Melania watched an evening fireworks display accompanied by musical performances.
Expectations are high for a flurry of activity on the first day of Mr Trump’s presidency after Republican senators revealed he had signalled earlier this month that he would issue up to 100 executive orders upon taking office.
The orders are seen as part of a “shock and awe” strategy aimed at launching Mr Trump’s agenda while testing the limits of presidential power, with him famously declaring in December 2023 that he had no plans to be an American dictator “other than day one”.
News broke over the weekend of plans for post-inauguration mass deportation raids – including in Chicago – as early as Tuesday as part of Mr Trump’s push to crackdown on illegal migrants, with incoming border tsar Tom Homan saying the administration would “take the handcuffs off ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)”.
“We’re reviewing any plans in Chicago because of the leak,” Mr Homan told ABC News.
Mr Trump said the raids were a “big priority” because it was important to “get the criminals out of our country” and was “one of the reasons I won the election by such a big margin”.
Former ambassador to the US Arthur Sinodinos said the incoming president’s objective was to “hit the ground running” and that the arrival of Trump 2.0 had already “impacted the international political climate.”
“You can see it from the way that Elon Musk is trying to influence elections and politics in Europe and Britain,” Mr Sinodinos told The Australian.
“We are at a moment where countries around the world perceive a US president who believes, for now, that he has unfettered power and is prepared to use that power.”
Mr Sinodinos – the chair of The Asia Group’s Australia Practice – said the big question was: “How (will) this power … be used – in the service of upholding the global rules based order, or is it in support of America first and America only?
“This is an important issue for allies and partners who must now think about how they frame their relationship with America in a way that appeals to the objectives of America first,” he said.
Mr Trump’s day one promises include launching the largest deportation program in US history, closing the southern border, ending birthright citizenship, pardoning the January 6 rioters, imposing sweeping tariffs including on Mexico and Canada, striking out Mr Biden’s 50 per cent electric vehicle mandate by 2030, expediting permits for oil drilling and fracking, limiting transgender participation in women’s sports, and helping domestic car manufacturers.
Mr Trump had repeatedly promised to end the Ukraine war within 24 hours but has now given himself a much longer window of about six months.
While the inauguration usually takes place in front of the US Capitol in Washington, Mr Trump announced on Friday local time that it had been moved inside to the Capitol Rotunda because of the expected freezing conditions, triggering a last- minute logistics scramble.
Mr Trump will now take the oath of office at the same location where four years ago a group of his supporters clashed with Capitol police and disrupted the certification of Mr Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
Posting on Truth Social, Mr Trump said “we have to think of the inauguration itself. The weather forecast for Washington, DC, with the windchill factor, could take temperatures into severe record lows.”
Mr Pratt – who will attend Mr Trump’s inauguration and a black tie candlelight dinner with the incoming president and other major donors at the National Building Museum on Sunday evening – reaffirmed his plan to massively ramp his investments in US jobs during Mr Trump’s presidency.
The executive chair of Pratt Industries, who is permanently relocating to the US, told The Australian that “we have 70 factories in America and under president Trump’s leadership we will invest billions more to create thousands of American manufacturing jobs”.
“We’re proud to support the president’s agenda to reindustrialise America,” he said.
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