“Day One” decrees: Which measures Donald Trump now wants to implement
Donald Trump is back in power as US president – declaring in his inaugural address that he was “saved by God to make America great again” – and is poised to sign a series of far-reaching executive orders that show that he wants to be perceived as a dictator from day one.
In his address Monday in the Capitol Rotunda, Trump called his reactionary agenda — on climate and geography, immigration and citizenship, federal recognition of gender identity and more — a “common sense revolution.”
The expected executive orders will reportedly include an effort to eliminate the constitutional guarantee of citizenship by birth for children of undocumented parents.
Normally, decrees are subject to checks and balances. And Trump’s first executive orders are sure to lead to litigation if attempts are made to circumvent issued regulations, laws, treaties or constitutional amendments. But Trump begins his term with the support of an arch-conservative majority on the Supreme Court that shows little interest in overruling him and no interest in holding him accountable.
Donald Trump wants to carry out threats – immigration and the border
In his inaugural address, Trump said: “I will declare a national emergency at our southern border.”
Trump reportedly intends to issue an executive order abolishing ‘citizenship by birth’. (This was guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1868: ‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.’)
According to Trump’s inaugural address and other news reports, Trump also intends to:
- Declare a national emergency at the border and close the southern border to all persons without legal status.
- Using federal troops to “repel the catastrophic invasion of our country.”
- Reinstate the infamous policy that required asylum seekers to “remain in Mexico.”
- Designating drug cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations.”
Trump also said he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to prosecute immigrant “gangs and criminal networks” within the United States.
Gender
Trump declared in his inaugural address: “Starting today, it will be the official policy of the government of the United States that there are only two genders, male and female.”
Trump plans to sign an executive order banning federal recognition of people of transgender background.
The expected order, leaked to the right-wing Free Press, is reportedly intended to prevent government-issued identification documents such as passports from listing anything other than a person’s birth gender. It would also exclude transgender people from the protections of sex discrimination laws, end funding for gender reassignment surgery for federal prisoners, and purport to protect the First Amendment and other rights of those who defy or refuse to use “preferred pronouns.” Acknowledging the reality of transgender people.
Energy and transport
As Trump takes office, the nation is reeling from climate change-related disasters, including unprecedented flooding in mountainous North Carolina and devastating fires in rain-starved Los Angeles. Carbon emissions notwithstanding, Trump vowed in his inaugural address that he would declare a “national energy emergency” today and allow oil companies to “drill, baby, drill” for the “liquid gold beneath our feet.” Trump also vowed to end the national “electric vehicle mandate” as part of his agenda to roll back climate legislation signed by predecessor Joe Biden, which Trump calls the Green New Deal. (It is not the Green New Deal.)
geography
“We will change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America,” Trump declared in his inaugural address, insisting on also renaming Alaska’s highest mountain from its current indigenous name of Denali to its former name of Mount McKinley.
(Although not among his first acts in office, Trump also vowed to seize the Panama Canal and expand America’s “manifest destiny” into space by sending astronauts to Mars, the latter a key goal of Trump’s billionaire crony Elon Musk.)
Procrastination for TikTok
In a post on Truth Social on Sunday evening, Trump promised to sign an executive order to create a grace period and suspend the enforcement mechanisms of the new law banning the China-linked viral video platform in the US “so that we can reach an agreement to protect our national… “We can meet security.” The move was, as usual, self-serving, as Trump said he wanted Americans to watch “our exciting inauguration” on TikTok.
This article was translated from English by Kristina Baum. You can find the original here.