The shattering first hours of Trump’s return

State of emergency at the border with Mexico and “millions” of promised expulsions, withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, pardons for hundreds of attackers of the Capitol… Barely inaugurated President of the United States, Donald Trump signed a barrage of decrees on Monday for his return to power.

Some of these spectacular measures may nevertheless be difficult to implement and promise strong challenges in court. Some even appear to violate the US Constitution.

Promised for a long time, Donald Trump’s vast anti-immigration offensive took shape in his midday inauguration speech. “All illegal entries will be immediately stopped and we will begin sending millions and millions of criminal aliens back to where they came from,” insisted the Republican president. “I will send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country.”

In the evening, from the White House, he signed the decree declaring a state of emergency at the border with Mexico. Donald Trump also intends to attack the right to asylum and land law.

First concrete effect on Monday: the asylum application platform launched by the Biden administration stopped working. “Existing appointments have been canceled,” the service indicates on its website.

The withdrawal of the United States from the Paris agreement is underway: Donald Trump staged it by making it one of his first signed decrees, on a desk installed on the very stage of the great hall of Washington in which some 20,000 of his supporters gathered.

This measure, coming from the world’s second largest polluter behind China, endangers global efforts to combat climate change. It should be effective within a year. The United States had already briefly left the international agreement during the first mandate of the American billionaire, before Joe Biden marked their return.

Donald Trump, notoriously climate skeptic, also signed a decree declaring a “state of energy emergency” to boost hydrocarbon production in the United States. “We will drill at all costs,” he repeated, a formula that became one of his campaign slogans (“We will drill, baby, drill”).
Another surprise decree: the withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organization. “The WHO defrauded us,” accused the Republican, justifying this withdrawal by the gap in American and Chinese financial contributions.

“We are going to take back” the Panama Canal, the new president also said. Built by the United States, its control was transferred to Panama in 1999, after an agreement concluded in 1977. “A senseless gift,” blasted Donald Trump.

“The purpose of our agreement and the spirit of our treaty have been totally violated,” he said. “American ships are seriously overtaxed (…) And above all, China operates the Panama Canal, and we did not give it to China.”
“The canal belongs and will continue to belong to Panama,” replied Panamanian President José Raul Mulino. On the other territorial subject of the moment, Greenland, which he wishes to take control of, the American president said he was “sure that Denmark will come to terms with the idea” that the United States “needs it for international security.

More than 1,500 participants in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 were pardoned upon the return to power of the man who had inflamed them by claiming that the election of Joe Biden had been “rigged”. For the fourteen other people convicted, their sentence is commuted to prison time already served.

“We hope they come out tonight,” Donald Trump said. The proceedings still ongoing against a few hundred people are also canceled. An “insult to the American judicial system”, protested the former Democratic President of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.

“We will impose tariffs and taxes on foreign countries to enrich our citizens,” promised the 47th President of the United States in his inauguration speech. From the Oval Office in the evening, he said he was considering “around 25% on Mexico and Canada”. From when? “February 1,” he estimated. The United States’ closest neighbors are, however, theoretically protected by a free trade agreement signed during his first term.

“End the transgender madness” was another of his campaign pledges. “Starting today, the official policy of the United States government will be to say that there are only two sexes, male and female,” defined at birth, Donald Trump said on Monday. Also covered is federal aid for programs supporting diversity.