US Inauguration: Full List of 14 Things Donald Trump Has Promised To Do On His First Day in Office

Donald Trump, President-elect of the United States (US), is on the cusp of returning to the White House, with his inauguration ceremony on Monday, January 20.

Recall that Trump told Republican senators that he is preparing around 100 executive orders for the first day of his presidency, designed to strike swiftly at the heart of the Joe Biden administration’s legislative agenda.

Here are the main promises Trump has said he would roll out on Day One of his presidency.

1) Fishing rights

The Washington Post notes Trump has also repeatedly suggested he wants to ease commercial fishing regulations on his first day in office, as the president-elect reportedly met with fishermen about their concerns with losing fishing rights in various areas that have environmental protections in place.

2) Biden executive orders

Trump vowed in his interview with TIME to broadly undo steps Biden took while in office, saying, “I can undo almost everything Biden did … through executive order. And on day one, much of that will be undone.”

3) Technology

Trump said at a 2023 campaign rally he wants to rescind President Joe Biden’s executive order that imposed guardrails on the use of artificial intelligence on day one, Politico reports, and has vowed to issue an executive order that would ban federal agencies from working with any companies “to censor, limit, categorize, or impede” people’s speech and ban federal money from being spent on any efforts related to combating misinformation or disinformation.

4) Immigration

Trump wants to kick off his mass deportations of undocumented immigrants on his first day in office, saying he “will launch the largest deportation program in American history” right after taking power, along with other anticipated moves on immigration like closing the border to undocumented immigrants, undoing Biden-era immigration policies and restoring a travel ban on people from certain predominantly-Muslim countries.

5) Climate change

Trump has vowed to again pull the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement, with sources cited by The Wall Street Journal saying a draft of that order is ready and waiting for him to sign, and has said he wants to repeal the climate change-centric Inflation Reduction Act that Congress passed in 2022, though he cannot unilaterally repeal federal legislation.

6) Electric vehicles

Trump also wants to get rid of what he terms the Biden administration’s “electric vehicle mandate,” referring to new pollution standards that incentivize auto manufacturers to increase production of electric and lower-emission vehicles—though while Trump has repeatedly vowed to get rid of the policy on his first day, he acknowledged to podcaster Joe Rogan the move could take “maybe two days, because it’s a little bit busy.”

7) TikTok

Trump says he will sign an executive order on Inauguration Day to delay a ban on TikTok that took effect Sunday, January 19, 2025, saying he wants to “make a deal to protect our national security,” possibly by shifting the social media platform to a joint venture between its current owners—China-based ByteDance—and new U.S.-based investors.

8) No tax on tips

Trump has called for ending income taxes on tipped income, saying in June he would make that change “right away, first thing in office,” though that would likely require an act of Congress.

9) Education

Trump said at a rally in August he wants to stop any schools from getting federal funding that teach “critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content,” as well as schools with vaccine or mask mandates—though such spending decisions likely couldn’t be accomplished without Congress.

10) Tariffs

Trump has long promised to impose steep tariffs on imported goods from other countries—despite economists’ warnings that doing so would hurt American consumers—and announced in November one of the first orders he will issue as president will impose 25% tariffs on all imports from Canada and Mexico, also vowing to levy an additional 10% tariff on Chinese imports on top of other tariffs.

11) Federal workforce

Trump has said he wants to reissue an executive order he initially imposed during his first term, known as “Schedule F,” that makes it easier to fire career civil servants—as he and his allies have advocated for ousting federal workers who disagree with the president-elect’s political agenda.

12) Energy

Trump has prioritised increasing oil production during his second term—saying “drill, baby, drill”—and suggested he could take steps on his first day to rescind Biden-era regulations curbing oil drilling; he’s also said he wants to roll back efforts on renewable energy and stop offshore wind projects, as the president-elect has railed against windmill farms.

13) January 6 pardons

The Biden-era Justice Department has prosecuted hundreds of participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the Capitol building, and Trump told TIME he would start looking at the rioters’ cases in his “first nine minutes” in office—though while Trump said he wants to pardon the “vast majority,” whom he believes are nonviolent offenders, he’s going to examine the defendants on a “case-by-case” basis and wants to see “if there’s some that really were out of control.”

14) Birthright citizenship

Trump has also vowed to end birthright citizenship—meaning anyone born in the U.S. automatically gaining citizenship—on his first day, acknowledging in an interview with NBC News that doing so may not be possible, given it’s a right enshrined in the Constitution, but saying he wants to undo it via executive action “if we can.”

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