Good morning. Donald Trump returns to the White House with a long to-do list for today – more on that below, along with the kickoff to Davos and Canadian artists’ real estate crunch. But first:
Today’s headlines
- Israel releases 90 Palestinian prisoners and Hamas releases three Israeli hostages as part of the ceasefire deal
- Freeland pitches herself as fighter ready for Trump, while Carney nets Joly’s endorsement in the Liberal leadership race
- TikTok thanks Trump as it begins restoring service in the U.S.
Donald Trump signs an executive order in 2019.Alex Brandon/The Associated Press
U.S. Politics
A tall order
Today, after taking his oath of office inside the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on the coldest inauguration day in 40 years, Donald Trump will retreat to the President’s Room, Sharpie in hand. There, he’s pledged to sign a raft of executive orders – as many as 100, according to some Republican allies – on everything from immigration, trade, and the climate to culture wars and a stockpile of cryptocurrency. Then he’ll meet congressional leaders for lunch.
Just how many executive orders Trump will manage today is unclear: He’s talked a big game about his first day in office, but eight years ago, he only issued two orders, freezing federal regulations and providing unspecified relief from Obamacare. (In 2021, Joe Biden signed 17, mostly reversing his predecessor’s agenda on the pandemic, the border, and the environment.) So what has Trump promised to do? And how likely is it to happen before midnight? Let’s take a look.
The plausible
Executive orders allow presidents to make policy outside the typical congressional process, provided those directives have basis in existing laws and constitutional authority. Technically, the U.S. Constitution gives Congress power over foreign trade, but plenty of laws enable the president to levy tariffs to protect national security; that’s how Trump justified his 2018 tariffs on steel and aluminum from Canada. Declaring a national economic emergency – which he’s evidently been mulling – would give Trump broad authority to impose the sweeping tariffs on Canada and Mexico that he repeatedly vowed for Day One.
Tariffs were on the agenda at last week's first ministers meeting in Ottawa.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
He’s promised lots of red-meat orders for the MAGA crowd, as well: immediate actions to eliminate DEI initiatives in federal agencies, scrap protections for transgender students, pull the U.S. out of the World Health Organization, and pardon some – or perhaps all – of the insurrectionists from Jan. 6. In an interview last month with Time, Trump said pardons would begin “the first hour I get into office”; later in the conversation, he revised the schedule to “the first nine minutes.” He also swore to fire special counsel Jack Smith “within two seconds” of taking office, but Smith scratched that item off Trump’s to-do list by resigning 10 days ago.
Speaking of seconds: Incoming press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News that Trump would sign executive orders “to drill, baby, drill” the instant he arrives at the Oval Office. That could mean expediting permits for drilling and fracking, rolling back Biden’s environmental protections, and getting rid of windmills – or, at least, ditching the offshore wind energy projects along the East Coast.
The questionable
Many of Trump’s day one promises cannot happen with the stroke of a pen. He spoke often on the campaign trail of sealing the border with Mexico, as he did under Title 42 early in the pandemic, but the policy requires a public health emergency, and there isn’t an infectious disease right now that justifies its use. (The New York Times reported that Trump’s advisers, undaunted, have spent months looking at tuberculosis and other respiratory illnesses to try to build a case.)
Another adviser, Stephen Miller, told Fox News that the much-touted mass deportations would begin “the moment President Trump puts his hand on that Bible and takes the oath of office.” But that program is short on details and long on logistical, financial, and legal hurdles. Trump’s administration would need to identify and arrest millions of potential deportees, detain them all, litigate their cases before immigration judges, then send them to countries willing to receive them. The massive immigration-courts backlog alone makes it a challenge.
Ending birthright citizenship? Not without overturning the 14th Amendment. Axing the “woke” Department of Education? Not without a Senate supermajority. Settling the war between Ukraine and Russia “in 24 hours,” as Trump pledged three separate times in a single CNN town hall? He’s already walked back that one. In his Jan. 7 Mar-a-Lago press conference – amid the threats to seize Greenland and annex Canada through economic force – Trump floated a different timeline. Now he’s hoping to wrap up the war in six months.
That’s not to say Trump’s day one promises won’t translate into very real policies with very real consequences for the U.S. – and the world. But it’s hard to know at any given moment what the incoming president has in mind. In an NBC interview last month, he was asked to guarantee that American families won’t pay more as a result of his tariffs. “I can’t guarantee anything,” Trump said. “I can’t guarantee tomorrow.” So we will see what today brings.
The Shot
‘It’s a creative no-brainer.’
A performance at Montreal’s Bain Mathieu, a former bathhouse.Andree Lanthier/Imago Theatre/Supplied
Soaring real estate costs are squeezing Canadian artists out of their performance and rehearsal spaces – but organizations have come up with some inventive workarounds. Read more about the work to save their spaces here.
The Week
What we’re following
Today: The World Economic Forum gets under way in Davos – Donald Trump will join virtually on Wednesday – with the risks of armed conflict at the top of the agenda.
Tomorrow: Statistics Canada releases its inflation report for December, and economists consider whether to still bank on a quarter-point rate cut later this month.
Thursday: After two postponements because of the L.A. wildfires, the Oscars announce their 2025 nominations at 8:30 am ET.
Thursday: NASA astronaut Suni Williams – who’s been stuck on the International Space Station since June – ventures outside for a spacewalk.
Sunday: Belarus holds its presidential election, which will almost certainly extend the three-decade rule of authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko. Opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has asked Canada to reject its legitimacy.