Will Donald Trump have enough of the first 12 hours of his first day in the White House, on January 20, to achieve everything he promised to do? The question arises since the populist, who assured that he would not be a dictator, “except on the first day” of his return to Washington, gave himself an ambitious program to implement upon his entry into the Oval Office. Overview of his early promises… in his own words.
Forgiving the rioters of January 6
“We’re going to do it very quickly, and it’s going to start the first hour I take office. […] The vast majority of them should not be in prison […]. They suffered seriously. » (Magazine interview Timein December 2024)
He made them go from the status of rioters, of insurrectionists, to that of “patriots” victims of “political harassment”, as if to better rewrite the history of the attack on the Capitol of January 6, 2021 to his advantage.
By returning to the White House, Donald Trump hopes to go further, by granting presidential clemency to several hundred of these demonstrators condemned by American justice for having smashed the doors of the dome of American democracy in order to prevent the certification of the victory of Joe Biden in 2020. In doing so, he also risks normalizing the criminal behavior of citizens devoted to his many causes for years to come and contributing to the erasure of this insurrection from public space and memory collective.
Last January, the American Department of Justice established at more than 1,000 the number of defendants having been convicted in the wake of this unprecedented attack on the American legislative power by a crowd harangued by a defeated presidential candidate. In his interview with Timethe president-elect, however, promised to pardon the “non-violent” rioters of January 6 and to do so in the “first nine minutes” of his second term.
Close borders and mass expulsions
“On my first day back in the Oval Office, I will sign a series of historic executive orders aimed at closing our border to illegal immigrants and ending the invasion of our country. » (Turning Point Action AmericaFest Conference, Phoenix, December 21, 2024)
He made the fight against immigration and the demonization of immigrants the cornerstone of his victorious electoral campaign. Donald Trump promised to stay the course during his second presidency by launching, on “day 1,” “the largest deportation program in American history,” he warned last October during a rally politics at Madison Square Garden in New York. Nearly 11 million people living illegally in the United States could thus find themselves in its crosshairs.
To achieve his goals, the Republican announced that he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a law dating from 1798, rarely used, allowing the president to expel anyone who is not an American citizen if they come from a country at “declared war” with the United States or posing a threat of “invasion or predatory incursion.”
From words to action, the road may however be complicated due to the necessary mobilization of the police and military forces that Trump wants to involve in his project. He will also have to increase the capacity of detention centers and that of transporting these illegal immigrants, with a total bill that he has not dared to quantify to date, and which could be astronomical.
In 2023, the escorting of 142,580 illegal immigrants to the border by Customs and Border Protection of the Department of Homeland Security cost American taxpayers $420 million, according to agency data.
Impose customs tariffs
“We are being invaded by Mexico. I will inform [la présidente du Mexique, Claudia Sheinbaum] on day one or sooner that if they do not stop this onslaught of criminals and drugs coming into our country, I will immediately impose a 25% tariff on everything they send to the United States of America. » (Political rally in North Carolina, November 2024)
On the campaign trail in Flint, Michigan, last September, Donald Trump assured that “customs duties are the best thing ever invented.” For several weeks, as his return to Washington approaches, he has also made it a threat placed over Mexico, but also over China, Canada and the European Union, thus setting the tone for first measures of his second term.
As he did in 2018 by imposing a tax on steel and aluminum imports by invoking section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, Donald Trump could avoid going through Congress to implement his measures necessary retaliation, according to him, to maintain industrial jobs in the United States, reduce the federal deficit and help lower food prices. These customs tariffs are also at the heart of its national security program, as a means of leveraging Canada and Mexico to protect the United States border.
But the game is risky and the trade war that could result is as likely to weaken the economy and the job market of the targeted countries as to disrupt supply chains and increase consumer prices in the States. -United, believe several experts.
-Ending the war in Ukraine
“If I am elected president, I will resolve this war in one day, 24 hours. » (Interview given to CNN, May 2023)
Following Donald Trump’s victory last November, the president-elect’s spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, claimed that a “peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine” would finally be able to be put into motion, under supervision of the new occupant of the White House, and that the thing was even going to be done “from day one,” she said on the Fox News network.
More than three years after the start of the war of invasion of the former Soviet republic by the Kremlin’s armies, the promise is certainly the most ambitious of the foreign policy that the populist wishes to implement during his second term. But it also risks very quickly coming up against the reality and complexity of a conflict, which, in the words of Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassili Nebenzia, “does not [va pas pouvoir] be resolved in one day,” he said.
At a press conference at Mar-a-Lago last December, Donald Trump maintained the bravado of his assertion, recognizing however that negotiating this peace could be more complicated than expected. Last week, one of his advisers on this hot spot in global geopolitics, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, also moderated expectations by moving the goal to next May to achieve a “robust and lasting” resolution of this conflict, he said last week, on the airwaves of the same American conservative network.
Attacking the civil service
“First, I will immediately reintroduce my 2020 executive order restoring authority to the president to fire rogue public officials. » (Advertising message from his campaign, in August 2024)
Donald Trump’s hatred and distrust of the American public service is not new. He considers it too important and useless and dreams of reducing it substantially. He also makes it the main component of a “deep state”, a place where his enemies hide to plot against him, he believes, and which he promised during his campaign to annihilate.
The perceived threat finds its roots in conspiracy theories, unlike the response, which is based in the concrete of a presidential decree, called “Schedule F”, invalidated upon the arrival of Joe Biden in 2021 and that the populist promised to reinstall on the first day of his presidency.
In essence, this executive order seeks to strip federal employees of their job protections. It also aims to convert several thousand government jobs into political jobs offered to Republican loyalists. Fifty thousand positions, of the 2.3 million civilian employees working for the US federal government, could be affected, “corrupt bureaucrats who have exploited our justice system” and “corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus” in mind, made a point of specifying the president-designate in the last few weeks.
Feeder, feeder, feeder
“The ban on offshore drilling will not stand. I will immediately reconsider this decision. […] I will revoke the ban on offshore oil and gas drilling in large areas on day one. » (Press conference at Mar-a-Lago, January 7, 2025)
By repeating ad nauseam, during his electoral campaign, the formula “ Drill, baby, drill ! “, slogan of the 2008 Republican presidential campaign affirming the party’s support for the oil and gas industry, Donald Trump also set the tone for his future environmental policies. They should promote exploitation and production, well before protection and conservation.
The man has an ambitious plan in this matter. By decree, on day one, he will be able to fulfill his promises to reduce environmental protections on several territories, such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to abolish environmental standards imposed on several companies, to stop the wind projects launched by his predecessor or even to scuttle the Democrats’ objectives aimed at encouraging the adoption of electric cars. He should, for a second time, take the United States out of the Paris Agreement, which governs the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, since he constantly repeats: “We have no problem of global warming. »
But it is his plan to unravel Joe Biden’s order that protects 253 million hectares of ocean from any new oil and gas development that could prove most complicated for him. The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, more than 70 years old, allows presidents to withdraw areas from mineral leasing and drilling, but does not grant them the legal authority to reverse previous bans. To do this, he will have to go to court, but also obtain a law from Congress, which could take more than the day he gave himself to keep his word.
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