In the center of Capital One Arena in Washington DCto the applause and screams of more than 20,000 people and throwing the pens after each use. This is how it started Donald Trump his second term. Instead of going to the Oval Office after being sworn in, he preferred sign his first decrees spectacularly in front of his followers. Some with great international impact such as the exit from the Paris Agreement and the International Health Organization (WHO), and others with administrative repercussions such as the freezing of new hiring and regulations in the Government until it has “complete control of it.”
After taking office on a freezing morning in which temperatures of up to -1o°C have forced the inauguration to be held inside the dome of the US Capitol, Trump will begin the country’s 47th presidency with a barrage of executive measures focused on energy policy, mass deportations of “millions” of undocumented immigrants and the reversal of previous diversity initiatives in public administration, especially in the military.
On the other hand, and after touring the US capital with several stops where he gave long speeches, Trump has promised that will pardon in the next few hours those convicted of participating in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The scope of this pardon is unknown, which could end the sentences of almost 1,600 people.
US Vice President JD Vance and President Donald Trump listen to American singer Christopher Macchio perform ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’.
Reuters
“My life was saved for a reason. God saved me to make America great again… For American citizens, January 20, 2025 is the day of liberation,” Trump said at the beginning of the morning in a messianic tone during his inauguration speech, after recalling the assassination attempt this summer at a rally in Pennsylvania.
Already in his first minutes as leader of the world’s leading power, Trump promised two immediate executive orders.
Mass deportations
The first is to declare the national emergency on the US border with Mexico, invoking a provision that was already applied in the coronavirus pandemic to prevent the spread of infections and that Biden maintained during the first years of his presidency.
“Today we will begin a process to return millions of illegal immigrants to the places they came from. I will send our troops to the border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country”, he urged, anticipating what would be the first measure he would take as soon as he sits in the Oval Office.
According to the American press, the federal government has already has fired the judges assigned to immigration cases and has deactivated a web application that asylum seekers used to make an appointment at the border and begin processing their cases, although the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has presented a motion against these measures that recovers another previous case from Biden’s mandate.
For their part, those responsible for the immigration agencies have anticipated the US media that starting this Tuesday Raids will begin in the main cities of the countrysuch as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, to identify undocumented migrants.
Likewise, the magnate has promised to end the practice that grants the citizenship for being born on American soilregardless of the origin of the parents. A common precept in countries with colonial foundations and which is guaranteed in Amendment 14 of the Constitution, so it is not clear how this precept can be reformed without going to court.
Goodbye to climate policies
The second promised executive order had to do with a “declaration of energy emergency” and its first consequence is now official: Around 7:00 p.m. in Washington DC, Trump signed the US exit from the Paris climate agreements and a letter informing the United Nations of the same.
According to the president, this action will save the country “trillions of euros” and will be continued by others such as the elimination of mandates and incentives to purchase electric vehicles. “We are going to extract oil and gas like never before,” he said before.
The staging
The departure from the Paris Agreement took place in the sports stadium where Trump’s supporters gathered to follow the inauguration ceremony. Located in the center of the capital about 30 minutes from the Capitol, the president has gone there with his entire team and family to sign a stack of decrees including the repeal of more than 80 measures enacted by Bidenlike the previous guideline to prioritize racial equity in policymaking.
“I will also end the government’s policy of attempting to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life. We will forge a color-blind, merit-based society,” he promised Monday morning, adding that “starting today, the official policy of the United States government will be that There are only two genders: male and female.”.
In that same stadium, minutes before, his great ally and agitator on social networks, Elon Musk He was cheered and celebrated the day as one of the “most consequential” for global culture. During his speech he made several gestures with his arm that some media and social network users have identified as a sneaky fascist salute.
Investiture speech
“The America’s golden age begins right now”; “today our country will flourish and be respected again, “we will be envied by the whole world.” With a series of bombastic phrases and the newly appointed 47th president of the United States, Trump promised in his first speech as the new president a battery of reforms and executive measures that affect the country’s border, energy policies, military strategy and even the special race.
During the 23 minutes that his speech at the Capitol lasted, none of the former presidents present on stage, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton y George W. Bushthey have applauded or stood up with the rest of the guests to celebrate some of the most notable passages of the message. They have only applauded when Trump recalled the release of the Israeli hostages and the ceasefire recently reached in the Middle East.
Wars in the world
The president did not mention other conflicts, such as the war in Ukraine, but has made it clear that his intention will be to defend US interests: “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars we will end, and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never enter”.
“My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier, he added, although he insisted on his intention for the country to recover control of the Panama canal after accusing the Central American country of breaking its promises and handing control of that critical infrastructure to China. There has been no mention, however, of his other expansionist intention: that of incorporating Greenland, in the hands of Denmark, into the United States.
In an informal conversation with journalists accredited in the Oval Office, Trump has criticized NATO countries that they do not invest enough in military spending and has come to confuse Spain with a member country of the BRICS.
“They are not a BRICS nation. They are members of the BRICS. Don’t they know they are? They’ll find out,” he added, confused.
Regarding the high tariffs that he had promised to impose on Mexico, Canada and China, and that the international community interpreted as a pressure measure to negotiate other issues, the leader has put as February 1 deadline to impose them.
Space race to Mars
Likewise, Trump dedicated several minutes to highlighting the lines of his social policy and defining his role in the cultural wars that American political life has been facing for years.
In this sense, he recalled the “engineers, miners, workers and laborers” who have built the North American country and has asked for new “ambition” with the aim of “put the US flag on Mars”a moment that his ally, Elon Musk, has celebrated with agitation.
Along with Elon Musk, owner of X (formerly Twitter), Tesla, SpaceX and Trump’s right-hand man in recent months, they have sat in the front row Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook and owner of the giant Meta, Jeff Bezoscreator of the retail giant Amazon and Tim CookCEO de Apple.
It is not trivial: in the coming years the White House and Congress will have to sign legislation that will affect the development of tools such as artificial intelligence and that is why big technology companies have contributed generous donations to Trump’s inaugural committee, which has raised more than 170 million dollars.
In the background, other exponents of the new international political right were also present, such as the prime minister Giorgia Meloni and the Argentine president Javier Miley. The leader of Vox, Santiago Abascalalthough present at other parallel events in Washington, was not seen inside the Capitol during the ceremony.