It’s official now. President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance have accepted their oaths of office to uphold the Constitution and have been sworn into office, with President Trump wasting no time getting to work after the traditional ceremonies including his Second Inaugural Address where he declared the beginning of “the golden age of America” wherein he would immediately take actions to secure the border, restore dominant American energy production, get inflation under control, withdraw once again from the Paris Climate accords, to stop federal government censorship and the weaponization of the federal government.
To that end, following the Inaugural, Trump, Vance and their families took part in attending the Presidential Parade at the Capitol One Arena in Washington, D.C. wherein attendees, who braved the cold to attend after the National Mall outdoor ceremonies were canceled, were among the first to witness the signing of some these immediate executive actions taken under law by the President.
In his remarks prior to the signing, Trump thanked everyone at the arena and to all his supporters for helping to make his election possible, and described the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement as history-changing: “MAGA was the most successful political operation, political movement in the history of the country, maybe even the world.”
Trump added, “Because we’re not finished yet. We’ve got a long way to go.” He’s right, as the President must also work with Congress on actions that require their attention including the upcoming budget reconciliation bill that will extend tax relief, further secure the border, rescind regulations, boost production and help lower prices.
But within his own powers under the Constitution and federal laws, Trump at the event went on to take some immediate actions in front of the more than 20,000 assembled guests — truly government for the people that Abraham Lincoln once described.
These included the first order rescinding 78 Biden executive actions that former President Joe Biden had implemented that according to the new executive order were “harmful” to the country: “The previous administration has embedded deeply unpopular, inflationary, illegal, and radical practices within every agency and office of the Federal Government. The injection of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI) into our institutions has corrupted them by replacing hard work, merit, and equality with a divisive and dangerous preferential hierarchy. Orders to open the borders have endangered the American people and dissolved Federal, State, and local resources that should be used to benefit the American people. Climate extremism has exploded inflation and overburdened businesses with regulation.” Now, they’re all gone with the stroke of a pen.
Next up was an executive order that Trump described in his remarks to the Capitol One attendees was an “immediate regulation freeze” to stop all pending actions and to prevent any more regulations from the Biden administration from being issued.
Then, two orders were signed that implement a temporary hiring freeze at the federal government and the second to require all federal employees return to the office for in-person work after Covid era work-from-home actions were never rescinded.
And then a memorandum that Trump said would help “defeat inflation and radically bring down the cost of daily life” including, according to the memo, directing all departments and agencies, to “deliver emergency price relief, consistent with applicable law, to the American people and increase the prosperity of the American worker. This shall include pursuing appropriate actions to: lower the cost of housing and expand housing supply; eliminate unnecessary administrative expenses and rent-seeking practices that increase healthcare costs; eliminate counterproductive requirements that raise the costs of home appliances; create employment opportunities for American workers, including drawing discouraged workers into the labor force; and eliminate harmful, coercive ‘climate’ policies that increase the costs of food and fuel…”
Next, there as an order immediately withdrawing for the second time from what Trump called the Paris Climate accords “ripoff” and also a letter to the United Nations explaining the withdrawal.
And, a directive to the federal government to, as Trump described, “immediately end all federal government censorship of the American people.” The order explained, “Over the last 4 years, the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve. Under the guise of combatting ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and ‘malinformation,’ the Federal Government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the Government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate.”
The order added, “Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society.”
Finally, an executive order that Trump said would “stop the weaponization of law enforcement” and “directing every federal agency to preserve all records pertaining to political persecutions under the law administration… and beginning the process of exposing any and all abuses of power.”
The order directs “The Attorney General, in consultation with the heads of all departments and agencies of the United States, shall take appropriate action to review the activities of all departments and agencies exercising civil or criminal enforcement authority of the United States, including, but not limited to, the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission, over the last 4 years and identify any instances where a department’s or agency’s conduct appears to have been contrary to the purposes and policies of this order…” and preparing a report for recommendations so this never happens again.
And it directs “The Director of National Intelligence, in consultation with the heads of the appropriate departments and agencies within the Intelligence Community, shall take all appropriate action to review the activities of the Intelligence Community over the last 4 years and identify any instances where the Intelligence Community’s conduct appears to have been contrary to the purposes and policies of this order…” and also preparing a report of recommendations.
On the record keeping aspect of ending weaponization, the order requires and warns, as Trump did, to preserve all documents: “departments and agencies are directed to comply with applicable document-retention policies and legal obligations. Instances of noncompliance with document-retention policies or legal obligations will be referred to the Attorney General.”
And that was just at the Capital One Arena.
Upon returning to the Oval Office, President Trump pardoned and otherwise commuted the sentences of Jan. 6, 2021 protesters who were convicted of crimes.
Trump declared a national energy emergency to free up federal lands for energy exploration, production, and refining and otherwise including the use of either eminent domain or defense production if necessary, stating, “If an agency assesses that use of either Federal eminent domain authorities or authorities afforded under the Defense Production Act (Public Law 81-774, 50 U.S.C. 4501 et seq.) are necessary to achieve this objective, the agency shall submit recommendations for a course of action to the President…”
Trump also for the second time declared a national emergency on the southern border to finish the construction of the border wall, seal the southern border from any more unauthorized entries, coordinate a Department of Defense military response in conjunction with the effort so the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Border Patrol and restoring the authorities from Trump’s 2019 border emergency declaration.
To help that along, Trump also issued a separate order in conjunction with the emergency declaration that specifically makes the military’s job to protect the borders: “It is the policy of the United States to ensure that the Armed Forces of the United States prioritize the protection of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the United States along our national borders,” and to that end, “No later than 10 days from the effective date of this order, deliver to the President a revision to the Unified Command Plan that assigns United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) the mission to seal the borders and maintain the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the United States by repelling forms of invasion including unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking, and other criminal activities.”
Which opens up organizations that facilitate the penetration of U.S. borders to direct military targeting, including an order defining drug cartels that are moving fentanyl and other deadly drugs and also human slave trafficking across the southern border to be designated as terrorist organizations.
Another memorandum was issued to “Resolve the Backlog of Security Clearances for Executive Office of the President”.
And there’s the order to establish the Department of Government Efficiency as a “temporary organization” including to “commence a Software Modernization Initiative to improve the quality and efficiency of government-wide software, network infrastructure, and information technology (IT) systems” and to “promote inter-operability between agency networks and systems, ensure data integrity, and facilitate responsible data collection and synchronization.” The organization will terminate on July 4, 2026.
There is also an order that reestablishes Trump’s America First trade policy and directs the Department of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative to recommend a new tariff schedule for the U.S. against countries that the U.S. experiences a trade deficit with: “investigate the causes of our country’s large and persistent annual trade deficits in goods, as well as the economic and national security implications and risks resulting from such deficits, and recommend appropriate measures, such as a global supplemental tariff or other policies, to remedy such deficits.”
And it would begin the process of the Department of Treasury establishing Trump’s External Revenue Service to collect the tariffs: “The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of Homeland Security, shall investigate the feasibility of establishing and recommend the best methods for designing, building, and implementing an External Revenue Service (ERS) to collect tariffs, duties, and other foreign trade-related revenues.” And the Secretary of Treasury would be tasked with broadly addressing currency manipulation by trade partners by “recommend[ing] appropriate measures to counter currency manipulation or misalignment that prevents effective balance of payments adjustments or that provides trading partners with an unfair competitive advantage in international trade, and shall identify any countries that he believes should be designated as currency manipulators”
It also includes a review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement that replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that was completed in 2019.
Another order ends all federal government Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs that according to the order, “forced illegal and immoral discrimination programs, going by the name “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI), into virtually all aspects of the Federal Government”—these policies by the government but also private employers have appeared to violate the Civil Rights Act including Title VII—and will require monthly meetings with the heads of the White House Office of Management and the Office of Personnel Management and department and deputy agency heads with updates for the President so that he “may formulate appropriate and effective civil-rights policies for the Executive Branch…” and another order making merit the sole basis for hiring in the federal workforce.
All this — and more — under laws that Congress has already enacted, on the very first day in office. Trump is wasting no time getting to work, and the American people can rest easy knowing the steady hand is back at the wheel. Thank you, Mr. President!
Updated 1/21/2025, 6:15 p.m. EST to add the DOGE and America First Trade Policy executive orders.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.
