What has Trump done so far? The winners and losers

It’s been a good week for Elon Musk, TikTok and rioters, less so for migrants, civil servants and Mexico.

Elon Musk is head of a department while Admiral Linda Fagan, right, has been dismissed as chief of the US Coast Guard. Picture montage: The Times

US President Donald Trump claims that his new government has already “accomplished more in four days than other administrations have achieved in four years”. So who are the big winners and losers from his first week in office?

WINNERS

• January 6 rioters

“F--k it: release ‘em all,” Trump apparently said as his team wrestled with who to pardon among the more than 1500 people convicted over the January 6 riot at the Capitol in 2021.

Crowds converge at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Picture: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

With a stroke of his pen on Monday, Trump issued a blanket pardon for almost all of them. The decision to pardon far-right militia leaders and pardon rioters convicted of assaulting police officers has horrified many Republicans and put Trump on the defensive, but it delighted his diehard supporters.

• Elon Musk

Elon Musk has a mandate to take a wrecking ball to the federal budget and workforce. Picture: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

The world’s richest man has tightened his grip on power as his new Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) gets to work. Musk bankrolled Trump’s election to the tune of more than dollars 250 million and has been rewarded with a mandate to take a wrecking ball to the federal budget and workforce.

It’s not all been positive, though: on Friday it emerged that Susie Wiles, Trump’s White House chief of staff, had denied him a permanent office close to the president in the West Wing.

• TikTok

Trump tried to shut down TikTok during his first presidential term, but has made it his mission this time to “save” the wildly popular video-sharing app accused of being a tool for Chinese espionage.

TikTok briefly “went dark” for its 170 million US users last weekend, but came back online with a personal message of thanks to Trump after the president signalled he would grant it an extension to find a non-Chinese buyer.

• Ross Ulbricht

Silk Road dark web marketplace founder Ross Ulbricht. Picture: SDNY/Handout/Reuters/The Times

The founder of the Silk Road dark web marketplace was serving a life sentence for drug trafficking and money laundering before Trump pardoned him this week.

Ulbricht’s case became a cause celebre among libertarians courted by Trump on the campaign trail. At the Libertarian Party’s national convention last year, Trump announced on stage that if elected, he would free the man who prosecutors also alleged had solicited six contract killings.

Delivering on that promise this week, Trump said that Ulbricht was pardoned “in honour of … the libertarian movement, which supported me so strongly”.

LOSERS

• Undocumented migrants

Nine restrained young men are led to a military plane as the military watch on. Picture: posted on X by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt

Immigration was the main focus of a series of executive orders issued on Monday, as the new administration set about delivering on its promise to seal the border and deport millions of undocumented migrants.

Hundreds of arrests have already been made in a crackdown on Democratic cities. Thousands of troops are to be deployed to the border to enforce the “remain in Mexico” policy imposed during Trump’s first term and reinstated on Monday.

• Canada and Mexico

Officials in Canada and Mexico breathed a sigh of relief when Trump stopped short of slapping America’s neighbours with tariffs on his first day in office. The respite may be short-lived, however.

“We’re thinking in terms of 25 per cent on Mexico and Canada,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “I think we’ll do it February 1.”

No one is certain whether Trump is using the threat as a negotiating tactic to win concessions. Diplomats are still scrambling to head off a trade war that could wreck the Canadian and Mexican economies and hurt US companies with business on both sides of the border.

• Mike Pompeo and John Bolton

Mike Pompeo, left, and John Bolton.

Within hours of taking office, Trump revoked the security protections of two of the most senior officials from his first administration.

John Bolton, the former national security adviser, and the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo both face threats from Iran for orders they took from Trump against Tehran during his first term. Bolton, who is now a vocal critic of Trump and was the subject of at least one assassination attempt by Iran, said he was “disappointed but not surprised” by the president’s decision.

Trump has also revoked security protection for Anthony Fauci, his former Covid adviser who has received death threats over his handling of the pandemic.

• Civil servants

Gloom and panic stalk the corridors at US government departments as Musk and Doge get to work, taking a scalpel to the civil service.

Agencies were given until Friday to deliver lists of their newest employees who are still on one-year probation periods - and who would be the easiest to fire. Recruitment is frozen across every department. Tens of thousands are looking for an exit, only to find the job market saturated with qualified applicants like themselves.

Hundreds of colleagues have already left after Trump ordered all government staff hired on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) schemes to be placed on paid leave while their agencies prepare to fire them. The new administration has encouraged federal employees to snitch on colleagues still following DEI policies that it has dubbed “illegal and immoral”.

• Admiral Linda Fagan

Admiral Linda Fagan, fired within 24 hours of Trump taking office. Picture: Sopa Images Ltd/Alam/The Times

The first woman to lead a branch of the US armed forces was fired within 24 hours of Trump taking office. Admiral Linda Fagan, head of the US Coast Guard, became the most high-profile victim so far of the crackdown on DEI recruitment policies.

The Department of Homeland Security accused Fagan of “leadership deficiencies, operational failures” and a “failure to address border security threats”, including the flow of illegal drugs into the country.

• NATO

Fears among NATO allies that Trump could dismantle the post-war order in Europe have not been eased by the president’s combative appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday.

Trump had previously demanded that all “delinquent” NATO countries meet their 2 per cent obligation on defence spending. Appearing virtually at Davos, the president upped his demand to 5 per cent, rattling uneasy US allies.

The Times