‘The golden age of America has begun": Donald Trump, at the height of his political powers, gave his second term in office a nationalistic and vengeful tone on Monday.
‘God saved me so that I could make America great again’, declared the 45th (2017-2021) and now 47th President of the United States, in reference to an assassination attempt against him this summer.
‘The decline of America is over’, assured the Republican, who at 78 is the oldest American president ever inaugurated, promising to tackle a “corrupt and radical elite”.
Surrounded by tech billionaires and figures from the global far right during his swearing-in ceremony on Capitol Hill, he made some spectacular initial announcements, some of which will be difficult to implement.
The Republican leader, accompanied throughout the day by his wife Melania Trump, her face covered by a wide-brimmed hat, then staged the signing of the first decrees.
He did not sign them in the solemn setting of the Oval Office, but in front of some 20,000 overexcited supporters gathered in a Washington hall.
To standing ovations, he promised to pardon people convicted of storming the headquarters of the US Congress on 6 January 2021, whom he described as ‘hostages’, later in the day.
The crowd had turned out that day to try and prevent the certification of Joe Biden's election after he had whipped them into a frenzy by claiming that the ballot had been ‘rigged’. He repeated this false accusation several times on Monday.
Suggesting that his advisers had led him to soften the already aggressive tone of his inaugural speech, he launched into one of the disjointed and violent speeches that have been a feature of his campaign.
Donald Trump, who now has the unconditional support of the Republican Party, attacked, in no particular order, the unsuccessful Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, wind turbines and the justice system ‘instrumentalised’ against him before winning the White House for the start of his second term.
His first decisions relate to illegal immigration, or aim to dismantle the Biden administration's policies on gender and the environment.
A state of emergency on the border with Mexico will be declared in order to mobilise the army. The former property developer and reality TV host wants to launch a ‘process to remove millions and millions of criminal aliens’.
Having promised to put an end to ‘transgender delirium’, he will also order the federal state to ‘recognise’ the existence of only ‘two sexes’.
Another campaign promise, the Republican wants to declare a state of ‘energy emergency’ to boost US oil and gas production. The United States will also once again withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
Donald Trump, who undermined the traditional alliances of the world's leading power during his first stint in the White House, has taken on a clearly imperialist tone.
In his inaugural speech, he promised to ‘plant (the American flag) on the planet Mars’. He also vowed to ‘take back’ the Panama Canal.
Shortly after midday (Washington time), Donald Trump took an oath to ‘protect the Constitution’ under the dome of the Capitol.
The ceremony is usually held outdoors, but the protocol was changed because of the bitter cold in Washington.
Author of the most extraordinary political ‘comeback’ in recent American history, the only American president ever to have been convicted of a criminal offence chose for his first official portrait a photograph that bears a striking resemblance to his ‘mugshot’, his famous mugshot taken last summer in Georgia (south-east).
His predecessor Joe Biden complied with all the customs of a courteous transition, but at the last minute the 82-year-old Democrat granted preventive pardons to certain members of his family and to several political figures.
The aim was to protect them from a possible legal vendetta led by Donald Trump.
The Republican, who revels in the atmosphere of presidential meetings and pomp, but quickly becomes impatient with the sometimes tedious realities of power, must now complete his major projects.
He has already come up against limits. Donald Trump did not impose heavy customs duties on several foreign countries on the first day, as he had promised, postponing these decisions until later.
With AFP.
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