Everything Donald Trump has done during his first week as president
Topics: Donald Trump, Climate Change, US News, Politics
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Featured Image Credit: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Topics: Donald Trump, Climate Change, US News, Politics
Donald Trump has had a busy week since he took over the White House last week.
President Trump was sworn into office for the second time on Monday (January 20) as the 47th president of the United States and it's fair to say, he's had a busy week.
The 78-year-old kicked off his plans for the 'golden Age of America' by reversing most of the work of his predecessor Joe Biden.
From 26 executive orders to presidential pardons, here's everything Trump has done so far.
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At the top of the bill is Trump's promise to crack down on immigration, having declared a national emergency at the southern border and sent more than a thousand troops to the US-Mexico border.
Trump also ordered the construction of the border wall while suggesting the Gulf of Mexico should be renamed to the Gulf of America, which got some laughs from Hillary Clinton during his inauguration ceremony.
Beyond that, he's asked Homeland Security to halt all refugee and asylum seekers admissions, as well as remove illegal migrants (with the term 'illegal alien' now reinstated).
He also tried to put an end to birthright US citizenship for the children of non-US citizens which was blocked by a federal judge in Seattle, calling it 'blatantly unconstitutional', reports the BBC.
Trump further threatened to prosecute officials and strip funding from sanctuary states that refuse to cooperate with deportation orders.
Trump has wasted no time in clamping down on transgender rights, too.
His order defines sex as either 'male' or 'female', which he claims are 'not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality'.
This means transgender people won't be able to change their legal documents to reflect their gender, for instance on passports.
The State Department has already ordered all applications from people to change their gender on passports, or to replace it with an 'x' marker, to be suspended.
The President pretty much immediately suspended the proposed TikTok ban with hopes to strike a deal with the company.
The social media giant has been granted a 75-day extension to find an American buyer.
Another controversial move out of the White House this week has been the scrapping government diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) programs which were designed to protect workers from discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin.
He revoked the Executive Order 11246, established in 1965, and ordered employees working on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the Department of Labor to be put on paid leave while their work was shut down.
Advocates for DEI initiatives have long argued it presents a level playing field for underrepresented minorities such as LGBTQ+ people, but Trump's order slammed the programs as 'illegal discrimination and preferences' and said they would be scrapped to 'restore merit-based opportunity'.
He's also slammed the brakes on working from home practices for federal workers and has frozen almost all federal agencies from hiring, apart from military, immigration enforcement, national security and public safety jobs.
Trump has promised on Truth Social to fire more than 1,000 presidential appointees from the previous administration.
The president said those in the firing line are 'not aligned with our vision to Make America Great Again', including retired Army general Mark Milley, who was fired from the National Infrastructure Advisory Council.
Trump also withdrew the US from the World Health Organization (WHO), claiming it 'mishandled' the pandemic.
Hundreds of people were pardoned by the president last week, including the almost 1,600 people charged in connection with the January 6 riot at the Capitol, 23 anti-abortion protesters and two Washington DC Police officers, Andrew Zabavsky and Terence Sutton, convicted for the death of a Black man during a police car chase in 2020.
However, the biggest name to receive a pardon is Ross Ulbricht, a 40-year-old tech pro from Texas who created and operated the darkweb market website, Silk Road, from 2011 up until his arrest in 2013 and conviction two years later.
Ulbricht walked free from jail after spending 11 years behind bars.
Trump declassified files about the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Dr Martin Luther King Jr and further files about Robert Kennedy.
Trump outlined a commitment to seek the death penalty for federal crimes that involve the murder of law enforcement or in cases where an illegal migrant commits a capital crime.
Trump has made several anti-abortion moves already, such as restoring the Mexico City Rule, which bans federal funding to any overseas nongovernmental organization that performs abortions.
While he praised the annual 'March for Life' rally, he made a statement 'strongly' supporting the Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act and shut down the Biden administration's pro-abortion government website.
He also restored the Hyde Amendment, which stops taxpayers from paying for abortions.
Trump is also taking a stand against flags, having issued guidance that US embassies should fly only the American flag.
The notice comes after activist flags like Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ+ Pride flag flew over government buildings during Biden's term.
The President declared a national energy emergency and ordered the US to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, which saw almost 200 countries sign the legally binding treaty on climate change in 2015.
While most countries are trying to move away from oil and gas as sources of energy with climate change in mind, Trump has signed orders aiming to promote the the two things in Alaska.
"We will drill, baby," Trump said in his inaugural address on Monday.
"We have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have – the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we are going to use it. We’re going to use it."
If that's not enough, he also tore up the electric vehicle mandate and announced plans to get rid of regulations on household items like lightbulbs, water heaters and washing machines.
One executive order looks to deliver emergency cost relief to Americans in the housing and healthcare sectors with a view to cut back on climate policies and create more jobs.
In line with his 'America First' trade policy, which looks at collective revenue related to foreign trade, Trump also ordered to pause assistance to foreign countries for 90 days.
Trump spoke to several foreign leaders, including one such 'fiery' call with the Danish prime minister on national security concerns, and others like the El Salvadoran President about illegal immigration.
He also called on Putin to 'stop this ridiculous war' in Ukraine - or Russia would face sanctions.
Trump also said Canada could joint the US as a state.