WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has promised a flurry of executive action on Day 1, and there are executive orders already prepared for his signature. Those orders will end diversity, equity and inclusion funding, crack down on border crossings and ease regulations on oil and natural gas production. The Republican has promised dozens of actions, though it’s unclear whether he’ll make good on his pledge to do them all on his first day.
Here’s a look at some of Trump’s plans:
America First
Trump will sign an order renaming the Gulf of Mexico, making it the Gulf of America. And the highest mountain in North America, now known as Mount Denali, will revert back to Mount McKinley, its name until President Barack Obama changed it. The renaming is to honor “American greatness,” according to a preview of the orders posted online by Trump’s incoming press secretary.
He signed an order that flags must be at full height at every future Inauguration Day. The order came because former President Jimmy Carter’s death had prompted flags to be at half staff. Trump demanded they be moved up Monday.
Immigration
Much of the executive action on the border is ripped from Trump’s first-term playbook. He will declare a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, send U.S. troops to help support immigration agents and restrict refugees and asylum. He’s also pledged to restart a policy that forced asylum seekers to wait over the border in Mexico, but officials didn’t say whether Mexico would accept migrants again. During the previous effort, squalid and fetid camps grew on the border and were marred by gang violence. Trump is also promising to end birthright citizenship, but it’s unclear how he’d do it — it’s enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
He ended the CBP One app, a Biden-era border app that gave legal entry to nearly 1 million migrants.
The economy
Trump is set to sign orders to ease regulatory burdens on oil and natural gas production, including an order tied to Alaska. And he’ll sign a memorandum seeking a broad-based government approach to bring down inflation. But he appears to be holding off at the moment on his threat to issue tariffs on China, Mexico, Canada and other countries. He also appears to be holding off on higher taxes on imports, with an incoming official pointing reporters to a Wall Street Journal story saying he will only sign a memorandum telling federal agencies to study trade issues.
Diversity, equity and inclusion and transgender rights
Trump is rolling back protections for transgender people and terminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the federal government. Both are major shifts for the federal policy and are in line with Trump’s campaign trail promises. One order would declare that the federal government would recognize only two immutable sexes: male and female. And they’re to be defined based on whether people are born with eggs or sperm, rather than on their chromosomes, according to details of the upcoming order. Under the order, federal prisons and shelters for migrants and rape victims would be segregated by sex as defined by the order. And federal taxpayer money could not be used to fund “transition services.”
A separate order halts DEI programs, directing the White House to identify and end them within the government.
Pardons in the Jan. 6 US Capitol attack
Trump also is promising to pardon those convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, but he didn’t mention that in his inaugural speech.
In remarks to an overflow crowd after his inaugural address, he didn’t include the pardons in his speech. “It’s action not words that count, and you’re going to see a lot of action,” he said.
Energy
Trump will declare an energy emergency as he promises to “drill, baby, drill,” and says he will eliminate what he calls Biden’s electric vehicle mandate.
Story by Colleen Long and Bill Barrow, Associated Press. Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill contributed to this report.
