Expect 'shock and awe' as Donald Trump begins second term with flurry of executive orders

He has promised he will not be a dictator, “except on day one”. Now, an anxious US and the wider world are about to understand exactly what was meant by Donald Trump when he made that alarming undertaking.

While the focus of the president-elect’s inauguration tomorrow is on the traditional pomp and circumstance of the ceremony itself, the real work begins immediately afterwards, and Mr Trump and his team have promised to “make heads spin” as he begins his second, and final, term in the White House.

According to some Republican senators, his administration plans to usher through over 100 executive orders in its first days and weeks. By comparison, he signed 33 such orders in his first 100 days in 2017, and during the entirety of his first term, he signed 220.

One senior senator, John Barrasso, the US Senate majority whip, predicted “a blizzard of executive orders” relating to the economy and US border security, describing the Trump team’s strategy as “shock and awe.”

Here are some of the key issues the incoming Trump government is expected to focus on.

Donald Trump is expected to sign off on scores of executive orders after entering the Oval Office. Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire | Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Immigration

During the opening week of his first term in office, Mr Trump infamously issued a series of executive orders, known collectively as the ‘Muslim ban’, in order to drive down immigration. That notorious policy was regarded by his critics as an affront to the US constitution, but as he prepares to return to the White House, Mr Trump looks set to double down.

Having heavily focused on immigration during his campaign, it is widely expected that he will prioritise a mass deportation programme as part of his administration’s early agenda. It is unclear how this wildly ambitious goal will be achieved. The costs would run into billions of pounds, and at a time when the US immigration and customs officials are already underresourced, there are doubts over how the Trump administration can make good on its promise to deport the estimated 11 million undocumented migrants living in the US. Even so, Mr Trump seems determined to put ideology before prudence, insisting that “it’s not a question of a price tag.”

What is clear already is that the work will involve imbuing immigration officers with greater latitude to arrest people, bolstering the military presence at the US-Mexico border, and restarting and accelerating construction on the patchwork infrastructure that currently makes up his much-lauded border wall.

But Mr Trump will not stop there. There are plans to cease temporary ‘parole’ initiatives that have allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants to enter the US legally on humanitarian grounds. He has also vowed to target the children of undocumented immigrants by immediately ending birthright citizenship - a longstanding guarantee of citizenship to anyone born in the country - but given he would be challenging an amendment in the US constitution, any such move would be open to legal challenge.

The incoming Trump administration is expected to restart and accelerate work on the border wall with Mexico. Picture: Oliver Touron/AFP/Getty | AFP via Getty Images

Tariffs

Another issue that dominated the economic approach of the first Trump administration is also set to return - the president-elect has vowed to sign executive orders introducing sweeping tariffs on the basis that they will boost US economic growth. Not for the first Mr Trump is motivated by grievance - specifically the US trade deficits with China and the EU - but the knock-on effects could impact Scotland, the rest of the UK, and indeed, the world at large.

At this stage, the incoming administration seems to be deliberating on the finer details. During the election campaign, Mr Trump repeatedly insisted on a blanket 20 per cent tax on all foreign goods, but there is speculation that any tariffs could be more limited in their scope, focusing on certain sectors or nations. That, at least, is the hope of the UK business and trade secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, who warned last week that a “tariff war” between the US and other countries could lead to higher inflation and unemployment in the UK.

Mr Trump also has promised to implement an even steeper tariff rate of 25 per cent on products imported from Canada and Mexico - two of the biggest trading partners with the US. Such a move has been met with consternation in the US, amid fears that will fuel inflation and encourage companies to simply pass on the costs at the point of sale. Alan Dearorff, an economist at the University of Michigan predicted that “consumers everywhere are going to end up paying.”

Energy

Anyone who paid a passing interest in Mr Trump’s time on the stump during the election campaign cannot fail to have heard him utter one of his latest catchphrases: ‘Drill, baby, drill’. It will come as no surprise, then, that the slew of executive orders in the early days of his new administration will look to support the fossil fuel industry.

In a U-turn from the Biden administration, Mr Trump is expected to expand oil and gas drilling as part of his energy policy. Picture: Mario Tama/Getty | Getty Images

As part of a general approach of paring back regulation, those orders are expected to revoke drilling restrictions in the Arctic and elsewhere, roll back regulations on power plants and waivers which demand strict emission limits, while also ending the moratorium put in place by the Biden White House on exports of liquified natural gas. Mr Trump could even declare a US energy national emergency, a process that would smooth the way for fast-tracked permits for new power infrastructure.

It is also widely expected that Mr Trump will once again withdraw the US - the world’s largest historical greenhouse gas emitter - from the 2015 Paris climate agreement, a step he took during his first term. That move would foreshadow a wider effort to nullify the renewable energy sector. Having long railed against the offshore wind development at his inaugural golf resort in Scotland, Mr Trump has said he intends to end similar new projects in the US. Other executive orders reportedly under consideration include the cancellation of major electric vehicle contracts for US government agencies and - in a move that would tie in with his economic isolationism - block the import of cars, components and battery materials from China.

Pardons

One of the most ironic - and unsettling - targets of Mr Trump’s suite of executive orders is the cohort of his supporters convicted for taking part in the attacks on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. Those riots were designed to halt the electoral certification of Mr Biden; now, four years on, Mr Trump is set to pardon many of those individuals involved in one of the darkest days in US history.

The extent of his clemency remains the subject of debate. Although Mr Trump has promised, somewhat curiously, to look at the ‘J6’ matter “early on” in his presidency, having described the convictions as “unfair,” he has also indicated there may be some exceptions, giving rise to speculation that those with criminal record for serious crimes such as assault will not be pardoned.

Many of those convicted for their part in the US Capitol riot are expected to be pardoned. Picture: Getty Images | Getty Images

Over 1,270 people have been convicted for their part in the riots to date, and Mr Trump has said his administration will be looking at each individual case “very quickly.” There will be particular focus on what decision is taken regarding the convictions secured against the leaders of two far-right groups, known as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.

There are also doubts as to what Mr Trump’s imminent return to power means for the ongoing investigations into the 6 January attacks amid. The nominee to head the FBI, Kash Patel, is fiercely loyal to Mr Trump, and has called for the agency’s resources and authority to be significantly curtailed.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

One of the final executive orders signed by Mr Trump towards the end of his first term banned certain types of diversity training and condemned the “malign ideology” of racial sensitivity awareness courses. Amid a deepening culture war, expect such issues to be revisited.

For starters, an executive order introduced by Mr Biden which tasked government agencies with setting up DEI training and chief diversity officer roles will be scrapped. He has vowed to go much further, however. Indeed, the Trump campaign has previously said all “staff, offices, and initiatives” connected to the “un-American policy” of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) “will be immediately terminated.”

During his first term, Mr Trump’s broadside against DEI was beset by legal challenges over violations to the first amendment. This time around, his administration will take greater care to realise its ambitions, and in any ase, will encounter less resistance thanks to his judicial appointments, with a Supreme Court sympathetic to his aims.

Meta, run by Mark Zuckerberg, is among those firms to have scaled back their diversity programmes ahead of the new administration taking office. Picture: Getty | Getty Images

The mood music around this issue has already led to some major employers rolling back their own diversity programmes, including McDonald’s, Amazon, Walmart, and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. This shift on the part of corporate America is no coincidence. Conservative critics of DEI have been emboldened by a 2023 Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action in college admissions, and only last month, an appeals court ruled that Nasdaq could not impose rules designed to increase diversity in companies.

Cryptocurrency

During the turbulent years since he was last in the Oval Office, Mr Trump has become a cryptocurrency convert. His sprawling and Byzantine business empire includes a crypto firm, and several executives in the sector endorsed him and provided substantial donations to Republicans at the last election.

It should therefore come as no surprise that the price of Bitcoin soared to an all-time high as Mr Trump - who has said he will be the “crypto president” - and his team began transition work. He is preparing to sign a pro-crypto executive order on his first day in office that would address the issue of ‘debanking’, whereby financial institutions restrict or close down the accounts of crypto firms.

Bitcoin soared to a record high price in the wake of Donald Trump's election victory. Picture: Chris McGrath/Getty | Getty Images

That may sound niche, but it would mark the crucial first step towards establishing a framework designed to help the sector flourish, with Mr Trump also planning to cut regulatory red tape and establish a national cryptocurrency reserve. Save for the obvious conflicts of interest concerns given Mr Trump’s own crypto holdings, there are wider fears about the impact on the US and global economy of such a reserve.. Huw Macartney, Robert Elliott, and Erin McCracken, experts in political economy, economics, and cryptocurrency at the University of Birmingham, have pointed to the historic volatility of Bitcoin prices, and warned of a potential crypto “arms race.”