Trump 2.0: What to expect
Donald Trump’s return to the White House marks a significant shift in US domestic and international policy. His first-day executive orders signal dramatic changes across multiple domains: withdrawal from global institutions like WHO and the Paris Agreement, aggressive immigration enforcement, elimination of diversity initiatives and reversal of environmental protections. Unlike his first term, Trump enters office with stronger establishment support and enhanced political leverage. While his agenda faces potential resistance through legal challenges, civil society action and state-level initiatives, the impacts of these policy changes could reshape US politics and society and the world beyond.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House is having far-reaching global repercussions. His second presidential transition offers a dramatic contrast with his first term: Trump entered office in 2017 as a political outsider amid protests and corporate hesitancy, but now enjoys unprecedented establishment embrace and enhanced political leverage. This is evidenced by record-breaking inauguration fundraising, with major donations from tech giants Google, Meta, Microsoft and Uber, as well as defence contractors Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
The transition team took a more disciplined approach while maintaining Trump’s confrontational agenda. His campaign chief now serves as White House Chief of Staff, leading a core team of Trump loyalists including millionaires and media personalities. ‘Disruptors’ have been appointed to key positions: Robert F Kennedy Jr, who doesn’t believe in vaccines, leads Health and Human Services and billionaire Elon Musk, who doesn’t believe in government but expects to benefit from giant government contracts, heads a new ‘government efficiency commission’ that he proposed. A late-night purge of independent inspectors general across major federal agencies, the majority of whom were first-term Trump appointees, suggested a sweeping effort to install even more loyal oversight officials.
In an inaugural address delivered before tech CEOs including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai, Trump promised a ‘complete restoration of America’ and a new ‘golden age’ complete with the dramatic promise of planting the US flag on Mars.
True to his campaign statement that he would be a ‘dictator for one day’, in his first day in office Trump signed a barrage of executive orders. He commuted 14 sentences and issued some 1,500 pardons for people charged in connection with the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol, directing the Department of Justice to dismiss ongoing cases. Ardent Trump supporters convicted for serious crimes are now on the loose, potentially ready to defend their president again, certain they’ll enjoy total impunity.
Other early announcements have shown a strong continuity with the first Trump term, with a heavy focus on immigration and border security and antagonism towards global governance institutions. Under the ‘America First’ banner, the previous Trump administration established a pattern of confrontation with international institutions and traditional US allies, withdrawing from the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council, the Paris Agreement and the Iran nuclear deal, abandoning Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations and placing sanctions on International Criminal Court officials investigating potential US war crimes in Afghanistan. But the approach was also transactional, providing financial support when it saw value in an institution’s work. This seems likely to continue.
What’s been different this time is the pace. Trump may try to avoid the fate of ‘lame duck’ second-term presidents by floating the idea of a constitutional reform enabling another re-election, but right now the strategy seems to be to achieve maximum impact in the shortest possible time, with one package of measures after another launched since his first hours in office. The only conspicuously absent measures are the broad tariffs on imports he campaigned on as a supposedly miraculous cure for people’s economic woes. So far, he’s only wielded tariffs as political weapons, threatening them against Colombia when its president refused to receive deportees.
Trump’s inaugural address has already emboldened international allies such as Argentina’s President Javier Milei to further embrace the anti-progressive agenda, even adding elements such as anti-immigration and xenophobia that were initially absent. His first week in office offers clues of what his second term may look like across multiple policy domains. Whether he’ll be able to impose his agenda will largely depend on whether effective checks and balances come into play – in the form of judicial pushback, civil society oversight and grassroots resistance.
Global governance and security
Trump’s decision to withdraw the USA from the World Health Organization (WHO) signals broader challenges for the UN system. Trump has long criticised the organisation’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and other international health crises, accusing it of having ‘ripped us off’. As the WHO’s largest financial contributor, US withdrawal will create immediate operational challenges.
Trump’s hostility extends far beyond the WHO, suggesting a potential assault on multilateral institutions, and particularly the UN system, where he’ll likely use threats of funding cuts as leverage. The UN system is already under strain, and US funding cuts would severely constrain the operations of human rights bodies, the UN Development Programme, humanitarian agencies such as the Refugee Agency and World Food Programme and peacekeeping missions, potentially destabilising conflict zones and humanitarian corridors. Authoritarian states such as China may take the opportunity to claim the global space left by the USA and enhance their influence.
Global security arrangements could also see profound shifts. While withdrawal from NATO appears unlikely, Trump has repeatedly accused European allies of not pulling their weight in the alliance and demanded significantly increased defence spending from them. Currently, 23 of 30 NATO members meet the two per cent GDP guideline for military spending, which Trump has threatened to raise to up to five per cent.
A critical test will come from Ukraine. Having failed to keep his promise to end the war in 24 hours, Trump is expected to push aggressively for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. This could involve significant pressure on Ukraine to make territorial concessions, potentially including formal recognition of Russian control over Crimea and vast parts of eastern Ukraine.
In the Middle East, Trump’s return comes at a critical juncture. Asked about the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that he contributed to brokering, Trump expressed a lack of confidence, although also suggested his administration ‘might’ help rebuild Gaza, if only for its ‘phenomenal’ location and weather. The Trump administration’s broader approach to the region appears to favour maximum pressure on Iran and close cooperation with Israel and the Gulf states in shaping a post-conflict Gaza.
Foreign aid and international development
Shortly after inauguration day, the State Department directed all diplomatic and consular posts to halt aid spending pending review by the Secretary of State. This followed a day-one executive order that established a 90-day pause, justified on the argument that foreign aid is misaligned with the ‘America First’ agenda.
The scope of this policy change extends beyond funding freezes. Ahead of inauguration day, USAID employees were instructed to cease all public communications about their work, creating an unprecedented information vacuum around US development activities. This communication blackout suggests a broader restructuring of US engagement with international development partners and aid recipients.
The blanket stop-work orders will starve civil society of much-needed resources and disrupt ongoing humanitarian action and development projects that already face operational challenges. They’ll affect the most vulnerable people in some countries of Africa and the Middle East who depend on US-funded healthcare, including HIV/AIDS treatment, education, food, security and refugee support services.
Imperialism and territorial ambitions
What The Economist has dubbed the ‘Trump Doctrine’ represents a fundamental shift in US geopolitical strategy, towards an agenda of direct geostrategic control over North America and its adjacent waters. In the weeks before taking office, Trump articulated ambitious territorial goals including the acquisition of Greenland, incorporation of Canada as the 51st US state and recovery of control of the Panama Canal. Once inaugurated, he made symbolic gestures through an executive order changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the ‘Gulf of America’ and reverting Alaska’s Mount Denali to Mount McKinley.
Shortly after Trump put Greenland under the spotlight, his eldest son’s visit to Greenland’s capital Nuuk, though characterised as a ‘personal day trip’, signalled a serious interest in the Arctic territory, whose strategic importance is growing due to climate change melting ice, creating new shipping routes from the North Sea to China via Iceland, Greenland, Canada and the Bering Strait.
Trump’s geopolitical vision appears driven by growing rivalries between major powers, China’s expanding influence over maritime trade routes and Russia’s demonstrated willingness to expand territorial control through military means. The notion of a rules-based international order is in danger of giving way to the principle that might is right.
Immigration and border policy
Several first-day executive orders focused on immigration and asylum policies. The declaration of a ‘national emergency at the southern border’ enables the Trump administration to deploy to the border the US Northern Command, normally used for domestic disaster relief.
The suspension of all entries along the US-Mexico border mirrors the previous Title 42 rule that the first Trump administration embraced during the pandemic, though now justified through a declaration of invasion rather than public health concerns. The new administration also reinstated the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy of the first Trump presidency, despite previous court rulings questioning its legality, and cancelled the CBP One mobile app introduced by the Biden administration to process applications, immediately affecting 30,000 people with appointments. It also suspended the refugee resettlement programme, particularly affecting Afghan families awaiting relocation. Additionally, it rescinded the family reunification taskforce, even though 1,400 children who were victims of family separations during the first Trump presidency are still separated from their parents.
The inauguration day orders instructed immigration authorities to detain people ‘to the fullest extent permitted by law’, with the likely effect of increasing the number of people held in detention facilities in conditions that courts and experts have found to be ‘barbaric’ and unconstitutional. The expansion of expedited removal provisions will also allow immigration officials to deport people without judicial review if they can’t prove they’ve been in the country for at least two years. New agreements authorising state and local law enforcement to carry out federal immigration enforcement will further expand enforcement capabilities.
Mass immigration raids may be imminent. Although the 11 million deportations promised by the campaign are practically unfeasible and economically undesirable, bringing recessionary impacts that would conflict with other election promises, a campaign of live TV raids and deportations can be expected that will cause enormous suffering to hundreds of thousands of people.
The executive orders’ use of ‘invasion’ rhetoric echoes the white supremacist ‘great replacement’ conspiracy theory and raises concerns about the potential for increased violence against migrants. The designation of cartels and gangs as terrorist organisations, the subject of another first-day executive order, could well be used as grounds for expulsion if people are accused of having interacted with these groups.
The implementation of the new policies began right away, with the first iterations of what Trump promised would be the ‘largest deportation programme in American history’, based on the conflation of illegal immigration with criminality.
Trump has also announced the end of birthright citizenship for children born to undocumented immigrants or temporary visitors. Set to take effect in 30 days, this decision faces immediate legal challenges given its obvious conflict with the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that, by denying citizenship to children of mixed-status parents, this policy could increase the undocumented population to 25 million by 2050.
Environmental and climate policy
Trump’s first-day decisions on climate and the environment will be among the most consequential. The centrepiece was the announcement of US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, which would make the USA, again, the only major state outside this legally binding international treaty.
At a critical time for emissions reduction efforts, the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C becomes significantly more challenging without the participation of the world’s second-largest carbon emitter. Current pledges already fall short, and US withdrawal could encourage others to reduce their commitments or slow their transition efforts, potentially triggering a cascade effect among global south states that premise their climate commitments on support from global north states.
The scope of Trump’s anti-environment agenda became clear through his declaration of a national energy emergency, enabling his administration to cut through environmental regulation and fast-track permits for fossil fuel infrastructure. The executive order promotes fossil fuel production on federal lands and waters, ends federal support for electric vehicles and eliminates climate considerations in regulatory decisions. Through a separate order focusing on Alaska, the government will seek increased drilling and extraction.
The new administration suspended all offshore wind leasing and imposed an assessment of wind turbines’ environmental impacts on wildlife and the cost implications of intermittent electricity generation. It also revoked a 2021 executive order aimed at ensuring half of all new vehicles sold in the USA by 2030 were electric.
Trump’s day-one orders also dismantled climate-related initiatives across government agencies, including the Climate Change Support Office established by the Biden administration. The new administration ordered reviews of all regulations that consider climate impacts, potentially affecting everything from infrastructure planning to international development assistance.
Trump’s policies could add 0.3°C to global temperatures. At the same time, withdrawal from the Paris Agreement may spur on others to do more. Many US states and cities have their own climate commitments, and several major states, including California and New York, have pledged to accelerate their clean energy transitions in direct response to federal withdrawal. Sub-national efforts, combined with private sector initiatives at a time when alternative energies are becoming more cost-effective, could at least partially offset federal policy changes.
Technology
The new administration’s approach to technology reflects a mix of personal relationships, business interests and policy preferences. Its defining feature is the elevated role of Musk, who contributed an estimated US$200 million to Trump’s campaign and is expected to hold significant influence through both the Department of Government Efficiency and space policy initiatives. Trump’s inaugural pledge to reach Mars matched the objectives of Musk’s company SpaceX. The close relationship between the world’s most powerful man and its wealthiest has drawn criticism of apparent conflicts of interest, particularly given Musk’s ownership of X, the extremely influential social media platform that he has skewed rightwards and used to spread disinformation favouring Trump.
Under Trump, the tech industry will enjoy reduced federal oversight but will experience growing public distrust and concerns about information integrity. Beyond the clash of personalities that sooner or later is bound to happen, tensions have also emerged over skilled worker immigration policies, highlighting conflicts between tech industry needs and populist policy priorities.
Race, gender and diversity
Sweeping first-day executive orders fundamentally altered the US federal government’s approach to gender, diversity and civil rights protections. At the heart of these changes lies Trump’s explicit aim to end what his inaugural speech described as policies ‘trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life’ in favour of a ‘colorblind and merit-based’ society. The cornerstone of these changes was the revocation of 78 Biden-era executive actions, including at least a dozen supporting racial equity and combating discrimination against gay and transgender people. The immediate effect will be to reinforce barriers for historically excluded groups.
Through an executive order cynically titled ‘Defending women from gender ideology extremism’, the Trump administration declared as official federal policy the recognition of only two biological sexes and the rejection of the concept of gender identity. The decision mandates widespread changes to government identification documents, federal forms and agency communications. It requires the removal of existing gender identity-related policies and guidance, affecting everything from domestic violence shelters to prisons, while prohibiting federal funds from being used to promote so-called ‘gender ideology’.
Trump also launched what critics describe as a ‘death blow’ to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programmes throughout the federal government. He revoked the 1965 executive order that directed federal contractors to take ‘affirmative action’ to end discrimination – a policy that survived successive Democratic and Republican administrations for almost 60 years. Trump ordered the closure of federal diversity offices, placed their workers on administrative leave and suspended dozens of longstanding programmes aimed at minorities and women.
In line with the executive order, the Justice Department was directed to identify public companies for investigation over their DEI policies and put pressure on companies with DEI programmes. The State Department warned officials they could face ‘adverse consequences’ for failing to report colleagues who might continue or conceal existing DEI programmes. Similar directives were issued across departments, although some civil rights programmes mandated by law remained in place.
Similar policy shifts are apparent in the new administration’s approach to women’s health and reproductive rights, as reflected in the immediate removal of the HHS ReproductiveRights.gov website and the appointment of key health officials who are expected to work together to make abortion services more difficult to access. The reinstatement of the global gag rule, which restricts US foreign assistance to organisations providing or advocating for legal abortion services, means regression will make itself felt beyond US borders.
Resistance is on
Trump’s ability to implement his agenda will largely depend on the extent to which checks and balances are effectively applied across multiple sectors of society. At the institutional level, civil rights organisations and state attorneys general are already filing legal challenges to executive orders that violate legal and constitutional protections, such as the birthright citizenship order and the military deployment order.
State and local governments have a critical role to play in protecting progressive policies. States should strengthen their environmental regulations and climate commitments to counter federal rollbacks, while cities should maintain and strengthen sanctuary policies for migrants in the face of federal immigration enforcement pressures. These subnational efforts should be coordinated with private sector initiatives, with companies working to maintain their environmental commitments and diversity programmes regardless of federal policy changes. Business leaders should speak out about the consequences of climate policy reversals.
Civil society will come under strain as the USA’s civic space becomes more restricted. There may be a need to shift from an emphasis on mass mobilisations to more targeted approaches that combine legal action, economic pressure and sustained community organising. Climate activists should prioritise blocking specific infrastructure projects and advancing local policies, while racial justice organisations should focus on building long-term coalitions to pursue structural change. Civil rights groups should continue to resist voter suppression through mobilisation and litigation, while working to counter disinformation about the electoral process, reproductive rights and minority rights. Unions and workers’ organisations should explore strategic strikes and workplace actions, particularly in industries affected by Trump’s policies, with particular attention on protecting federal workers facing restructuring and immigrant workers facing increased enforcement.
Universities and research institutions have a special responsibility to maintain scientific integrity and data accessibility, particularly in the areas of climate change and environmental monitoring. They should maintain their commitments to diversity in the face of federal pressure and develop policy alternatives that can be implemented at state and local levels. Meanwhile, journalists and media organisations will function in an increasingly hostile federal environment. They will need to strengthen their investigative skills and develop new approaches to fact-checking and accountability reporting.
The international community must maintain global cooperation while organising to deal with a less predictable USA. International organisations should reform their funding mechanisms to reduce dependence on US contributions and develop frameworks for multilateral cooperation that can function effectively without US participation.
The effectiveness of these responses will depend on sustained coordination and a strategic focus on tangible outcomes rather than purely symbolic actions. A robust framework of resistance to preserve democratic institutions and progressive politics is urgently needed. Failure to develop it will have consequences far beyond US borders.
OUR CALLS FOR ACTION
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Civil society should build rapid response networks combining legal aid, community protection and resource sharing to defend communities under threat from federal policies.
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State and local governments should form multi-state coalitions to maintain environmental and climate standards, voting rights and sanctuary policies in the face of federal rollbacks.
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Media outlets should strengthen investigative journalism capabilities and develop new models for fact-checking and accountability reporting while protecting their sources.
For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org
Cover photo by Jim Watson/Pool/AFP via Getty Images