‘Dictator for a day’: Immigration, petroleum exploration to top Trump’s agenda

New York, Jan 19 (IANS/WISHAVWARTA) Campaigning for the US President, Donald Trump brandished several promises and threats for his Day one in office when he said he would be a “dictator” for a day.

He and his aides have prepared a slew of executive orders, and he is expected to sign them at two ceremonies, one at the Capitol after his Monday noon swearing-in, and another later at the Oval Office.

Media reports have suggested that there could be as many as 100 orders.

Immigration and opening up petroleum and gas extraction would be at the top of his Day One agenda, taking care of two issues that were the voters’ concerns.

On the international front, one of his demands, ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza, will go into effect on Sunday just before his threat that there will be “all hell to pay” if it is not sorted out before his inauguration.

Ending the Ukraine War was another priority, and he had boasted that it would end within 24 hours of taking office or before that.

There is no sign of that happening on Day One — or even Week 1.

Trump’s claim to be a dictator on Day One, perhaps made with his non-serious bombast, became a campaign point for Vice-President Kamala Harris who lost the election.

In an interview, a Fox News host Sean asked him if he was going to be a dictator, and Trump said, “No, no, no, other than Day 1. We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.”

On the immigration agenda, Trump’s Border Czar Tom Homan said Friday night on Fox News that “there’s going to be a big raid across the country” against criminal illegal immigrants.

Trump’s original — or literal –- threat to deport all the illegal migrants estimated to number more than 11 million (including about 725,000 Indians) will be a logistical impossibility, so the focus will be on those with criminal records.

Homan said that on Tuesday, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) “is finally going to go out and do their job” and will be allowed to “go arrest criminal aliens”.

This action would bring the Trump administration into direct conflict with some of the Democratic-run cities like New York and Chicago which have declared themselves to be sanctuary cities and some states like Illinois that have laws protecting illegal migrants from federal agencies.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said the state had laws to protect undocumented migrants and Pritzker said, “I am going to make sure to follow the law.”

Trump has said that he would decisively close the border to asylum-seekers, requiring those wanting asylum to apply outside the country.

He also said that he would end birthright citizenship — giving anyone born in the US, regardless of their parents’ immigration status, the right to become a citizen.

But that would require a constitutional amendment, a long drawn-out process.

Trump sees increased energy production as the way to reduce prices because energy costs make up a significant portion of the production and transportation costs.

His Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt has said that within moments of taking over, he would “expedite permits” for drilling and for fracking, a method of extracting natural gas.

Proactively in a series of last-minute orders, Biden banned offshore drilling in coastal waters and extended areas in the Arctic where drilling is prohibited.

Trump will be undoing them.

A climate change skeptic, he will also undo some Biden edicts like those mandating that 50 per cent of all vehicles sold should be electric by 2030.

The far-right of his political base will be looking for his Day One promise to pardon those who took part in the January 6, 2021, riots aiming to stop the Congressional certification of President Joe Biden’s election.

After hearing Trump say at a rally that he was the real winner of the 2020 election and it was being stolen from him, some of his supporters broke into the Capitol to stop the certification.

Some of them have been convicted, including of violent acts, and others await trial.

Trump views tariffs — customs duties on imports — as holding the key to increasing domestic manufacturing and creating jobs, while also bringing down the foreign exchange deficit.

But above all, for him, it is a foreign policy tool for coercion.

He has warned that one of his first executive orders would clamp a 25 per cent tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico because of their “open borders”.

This gives them the option to comply with his — as yet — vague conditions for closing the border, and to avoid chaos in the market, there would likely be a transition before they are collected.

He said in an interview with Time magazine that he would be looking into it within “maybe the first nine minutes”.

Make in America was one of the priorities in Trump’s first administration and he said that he would relaunch it starting with the auto industry on Day one.

Another economy-related Day one agenda, some reports said may be setting up a national cryptocurrency reserve.

On the social front, his Day one priorities, Trump said, included scrapping Trump’s rules allowing boys who say they are transgender to use girls bathrooms in schools and vice-versa, and ending federal funding for schools that have, according to him, “inappropriate” curriculum dealing with transgender, race sex, and politics.