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Donald Trump signed more executive orders on his first day than his three predecessors combined.
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As the first president to serve a non-consecutive term in over 130 years, Trump has no time to waste.
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His early orders show he’ll upend industries like he did during his first term.
The whirlwind first days of President Donald Trump’s second term have already touched on myriad aspects of American life, from immigration and trade policy to artificial intelligence and the federal workforce.
Trump, much more deliberate in his executive actions compared to the early days of his first term, has had four years to map out the conservative vision he aims to implement before his lame-duck status truly sinks in.
And more change is on the way, especially as Trump sits in the Oval Office alongside a largely compliant GOP-led Congress, one that he’s banking on to pass his policy goals which include tax cuts, curtailing the role of the federal government in schools, and aggressively ramping up fossil fuel production across the country.
Here’s a look at some of Trump’s biggest moves during his first few days back in office.
Tariff threat looms large for companies
Trump’s biggest trade actions so far are what he hasn’t done. Despite long promising a day-1 tariff blitz, he didn’t raise tariffs on Mexico or Canada. Wall Street responded with optimism.
Not so fast. Trump said on Monday he might make major tariff decisions by February 1, reiterating multiple times in recent days that goods from Mexico, Canada, and China could all face tariffs.
“We’re talking about a tariff of 10 percent on China based on the fact that they’re sending fentanyl to Mexico and Canada,” Trump told reporters at an AI event on Thursday.
Some trade policy experts previously told Business Insider that Trump’s tariffs would increase Americans’ costs on everything from products, electronics, and apparel to cars — that’s excluding potential retaliatory tariffs, which during Trump’s first term hit American-made spirits.
Speaking at Davos, Trump extended his threat to virtually any company that doesn’t have US-based manufacturing.
“If you don’t make your product in America, which is your prerogative, then, very simply, you will have to pay a tariff,” Trump said Thursday during a virtual appearance at the World Economic Forum.
Trump also said that if Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t work to end the war in Ukraine, Moscow could face additional sanctions and tariffs. At one point, Trump incorrectly suggested that Spain was part of BRICS and threatened the European Nation with tariffs, which led to confusion in Madrid.
Trump’s immigration crackdown leaves some industries nervous.
Trump took immediate action to follow through on his promise of “mass deportations.” One of the most consequential, an executive order seeking to curtail birthright citizenship, was temporarily blocked by the week’s end.
His plans have long rankled the construction, agricultural hospitality industries, which have some of the highest shares of non-US citizen workers. Homebuilding executives and economists previously told BI that home prices could increase if deportations exacerbate a worker shortage.
The White House moved to send 1,500 US troops to the Southern border. Trump also formally declared the situation at the border a national emergency. He signed further orders that set the stage for a possible invocation of further emergency powers, which would allow service members to be involved in domestic law enforcement.
A top Trump Justice Department official also said that federal prosecutors should look out for state and local officials who refuse to cooperate with immigration policy.
AI investments and a regulation rollback
Trump moved swiftly to stamp his influence on the booming artificial intelligence industry. He repealed President Joe Biden’s sweeping AI executive order on his first day. By Thursday, Trump implemented his own, which called for the administration to create a new plan within 180 days.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk overshadowed the White House’s other major AI announcement, a $500 billion joint investment by OpenAI, Microsoft, and SoftBank called Stargate.
Musk reignited his feud with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, saying that Stargate doesn’t really have the money for such an ambitious project. Trump later said he wasn’t bothered by Musk’s comments. “I have certain hatreds of people, too,” he said.
Trump also said he would use a formal emergency energy declaration to secure more power for AI.
Bringing federal workers back into the office
In one of his first official actions, Trump signed an executive order requiring federal workers to return to their offices full time.
It’s an issue that has especially animated conservatives, who for years have sought to not only reduce the size of the federal workforce, but also consolidate or eliminate departments that they’ve deemed as ineffective.
The push has been heavily backed by DOGE — led by Musk — with the tech mogul last year writing in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that the return to office plan might lead some workers to leave their positions rather than come back to the office.
The language of Trump’s executive order was firm, as he directed department and agency heads to “take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements” while carving out “exemptions they deem necessary.”
Among federal workers, though, many of whom had been working remotely since the COVID-19 pandemic, the return to office mandate has the potential to severely disrupt their households, notably regarding flexibility for handling childcare.
Interestingly, Trump’s push to return federal workers to the nation’s capital has helped District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser forge an unlikely alliance with the president over the issue.
Bowser, a Democrat, has long opposed Trump’s overall governing agenda, but she’s pointed to the remote and hybrid work schedules of federal workers as having put a strain on the city’s tax base. While Trump has often disparaged her city, Bowser is seeking to ally herself with him on the local economy — which in turn could reset a relationship between the two leaders that was strained during the Black Lives Matter protests and after the January 6 attack at the US Capitol.
Cracking down on DEI
While diversity initiatives have existed for decades in several forms, those efforts ramped up considerably after George Floyd‘s murder in May 2020 and the ensuing protests that swept the US and across the world.
In 2020, Biden was elected to the presidency with racial inequity being the top issue for 20% of voters, and that set of voters backed him over Trump 92%-7%, according to CNN exit polling. Many companies bolstered their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts that year and during much of Biden’s presidency, with many institutions committing themselves to bringing about a more diverse workforce.
However, Trump had long railed against the DEI push. And this week, he signed a series of aggressive executive orders on the issue, decrying what he said were Biden’s “forced illegal and immoral discrimination programs.”
Trump’s executive orders, which he contends will bring “merit to government service,” are sweeping in scope, as he demanded that government-run diversity offices close up shop and place their employees on leave. He suspended long-running programs to boost diversity efforts among minorities and women in the federal workplace. And he instructed agencies to compile lists of companies to probe over their DEI efforts — which could cause even more companies to abandon or severely restrict the diversity initiatives that they’d invested in.
The president also went a step further and revoked a 1965 executive order signed by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson which barred federal contractors from discriminating in employment and also instituted affirmative action to bring about equal opportunity in the workplace “without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.”
In revoking the Civil Rights-era executive action, known as Executive Order No. 11246, Trump removed protections that had been in place for 60 years.
Trump boosts the crypto industry and gets in on the game himself
Trump’s made major moves on crypto this week — beginning even before he took office.
Last weekend, both Donald and Melania Trump launched meme-coins, instantly turning the new president into a crypto billionaire in his own right.
He followed that up with a series of policy moves, including establishing a cryptocurrency task force at the Securities and Exchange Commission and signing an executive order establishing crypto as a major policy priority.
Zack Shapiro, head of policy at the Bitcoin Policy Institute, told BI that while the executive order is “mostly aspirational and symbolic,” it points in a “quite bullish” direction for the industry.
Doubling down on drilling is bad news for wind and solar companies
Trump almost immediately declared a national energy emergency, boosting the prospects of the fossil fuel industry.
Fulfilling another campaign promise, Trump rescinded Biden’s electric vehicle targets, which likely would have forced the auto industry to significantly step up production of EVs. Trump joked during the campaign that since Musk endorsed him, he had “no choice” but to support EVs. Musk has previously said he supports ending the federal tax credit for EV buyers because while it would hurt Tesla, its competition would be affected far more.
Trump also doubled down on his long-held opposition to wind energy by issuing an executive order that halts project permits and leases. Some in the industry told HeatMap that existing projects, including large off-shore wind farms off the East Coast, could also be affected.
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