State of emergency at the border with Mexico and “millions” of promised expulsions, withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, pardons for hundreds of attackers of the Capitol… Barely inaugurated President of the United States, Donald Trump signed a barrage of decrees on Monday January 20 for his return to power. Some of these spectacular measures may nevertheless be difficult to implement and promise strong challenges in court. Some even appear to violate the US Constitution.
Immigration
Promised, Donald Trump’s vast anti-immigration offensive took shape in his midday inauguration speech. “All illegal entries will be immediately stopped and we will begin sending millions and millions of criminal aliens back to where they came from,” insisted the Republican president. “I will send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country.”
In the evening, from the White House, he signed the decree declaring a state of emergency on the border with Mexico, and ordered the American army to monitor it. Donald Trump signed another decree calling into question soil law, which he described as “ridiculous” to the press in the Oval Office. First concrete effect on Monday: the asylum application platform launched by the Biden administration stopped working. “Existing appointments have been canceled,” the service indicates on its website.
Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement
The withdrawal of the United States from the Paris agreement is underway: Donald Trump staged it by making it one of his first signed decrees, on a desk installed on the very stage of the great hall of Washington in which some 20,000 of his supporters were gathered. This measure, coming from the world’s second largest polluter behind China, endangers global efforts to combat climate change. It should be effective within a year. The United States had already briefly left the international agreement during the first mandate of the American billionaire, before Joe Biden marked their return.
Donald Trump, notoriously climate skeptic, also signed a decree declaring a “state of energy emergency” to boost hydrocarbon production in the United States. “We will drill at all costs,” he repeated, a formula that has become one of his campaign slogans (“We will drill, baby, drill”).
Withdrawal from WHO
Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO), an organization he had previously strongly criticized for its management of the Covid-19 pandemic. “The WHO defrauded us,” accused the Republican when signing this decree, just a few hours after being inaugurated, justifying this withdrawal by the gap in American and Chinese financial contributions. In this text, he urges federal agencies to “suspend the future transfer of any funds, support or resources from the United States government to the WHO” and directs them to “identify credible American and international partners” capable of “assume activities previously undertaken by WHO”.
The war on transgender people
“Starting today, the official policy of the United States government will be that there are only two sexes, male and female,” Donald Trump said during his inauguration in Washington. “These sexes cannot be changed and are anchored in a fundamental and incontestable reality,” added a decree published by the White House in the evening, and which must be applied by all federal agencies. “Federal funds must not be used to promote gender ideology,” affirms the same decree, which wants to “restore biological truth.” Another text orders the end of all diversity and inclusion programs within the federal government.
Capitol attackers pardoned
More than 1,500 participants in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 pardoned upon the return to power of the man who had inflamed them by claiming that the election of Joe Biden had been “rigged”. For the fourteen other people convicted, their sentence is commuted to prison time already served. “We hope that they will come out tonight,” insisted Donald Trump, reaffirming that they had been treated “very unfairly”: “The judges were absolutely merciless. The prosecutors too,” he insisted. The proceedings still ongoing against a few hundred people are also canceled. An “insult to the American judicial system”, protested the former Democratic President of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.
TikTok: application of ban law postponed for 75 days
Donald Trump also signed an executive order ordering his government to suspend for 75 days the application of the law banning the social network TikTok in the United States. This law, passed by Congress in 2024 and entered into force on Sunday, requires the parent company of the platform to sell it under penalty of ban on American territory.
It resulted in inaccessibility to the social network for a few hours this weekend. The law provides for very heavy fines for internet providers and application stores, up to $5,000 per user for the latter. These sanctions would be imposed by the Department of Justice, which Donald Trump has ordered not to intervene for two and a half months, the time to “consult (its) advisors”, according to the text of the decree.
Sanctions lifted against Israeli settlers in the West Bank
President Donald Trump on Monday revoked an executive order from his predecessor Joe Biden which had allowed the sanctioning of Israeli settlers accused of violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, the White House announced on Monday. Barely invested, the Republican president canceled the text taken in February 2024, and which had been the prerequisite for financial sanctions targeting several settlers, including an individual accused of having fomented a riot in the Palestinian town of Huwara, in the south of Nablus, leading to the death of a Palestinian civilian. At the time, Joe Biden denounced the “intolerable” violence by Israeli settlers, a “serious threat to peace, security and stability” in the region according to him.
Cuba once again on the blacklist of countries supporting terrorism
A few hours after his swearing in, Donald Trump returned on Monday to the removal of Cuba from the list of states supporting terrorism, announced a few days ago by the previous Biden administration as part of an agreement for the release of prisoners policies, the White House said. Cuba immediately reacted by calling this decision “an act of arrogance and contempt for the truth.” “This is not surprising. Its objective is to further strengthen the cruel economic war against Cuba for the purposes of domination,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel reacted on X. The new head of American diplomacy, Marco Rubio, confirmed to this post Monday evening after a unanimous vote by the American Senate, estimated last week that Cuba had its place on this blacklist from Washington, foreshadowing the decision of the President Trump.
End of teleworking for federal civil servants
Donald Trump also signed a decree on Monday, in front of a crowd of his supporters in Washington, to end teleworking of federal civil servants. This decree “requires federal civil servants to return to work in the office full time with immediate effect,” declared an official on the microphone, while Donald Trump brandished a document signed by his hand in a large room in the capital welcoming thousands of his supporters celebrating his return to power.
“The heads of all departments and agencies […] must, as soon as possible, take all necessary measures to end teleworking arrangements and ask employees to return to their assigned positions on a full-time basis,” the White House said on its website. Multi-billionaire Elon Musk , to whom Donald Trump entrusted an advisory mission to the government, had suggested returning to the principle of teleworking, which “would lead to a welcome wave of voluntary departures” within an administration considered too heavy and expensive.