Order 142 and counting: How Trump has used his pen to change America in 100 days

Home affairs

Trump has pushed his patriotic “America First” agenda in practical and symbolic ways. He pardoned and released January 6 rioters who marched on the US Capitol in 2021 in his name, and his Department of Justice sought the names of FBI agents who worked on the January 6 investigation.

He renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, and banned the Associated Press news wire from the Oval Office when it failed to go along with the unilateral change.

Trump signed an executive order on one of his pet topics – water pressure – that would repeal regulations of shower heads and “make showers great again”. “No longer will shower heads be weak and worthless,” the White House said.

He commissioned a review of any government actions under predecessor Joe Biden that might have compromised Americans’ gun rights.

He also ordered the declassification of files related to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King – although the documents released have failed to satisfy conspiracy theorists.

And he has intervened in the life of the capital, Washington DC, in far-reaching ways.

Not only has he created a taskforce to reduce crime and clean up DC streets, but he took over one of the city’s cultural jewels, the Kennedy Centre, by firing its board, appointing himself as chair and declaring the end of “woke” programming.
– Michael Koziol, North America correspondent

Industry

Along with Trump’s fixation on owning Greenland comes another compulsion: a recognition of America’s vulnerability to China’s stranglehold on critical minerals – the rare earths and other elements used with such devastating effect in modern weaponry.

While rare earths account for a sliver of the $US700 billion ($1.1 trillion) in trade between the two countries, they are potentially China’s most valuable asymmetric trade weapon as they can hobble the US’s defence capability at little cost.

Recognising weakness is one thing, fixing America’s – and the world’s – dependence on China is another. Trump has issued three executive orders on the topic, including – controversially – opening up for exploration and exploitation the seabed in US coastal waters in the hunt for rare minerals.

Most recently, the White House stepped up its response to China’s critical mineral dominance with an immediate order to “evaluate the impact of imports of these materials on America’s security and resilience”, and test its reliance on foreign suppliers.

Another of Trump’s re-industrialisation ideas has reverberated almost as widely as tariffs.

The president is pushing to restore America’s maritime dominance with a plan to revive US shipbuilding by placing whopping fees on China-linked ships that visit American ports.

The hope is that steep fines of up to $US1.5 million on China-made ships or vessels from fleets that also include ships made in China will encourage US firms to use locally made ships. The hitch? There are too few US-made vessels, and businesses warn it is already driving up costs.
– Simon Johanson, associate editor (business)

Energy & environment

The only thing that has shocked environmental observers about the Trump administration’s actions on climate change and climate science is the speed, breadth and energy of its assault on the field.

As expected, the Trump administration has abandoned the Paris Agreement and withdrawn US contributions to the funds associated with it.

It has blocked its scientists from contributing to the massive reports that serve as the scaffolding of the agreement, complicating the efforts of the rest of the world to take action in the absence of the US.

This week, it dismissed hundreds of scientists who had been compiling the nation’s flagship report on how climate change is affecting the US itself.

Domestically, Trump, who campaigned under the slogan “Drill, Baby Drill!” has signed a string of executive orders designed to undo progress made by previous administrations, prevent future action and bolster the fossil fuel industry.

According to the Climate Backtracker launched by Columbia University to follow Trump’s climate course, there have been 106 actions to date.

They include the scrapping of clean-energy incentives created by the Biden administration’s vast Inflation Reduction Act and installing fossil fuel lobbyists in environmental administration leadership roles.

Environmental and climate regulations, including a move to reconsider the official finding that greenhouse gases are harmful to public health, are also being rolled back, which would cripple carbon dioxide mitigation efforts by the US Environmental Protection Agency.
– Nick O’Malley, environment editor

Defence & national security

For the past three months, the Pentagon has been rocked by the removals of top military leadership, including its only female four-star officers, its Joint Chiefs chairman – an African-American general – and its top military lawyers.

The defence chief, Pete Hegseth, has been floundering in controversy. He was a key participant in the Signal chat set up by national security adviser Mike Waltz, sending details of sensitive military operations over the non-secure channel. Hegseth also used a second Signal chat to send similar information to a group that included his wife and brother. That was followed by the purge of his top staff.

Trump also issued an executive order to remove transgender service members, which has been stalled by the courts. Hegseth ordered the military to eliminate any programming, books or imagery that celebrate diversity. Social media posts that celebrated military women or cultural diversity are gone.
– AP

Economy & trade

Trump has tried to bend the US economy to his will. But one force is unbowed: the financial markets. The president says his tariffs will eventually be “beautiful”. So far, it’s been a difficult three months with consumer confidence plummeting, sharemarkets convulsing and investors losing confidence in the credibility of Trump’s policies.

He has imposed hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs, including on America’s two largest trading partners, Mexico and Canada. Chinese goods are getting taxed at a combined 145 per cent.

He has rewarded the coal and oil sectors by attacking alternative energy, yet his tariffs pushed up the price of steel and other materials that the energy industry needs to build out production.
– AP

Foreign affairs

Trump has rejected the post-World War II order that has formed the basis for global stability and security. He has rejected long-standing alliances and hinted at scaling back the US troop presence in Europe. Long-time allies, such as Germany and France, have suggested they no longer can depend on Washington.

Trump also pledged a swift end to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, so far to little effect. His actions have led allies in Europe, along with Canada, Japan and South Korea, to question their reliance on the US.

The president has upended other multilateral organisations. And he has in effect shuttered the United States Agency for International Development, long seen as an example of an effective tool to provide humanitarian aid. At the same time, he has repeatedly called for the US to annex Greenland, which is a Danish territory, to retake control of the Panama Canal and to make Canada the 51st US state.
– AP

Immigration

Cracking down on illegal immigration was the anthem of Trump’s campaign, and it is the issue where he has the greatest support. He has followed through by implementing some of the hardest-line immigration policies in the nation’s history, even as the promised mass deportations have yet to materialise.

Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport immigrants with limited due process, then used it to send hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to a mega-prison in El Salvador in defiance of a court order.

The administration pledged to end birthright citizenship for people who were born in the US, while proposing “gold cards” that would allow foreigners to buy American citizenship for $US5 million. Illegal border crossings dropped precipitously.
– AP

Public service

Trump promised to take on what he called waste, fraud and abuse in government. He tapped Elon Musk to lead the effort.

Musk turned his plan for a Department of Government Efficiency into one of the most polarising and consequential pieces of Trump’s first 100 days. The billionaire entrepreneur approached the task with a tech mogul ethos: break things, then see what you want to fix. Firings were widespread and indiscriminate. Programs were eliminated with limited analysis.

It is unlikely that Musk will accomplish his grand-scale goals. His plans for slashing $US1 trillion out of the budget were pared back to $US150 billion.
– AP

Health

At the Department of Health and Human Services, 10,000 jobs are gone. Billions of dollars in research sent to scientists and universities were shut off. Public meetings to discuss flu shots and other vaccines have been cancelled. Fluoride in drinking water may be the next to go, according to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Kennedy’s resistance to launching a vaccination campaign as a growing measles outbreak has worsened, so far infecting hundreds and leaving two young children dead, has elicited concerns from doctors, public health experts and lawmakers.

Those worries deepened after he eliminated thousands of jobs across the nation’s public health agencies, including at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health. The move, department officials projected, would save taxpayers $US1.8 billion ($2.8 billion).
– AP

Social affairs

The president’s promised agenda against “woke” policy swept quickly through the government as DEI programs from the Biden years were halted, and references to diversity in federal communications were purged. This effort extended deep into cultural institutions and well beyond federal DEI hiring and workplace practices.

At the Pentagon, in particular, a messy revisionism ensued as thousands of images on webpages and other online content were flagged for removal. An image of the Enola Gay bomber from World War II was flagged for deletion – because of the word “gay” – as were materials paying tribute to Black and Navajo war heroes and pioneering women. Most of the targeted material ultimately survived. An executive order from Trump on “restoring truth and sanity to American history” forbade federal money to Smithsonian programs that promote “improper ideology”.

Trump campaigned against the participation of transgender athletes in sports and against broader moves in society, especially in Democratic-led jurisdictions, to accommodate views that gender is not inherently binary. He vowed to take on “transgender craziness”. As president, he has signed executive orders to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s teams.

Since returning to office, Trump has also ousted leaders, placed staff on administrative leave and cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in funding that artists, libraries, museums, theatres and others in the cultural community had long counted on.
– AP

Education

Trump’s threats to choke off billions in tax dollars to institutions of higher learning flow from multiple promises in the campaign – to combat antisemitism on campuses, to take on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and to rid campuses of foreign students he considers hostile to American values.

After several other prominent schools signalled their willingness to comply with Trump’s demands, Harvard stood firm against the pressure.

In response, Trump has called for withdrawing Harvard’s tax-exempt status, has threatened to block it from enrolling foreign students – more than a quarter of its enrolments – and has frozen more than $US2 billion ($3.12 billion) in grants and contracts.

But such efforts extend far beyond Harvard. The Trump administration is going after other universities as well and, at least temporarily, ended the legal status of many foreign students at schools across the country.
– AP

Legal affairs

Trump has consistently said he would follow an order from federal judges. But that has not stopped talk of a possible constitutional crisis over defying the courts.

His executive orders reshaping the federal government are facing more than 200 lawsuits on issues from fired federal workers and immigration to transgender rights. Judges have ruled against the administration dozens of times, blocking parts of his agenda for now. The administration has argued that individual judges should not be able to issue nationwide injunctions.

Trump issued an extraordinary call for the impeachment of a federal judge who ruled against him in the case of Venezuelan immigrants accused of being gang members. That prompted a rare rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts.
– AP

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