Photo by rob walsh on Unsplash
On January 20th, in front of his family, billionaire tech CEOs, and Cabinet members, Donald Trump was once again sworn in as President of the United States. His inaugural speech laid out his extreme policy priorities, ranging from immigration to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and more. He moved quickly to sign a sweeping set of 26 Executive Orders, 12 memorandums, and four proclamations addressing these priorities, many of which closely resemble Project 2025’s policy agenda, all while taking questions from reporters in an unprecedented move.
One Executive Order, entitled “Initial Rescissions Of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions,” reversed 78 such orders from the Biden Administration. In a controversial move, Trump issued a proclamation pardoning over 1,500 individuals convicted in the Jan. 6th Capitol riot, including Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys chairman, and Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right Oath Keepers group. This action implies that he will permit future political violence, as a recent Time article illustrates, striking fear in some of his political enemies.
Mass Deportations and Restricting Immigration
Several of Trump’s inaugural promises have already been upheld due to various Executive Orders, including declaring a national emergency at the southern border, halting illegal entry, starting mass deportations, reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy, planning to send troops to the southern border, ending the catch and release policy (requiring all migrants to be detained), and designating various cartels and gangs as foreign terrorist organizations.
In fact, his Executive Orders went even further by suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, directing the establishment of a border wall, ending humanitarian parole for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, tightening immigration laws, restricting federal funds to sanctuary jurisdictions, and intensifying the screening process for visa seekers. Trump claimed he would close the border, but has not explicitly taken action toward this goal yet.
Climate and Energy
“We will drill, baby, drill.” This phrase encapsulates Trump’s profit-driven attitude towards the environment, as he assured his audience that he would increase drilling for the so-called “liquid gold under our feet,” oil and gas. He claimed this would strengthen the U.S. economy and solve the national energy emergency that he put into effect later that day. To do so, he revoked Biden-era clean energy initiatives and paused the disbursement of funds from the Inflation Reduction Act, which would have invested in domestic clean energy production. This contributes toward two of his inaugural goals, ending the Green New Deal and revoking the electric vehicle mandate.
Although his speech did not mention plans to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and other international climate agreements, suspend leasing of wind energy projects, eliminate restrictions on drilling and extraction in Alaska, or review agency activities that might burden development of domestic energy resources, these policies were also passed by Executive Order on Monday.
Eliminating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Additional completed promises focused on “end[ing] the government policy of trying to socially engineer gender and race into every aspect of public and private life” by establishing an official federal policy that there are only two genders, male and female. Under this policy, Trump ordered the removal of gender identity from federal policies, communications, IDs, and more. Despite his inaugural claim that he would achieve Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of equality, Trump signed an Executive Order hours later terminating all DEI, accessibility, and environmental justice offices and positions in the federal government. He also blocked federal hiring based on race, sex, or religion.
Additional Inaugural Commitments
At the Inauguration, Trump stated that he would establish the External Revenue Service to collect tariffs, duties, and revenues from other countries, take back the Panama Canal, pursue Manifest Destiny onto Mars, reinstate service members expelled from the military for opposing Covid vaccine policies, and stop service members from being being “subjected to radical political theories and social experiments while on duty,” although it is unclear what this last point means.
While he has not moved to enact these ideas, other promises like establishing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), bringing back free speech by directing the Attorney General to investigate federal policies on online platform censorship, and changing the names of geographic locations have become reality via Executive Orders. The Gulf of Mexico will now be referred to as the “Gulf of America” in federal settings, although this requirement will not hold locally or globally, and the mountain Denali in Alaska, which was renamed to honor Alaska Natives, has reverted to its previous name, “Mount McKinley,” after President McKinley.
Resemblance to Project 2025
Some Executive Orders were not mentioned in Trump’s inaugural speech, including various policies making it easier to remove employees who disagree with Trump and ending remote work for federal employees. Both orders resemble directives from Project 2025 by removing federal government employees who disagree with the administration’s beliefs and eliminating labor protections.
Despite denying any connection to Project 2025, these are not the only statements or actions that Trump made on Inauguration Day that mirrored its far right agenda. Project 2025 states that oil and natural gas are the “lifeblood of economic growth” and that concern for the environment is unfounded, and Trump paved the way for increased oil and gas extraction. Project 2025 also outlines a closed border, a definition of sex that means “biological sex assigned at birth,” and supports free speech by banning critical race theory and gender ideology from schools and other institutions, all policies and ideas reflected in Trump’s statements and actions on Inauguration Day.
The tone of Trump’s second term is clear. He will prioritize profit over the American people and the planet, permit violence that benefits him, and remove any government officials who challenge his directives. Trump will put America first by ending aid to other nations and extorting them for funds, damaging our global community, and he will send a clear message about who really belongs in the United States — very few of us.
