US president's rapid executive orders give 75-day reprieve for TikTok and exclude transgender from gender classification
US President Donald Trump signs documents as he issues executive orders and pardons for January 6 defendants in the Oval Office at the White House on Inauguration Day in Washington, US, on January 20, 2025. — Reuters
Supporters of Donald Trump who attacked the US Capitol four years ago will start leaving prison on Tuesday, pardoned by the new president in a flurry of Inauguration Day executive orders showing intent to stamp radical change on the country.
Trump was likely to sign more executive orders on Tuesday, after measures issued on Monday that included moves to curb immigration and roll back environmental regulation as well as a 75-day delay to enforcement of a ban on short-video app TikTok.
The Republican president's pardon of 1,500 defendants drew outrage from lawmakers who were endangered in the January 6, 2021, attack, when thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent Congress from certifying his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
The pardons were among orders Trump signed within hours of taking office, returning in a mood of triumph to the White House after winning last November's election. In his inauguration speech he slammed Biden's presidency and portrayed himself as chosen by God to save a faltering nation.
However, he faces a stiff challenge delivering on his Inauguration Day promise of a "Golden Age of America" in the face of a closely split Congress, inevitable lawsuits and recalcitrant world leaders.
Trump did not take immediate action to raise tariffs, a key campaign promise, but said he could impose 25 per cent duties on Canada and Mexico on February 1.
Global markets greeted Trump's presidency with apprehension on Tuesday, with investors highly sensitive to headlines over the president's plans for trade relations and tariffs in particular.
Trump, 78, is the first president in more than a century to win a second term after losing the White House and the first felon to occupy the White House. The oldest president ever to be sworn in, he is backed by Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress.
Trump has made illegal immigration a signature issue since he first entered politics in 2015 and he kicked off a sweeping crackdown on Monday.
Shortly after the inauguration, US border authorities said they had shut down Biden's CBP One entry programme, which had allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants to enter the US legally by scheduling an appointment on an app. Existing appointments were cancelled, leaving migrants stunned and unsure of what to do.
Opponents of Trump's agenda are likely to challenge it in the courts and the American Civil Liberties Union fired an opening salvo on Monday, saying in a federal court filing that Trump's decision to end the CBP One programme removed the only avenue to asylum at the US-Mexico border.
Other orders revoked Biden administration policies governing artificial intelligence and electric vehicles.
He also imposed a freeze on federal hiring and ordered government workers to return to the office, rather than working from home. He also signed paperwork to create a "Department of Government Efficiency", an outside advisory board headed by billionaire Elon Musk that aims to cut large swaths of government spending.
Trump said he would issue orders to scrap federal diversity programmes and require the government to recognise only genders assigned at birth.
Trump vowed to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and repeated his intention to take back control of the Panama Canal, one of several foreign policy pronouncements that have caused consternation among US allies.