He certainly lost no time in getting to work.
President Trump promised a flurry of activity on his first day as America’s 47th president. What he delivered was more like a storm. We’ve put together a roundup of some of his biggest moves, below.
Pardoned the Capitol Rioters
Trump pardoned about 1,500 people charged in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and commuted the sentences of Oath Keepers and Proud Boys leaders, who were convicted of seditious conspiracy.
The New York Times reported that supporters gathered outside the D.C. jail that became a focal point for detainees, dancing to a YMCA remix. Micki Witthoeft, the mother of an Air Force veteran who police shot dead as rioters broke into the Capitol building, explained that gatherings usually commenced with a roll call of everyone who was detained that day. She said they were skipping it on this occasion, as “everyone’s getting out.”
Withdrew from the WHO and the Paris Climate Agreement
Per his campaign pledge, Trump rebooted his efforts to withdraw the U.S. from the World Health Organization — a process he began during his first term that Presiden Biden reversed when he came into office. The U.S. is the WHO’s biggest donor, and contributes about $130 million annually to support its efforts to cover global health preparedness, combat HIV, manage childhood vaccinations, and battle serious disease.
Trump also moved to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement, a treaty signed by nearly 200 countries to combat global climate change. 2024 was the hottest year on record, and breached the critical global warming threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius that countries vowed to avoid in the Paris Agreement.
Took aim at climate reforms, DEI measures, voting access and more
Trump revoked 78 of President Biden’s policies, including ones aimed at combating Covid-19, advancing racial equity, restoring science to tackle the climate crisis, promoting access to voting, eliminating discrimination at schools, and many more. He also signed an executive order that aims to end birthright citizenship.
Trump signed an executive order declaring that the U.S. will only recognize two sexes, male and female, “restoring biological truth to the federal government” under the administration’s “restoring sanity” agenda. He signed another that will end “radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing.”
He also declared a federal hiring freeze and an end to government employees working from home while the new Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, gets underway overhauling the federal government.
Threatened tariffs
During his Oval Office signing ceremony, Trump said he’d impose tariffs on Mexico and Canada — two of the United States’ three biggest trading partners — on February 1. Judge Glock, director of research and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank, told CNN that such a step would “create a self-inflicted wound on America’s own economy.”
The U.S. imported $475 billion of goods from Mexico and $418 billion from Canada in 2024. Both countries would likely impose retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. should Trump follow through with his threat, a cost that will likely be passed on to American consumers.
Delayed the TikTok ban
Trump signed an executive order delaying the enforcement of the U.S. TikTok ban by 75 days. The Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act passed with broad bipartisan support, and required that unless the platform sells to the U.S., or a U.S. ally, it must be banned in the United States from January 19, 2025.
