Donald Trump is all set to hit the ground running by signing a flurry of sweeping executive orders on his first day as the 47th President of the United States. Policy experts and lawyers in his team are reportedly ready with the drafts of a plethora of orders to be signed by him on January 20, when he will legally take charge as president.
The most disruptive among the first batch of orders to be inked is the fiat to deport millions of undocumented immigrants in the US. The drastic plan, reiterated by Trump multiple times and confirmed by incoming White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt as recently as last week, envisages “the largest mass deportation of illegal immigrants in American history”.
The proposed action would dwarf the so-called Mexican Repatriation executed during the Great Depression in the 1930s by the then president, Herbert Hoover, when nearly 2 million people of Mexican descent, half of them born in the US, were rounded up and driven out. If Hoover then blamed the immigrants for the economic downturn that set off severe unemployment and poverty, Trump now associates the undocumented with rising crimes and social unrest in the country.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, there were around 11 million immigrants living in the US without legal status in 2022. Immigration analysts believe that number would have grown significantly by now due to the record number of border crossings in the past four years under the Joe Biden administration. Some of the recent immigrants were found to have criminal antecedents. It is them that Trump is expected to target first. Declaring a national emergency on border security is also on the cards.
100 executive orders
In sharp contrast to the first day of his previous term when he signed just one executive order to target Obamacare, over 100 executive orders are expected to be on Trump’s table on January 20. According to reports, these include orders to secure the US-Mexico border by rushing more troops there and resume the border wall construction, announcing a wide range of tariffs to discourage imports and boost US production, and restricting the contentious birthright citizenship.
While Trump has boasted that he will “make heads spin” with his actions on Day One, some of his orders are likely to hit a legal quagmire. For example, birthright citizenship is a right laid out in the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which says anyone who is born in the US is automatically granted citizenship. Trump wants to keep children of illegal immigrants out of the purview of this right by limiting citizenship only to the children of US citizens and lawful permanent residents. Civic bodies oppose this move and are likely to challenge it legally. Mass deportation is another move that could face opposition from rights organisations.
Tariff war
Weaponising import tariffs is one of Trump’s favourite past games, though economists warn the strategy is counterproductive. In a social media comment after winning the election, Trump said he would sign an executive order on January 20 to implement a 25% tariff on products imported from Mexico and Canada, two of America’s biggest trading partners, and add 10% to the duties on Chinese goods. While Trump said the tariffs will stay in place until Mexico and Canada stop the flow of illegal immigration and drugs, his larger plan is to give a fillip to manufacturing in America. During his campaign, Trump would often refer to tariffs as “the most beautiful word in the entire dictionary of words”. International trade experts, however, say playing with tariffs is rife with risks because it will hurt the average consumer at a personal level: unreasonably high tariffs will block the availability of cheap products from mass-producing countries and, as a natural corollary, ratchet up prices.
In the same vein, mass deportation of illegal immigrants could deal a body blow to industry because it could lead to an acute labour shortage. Many of the undocumented immigrants are engaged in construction works and other labour-intensive activities. To soften the blow to industry, Trump may execute his plan in phases.
Ending real wars
If wars could end with an executive order, no president would mind issuing it. But Trump’s plan to execute his most ambitious promise to end the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours of taking office is by meeting Russian president Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Though he team has since tempered the pitch to say it will be accomplished in the first 100 days in office, Trump claims he has good relationship with both and they respect his counsel. Trump considers himself a deal maker who knows where the right buttons are and when to press them during difficult negotiations. He is proud of his record that under his watch in the first presidential term, the US launched no new wars. He is expected to keep that badge in his second term though his aggressive pitch to seize the Panama Canal, which the US used to control until former president Jimmy Carter handed it over to Panama in 1977, and ‘buy’ the world’s largest island Greenland suggests all options are open. Trump has also signalled that he won’t hesitate to unleash an economic war on Canada to force it to become a US state.
The just-announced Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal to end the war in Gaza has given Trump a strong dose of confidence to press ahead with his foreign policy overtures. Taking credit for the peace deal that was announced just days before his inauguration, Trump revealed that his incoming envoy for West Asia, Steve Witkoff took part in the negotiations that were held in Doha, Qatar. Some reports suggest that Trump arm-twisted Israel to agree to end the meaningless war in Gaza, which killed over 46,000 people in Palestine over 15 months.
Presidential pardon
In one of his interviews, Trump said he would use the first hour of his first day in the Oval Office to kickstart the process to pardon or offer commutations to his supporters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 to protest his election defeat.
More than 1,580 people were charged and 1,270 were convicted on charges ranging from unlawful parading to sedition. Around 700 defendants either received sentences with no prison time or already completed their sentences. Seven persons were given longer sentences ranging from 14 years to up to 22 years in jail. It is not clear if Trump would pardon those who committed serious crimes that are hard to justify. Over 100 police officers were injured while defending the Capitol Hill from the mob.
When asked about this in an interview, incoming Vice President J D Vance said those who engaged in violence “obviously” shouldn’t be pardoned. But Trump was evasive, saying: “We’re going to look at each individual case and we’re going to do it very quickly, and it’s going to start in the first hour that I get into office.”
Ending tax sops for electric cars
As part of his move to cut funding to all climate action programmes, Trump is expected to cut federal tax subsidies for electric vehicles and renewable energy. A known climate change sceptic, Trump views these sops as wasteful spending. Outgoing president Joe Biden had signed an order setting a nationwide goal aiming for 50% of new cars and trucks sold by 2030 to be zero-emission. Electric vehicles were expected to help meet the goals. Trump dubbed these measures as ridiculous. “The day I take office, I will cancel Crooked Joe’s electric vehicle mandate," he said during one of his campaigns.
This move could also meet legal hurdles as the clean energy incentives enacted through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) would not be easy since Congress holds the power to modify tax credits. Although it is now Republican-controlled, Trump may have to convince enough lawmakers to push through the agenda. Why this will likely be difficult is because it's the Republican districts that have benefited the most from these subsidies so far.
Offshore drilling
Another Trump plan that could raise the legality question is the move to revoke an offshore oil and gas drilling ban announced by Biden. Early this month, Trump said he would revoke the ban on his first day in office. However, some reports quoting legal experts say the law that deals with leasing of oil and gas in federal waters, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, only allows presidents to remove areas from mineral leasing and drilling, and not overturn prior bans. This essentially means a reversal to Biden's decision would require an act of Congress. Trump said he would take the matter to court if necessary, to unlock more than 625 million acres of US coastal waters for new offshore drilling.
In an interview last month, incoming press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump would get to work on this "within seconds of arriving in the Oval Office". The new administration, she said, would expedite permits for drilling and for fracking all over the country "so we can immediately bring down the cost of living”.
Transgender rights
In his push against LGBTQ rights, Trump has said he will stop "the transgender lunacy" on day one of his presidency, adding: "I will sign executive orders to end child sexual mutilation, get transgender out of the military and out of our elementary schools and middle schools and high schools." During his speeches, he has repeatedly referred to transgender women as men, vowing to ensure transgender women cannot compete in women’s sports. “I will keep men out of women’s sports, 100%, immediately, first day,” he said in one of his speeches delivered in October, adding: “It will be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.” During the same speech, he threatened to sign an executive order on his first day in office to cut federal funding to schools that push “transgender insanity and other inappropriate content to our beautiful children”.
Make in America
Trump wants to strengthen the US auto industry by forcing it to make all-American vehicles — fuelled by American energy, sourced by American suppliers, and built by American labourers. “It’s going to happen, and we’ll do it. First day in office,” he said in a September rally. According to Trump, the move would force car makers to close their plants in other countries and open new ones in the US, which will create jobs for Americans. However, industry experts view this as a costly gamble, as it will be more expensive to produce cars in the US due to higher wages and other expenses. Also, businesses today are so globalised that parts come from various parts of the world. To start from the scratch by setting up new plants or expanding existing ones, may not be an option for companies. Some analysts believe auto makers would find it more economical to import components by paying higher tariffs and hand over the additional cost to customers.
As President Trump is determined to make headlines right from Day One, expect heavy news flow over the next four years.