U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday (January 20, 2025) issued a flurry of executive orders and directives as he sought to put his stamp on his new administration on matters ranging from energy to criminal pardons and immigration.
Trump inauguration updates: January 20, 2025
Here are the executive orders signed so far on Monday:
Pardons
Trump pardoned about 1,500 people who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a sweeping gesture of support to the people who assaulted police as they tried to prevent lawmakers from certifying his 2020 election defeat.
“We hope they come out tonight, frankly,” Trump said. “We’re expecting it.”
He said that six defendants would have their sentences shortened.
Immigration
Trump signed orders declaring illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border a national emergency, designating criminal cartels as terrorist organizations, and targeting automatic citizenship for U.S.-born children of immigrants in the country illegally.
Trump also signed an order expected to suspend the U.S. refugee resettlement program for four months, although the text of the orders was not immediately available.
Undoing Biden actions
At a rally at a sports arena, Trump revoked 78 executive actions of the previous administration.
“I’ll revoke nearly 80 destructive and radical executive actions of the previous administration,” Trump said.
Trump also said he will sign an order directing every agency to preserve all records pertaining to “political persecutions” under the Biden administration.
The rescission applied to executive orders spanning from former President Joe Biden’s first day in office in 2021 to as recently as last week, and covered topics from COVID relief to equal opportunity for Hispanics and Black Americans, and the promotion of clean energy industries.
Regulatory, hiring freezes
Trump signed orders freezing government hiring and new federal regulations, as well as an order requiring federal workers to immediately return to full-time in-person work.
“I will implement an immediate regulation freeze, which will stop Biden bureaucrats from continuing to regulate,” Trump said, adding he will also “issue a temporary hiring freeze to ensure that we’re only hiring competent people who are faithful to the American public.”
The move would force large numbers of white-collar government employees to forfeit remote working arrangements, reversing a trend that took off in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some of Trump’s allies have said the return-to-work mandate is intended to help gut the civil service, making it easier for Trump to replace long-serving government workers with loyalists.
Inflation
Trump ordered the heads of all executive departments and agencies to deliver emergency price relief to the American people and increase the prosperity of the American worker. Measures include cutting regulations and climate policies that raise costs, and prescribe actions to lower the cost of housing and expand housing supply.
“Over the past 4 years, the Biden Administration’s destructive policies inflicted an historic inflation crisis on the American people,” the order said.
Climate
Trump also signed a withdrawal from the Paris climate treaty, including a letter to the United Nations explaining the withdrawal.
The announcement, which has been widely expected ever since Trump won the Nov. 5 presidential election, further threatens the central goal of the agreement to avoid a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius, a target that appears even more tenuous as last year was the planet’s hottest on record.
“It is the policy of my Administration to put the interests of the United States and the American people first,” the order said.
He repealed a 2023 memo from Biden that barred oil drilling in some 16 million acres in the Arctic.
Free speech
The president signed a document “ending weaponization” of government against political opponents. The order directs the attorney general to investigate the activities of the federal government over the last four years, including at the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission during the prior administration.
It said the government will “identify and take appropriate action to correct past misconduct by the Federal Government related to the weaponization of law enforcement and the weaponization of the Intelligence Community.”
Energy
Trump declared a national energy emergency, promising to fill up strategic oil reserves and export U.S. energy all over the world.
“We will be a rich nation again, and it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it,” he said.
Trump, who vowed during his campaign to “drill, baby, drill,” will also sign an executive order focused on Alaska, an official with the incoming administration said, adding that the state was critical to U.S. national security and could allow exports of liquefied natural gas to other parts of the U.S. and allies.
The U.S. also will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and end leasing to wind farms, according to the White House’s website. In addition, Trump said he would revoke what he has called an electric vehicle mandate.
Members of his team are recommending sweeping changes to cut off support for EVs and charging stations and to strengthen measures blocking the import of cars, components and battery materials from China, according to a document seen by Reuters.
Tarrifs
While Trump mentioned no specific tariff plans in his inaugural address, he and members of his cabinet said they were coming, to be collected by a new agency called the External Revenue Service.
His first day reprieve signals a possibly more deliberative approach to imposing tariffs, an issue that has shaken global policymakers and investors, and prompted a relief rally in global stocks and key foreign currencies against the dollar.
In a broad presidential trade memo draft seen by Reuters, Trump also directed federal agencies to assess China’s performance under the “Phase 1” trade deal he signed with Beijing in 2020 to end a nearly two-year tariff war.
The deal required China to increase purchases of U.S. exports by $200 billion over two years, but Beijing failed to meet the targets as the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Diversity and transgender rights
Trump will issue executive orders that slash diversity, equity and inclusion programs and proclaim the U.S. government will only recognize two sexes – male and female – that cannot be changed, an incoming White House official said on Monday.
The official added that more actions on DEI programs were expected soon.
Trump also has vowed to sign an executive order ending transgender rights in the U.S. military and U.S. schools.
Published – January 21, 2025 07:06 am IST
