This week’s edition of Teen Politics: Weekly Politics Unpacked, for the first and likely last time, delves into American politics, covering the first few days of Trump’s 2nd presidency, explaining the most significant and classically-Trump of everything he has managed to squeeze in already. Recognising it would be impossible for me to note everything Trump has done, I encourage you to watch Trump’s inauguration speech and read Robert Reich’s article on how to resist his neofascism, before ending with a way for you to call on Meta and TikTok to stop taking down abortion information.
Trump’s Back…
On Monday 20th January, the day many had been dreading arrived, and Donald Trump once again became the President of the United States of America. On one hand, this means I have to tread into the sphere of American politics, which I intentionally very rarely do. But I’m also predicting it will mean there’s no chance we run out of news stories over the next 4 years. And as you’ll see, if the first few days of his presidency are anything to go by, I’m quite confident in my prediction.
“If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned”
These were the now rather ironic words of Vice President JD Vance not too long ago, talking about the January 6th rioters. Sensibly, this aligned with the fact only 2 in 10 Americans approve of their pardoning, as found by a recent Associated Press survey. But on Monday, one of Trump’s first executive orders gave pardons to the almost 1600 January 6th rioters, although this stopped short of monetary compensation which had been demanded by some prisoners. Justifying his actions on Tuesday at the White House, Trump claimed:
“These people have already served years in prison, and they’ve served them viciously.
It’s a disgusting prison. It’s been horrible. It’s inhumane. It’s been a terrible, terrible thing.”
Also, shortly after taking office, an emergency at the US-Mexico border was declared by Trump, which means more US military personnel can be deployed to the area. As a part of this crackdown on immigration, Trump has realistically in all but name closed the country to all new asylum-seekers, also suspending resettlement flights for refugees which have already been approved.
The New York Times has reportedly obtained an internal Department of Homeland Security memo signed by Benjamine Huffman, the acting homeland security secretary, which suggests a desire to quickly deport immigrants who entered the USA under some of the legal routes established previously by Biden. This directive grants unprecedented authority to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, instructing them to identify immigrants who have been in the country for over a year and have not yet applied for asylum, in effect sidestepping traditional immigration court proceedings. This would lead to significantly sped up deportations for immigrants who entered the country with government authorization through two important Biden-era programs. Capitalising on this, yesterday, Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary, put on X:
“Deportation flights have begun”
Later on Friday, the Trump administration announced further developments, allowing immigration officers to deport people without a court’s authority, by expanding the use of “expedited removal” authority so it can be used across the country due to the use of an obscure piece of federal law, making it easier for state and local police to conduct immigration enforcement. Worryingly, “expedited removal” means giving law enforcement agencies powers created under a 1996 law, which were not widely used until 2004, to deport people without requiring them to appear before an immigration judge. Although, there are limited exceptions, including if they express fear of returning home and pass an initial screening interview for asylum.
However, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has already launched a challenge to the policy in federal court, with Anand Balakrishnan, the senior staff attorney, describing it as a “mass deportation agenda” that doesn’t follow the process set out in the constitution. Critics have also highlighted the overwhelming risk that people who have the right to be in the country will be mistakenly swept up by officers, and that not enough is done to protect immigrants who have genuine reason to fear being sent home.
Pressing further on immigration, Trump additionally ordered authorities to stop the policy of ‘birthright citizenship’, which means that American citizenship is automatically granted to anyone born on American soil, including for the children of undocumented immigrants. This order responds to immigration hardliners who argue that the policy is a “great magnet for illegal immigration”, encouraging undocumented pregnant women to cross the border so they can give birth, something they call “birth tourism”. As a result, this change in this policy denies citizenship to children born on or after 19th February 2025 to migrant parents who are either in the US illegally or on temporary visas, a change thought to create a lengthy legal battle. Since as a principle, ‘birthright citizenship’ has previously been viewed by courts as a constitutional guarantee, under the 14th amendment which states:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
Most legal scholars agree that this will be difficult for Trump to achieve,given amending the US Constitution would require a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress to change, and sufficient republican support in both chambers may be difficult to ensure. In fact, Trump’s legal hurdles have already begun, twenty-two states, alongside the city of San Francisco and the District of Columbia, have already sued the federal government, challenging the executive order. The plan also suffered an early setback on Trump’s just fourth day as President, when a federal judge in Seattle temporarily blocked his order from taking effect, having heard arguments from Washington, Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon opposing the policy. The judge, John Coughenour, called Trump’s order “blatantly unconstitutional” and in some other very wise words on the order, he commented:
“It boggles my mind”
Trump has also started the process of withdrawing the US from the 2015 Paris Agreement, which commits nations to reducing emissions to try to keep below 1.5 degrees of global warming, which is designed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. But apparently, the agreement does not reflect the country’s values or its economic and environmental objectives. Therefore, in a repeat of 2017, the executive order specifically asks the US ambassador to the UN to “immediately” submit a formal written request to withdraw from the agreement. With a similar disregard for the state of the climate, Trump declared a “national energy emergency”, scrapping protections against fossil fuel extraction in Alaska and in American coastal waters introduced by Biden. Instead, Trump has coined the wisdom-rich phrase:
“Drill, baby, drill”
Unsurprisingly, the Paris Agreement is not the only important piece of international cooperation the US is now abandoning under Trump. Another is the World Health Organisation (WHO), supposedly justified “due to the organisation’s mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic”. Long believing in their responsibility for spreading Covid-19, Trump’s hostility towards the WHO is rooted in a perception that it was dominated by – and so soft on – China. In a way reminiscent of that fateful Brexit bus, his executive order also refers to “unfairly onerous payments” the US made to the WHO, mainly because the US alone contributes almost one fifth of the WHO’s total budget. Although, at the earliest, the US exit won’t take effect until 2026, and as another potential hurdle, leaving will require the approval of Congress. And “catastrophic”, “disastrous”, and “damaging” are just some of the words used by global public health experts to describe the potential impact of a US withdrawal.
Furthermore, when it comes to Trump’s culture wars, he has signed two different executive orders which reverse decades of progress towards creating a diverse and inclusive federal government. This includes reintroducing rules that allow him to fire senior-level civil servants, suspending new regulations and hiring, ultimately ordering the paid suspension of all federal employees involved in DEI – diversity, equity, and inclusion – programmes. Federal agencies have also been told to develop plans which deter DEI measures, in a move thought to be an attempt to discourage private companies from addressing discrimination in their workplaces.
But the war waged against DEI by conservatives is by no means new, for example Florida attempted to pass a “Stop Woke” law which would ban companies from requiring diversity training. Although this was later ruled by an appeals court to be a violation of the first amendment. And in what I imagine will be a surprise to very few, Elon Musk is amongst those who have been vocal in their opposition to DEI, publicly posting:
“DEI is just another word for racism. Shame on anyone who uses it.”
Unsurprisingly, Trump parroted this rhetoric during his presidential campaign, claiming there is “a definite anti-white feeling in this country”.
But Trump’s actions this week soon received opposition from legislators in more than 30 states, who argued in a letter that the US had long been strengthened by efforts to include everyone:
“Anti-DEI rhetoric and policy goals are dangerous, destructive, and discriminatory”
“Ultimately, they erect barriers to our American dreams.”
And continuing the culture war, another executive order instructs the US government, in all official documents, to only recognise two sexes – male and female. These controversial changes also include insisting upon the federal government’s sole use of the term sex, instead of gender identity. Expectedly, this has been extremely popular with Trump’s base, suggesting that this may not be the end of leaning into contentious cultural issues for Trump. But this isn’t new for states like Kansas and Montana, which have already put a biological definition of sex into law. Thankfully, the Human Rights Campaign, which represents LGBTQ+ people, stated that “we will fight back against these harmful provisions with everything we’ve got”. Although, if these challenges make their way to the US Supreme Court, its conservative majority may mean a ruling in Trump’s favour.
More recently, on Friday, Trump said he would consider signing an executive order to “fundamentally reform” or potentially eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema). Announced whilst touring hurricane-impacted places in western North Carolina, this comes as Trump criticised its disaster response as “not good” when speaking to the press, simply saying “I think we’re going to recommend that Fema go away”. Instead, it is rumoured Trump has proposed giving governors more direct responsibility for disaster response, most likely redirecting Fema’s budget of tens of billions of dollars straight to states. But importantly, this dissolution would need congressional approval.
So, within his powers, yesterday, Trump is reported to have signed an executive order, creating a taskforce called the Fema Review Council to review Fema’s current functions and recommend changes, including possible reorganisation or getting rid of the agency altogether.
Touching now on foreign policy, in response to one of Trump’s many executive orders signed on Monday, the US state department has reportedly demanded a halt to funding for almost all aid programs, with only aid to Israel and humanitarian food crises excluded. This means all other US aid programs have been told to keep running for as long as their existing funding lasts.
When it comes to the war in Ukraine, Trump persuasion of Putin to enter negotiations has been so far unsuccessful. Consequently, more threats to increase pressure on Russia’s already struggling economy have been made, including introducing greater sanctions and tariffs, in the seemingly likely event Moscow fails to “make a deal” to end the war. After Trump’s threats to inflict economic damage on Russia, for the first time on the subject, Putin perhaps surprisingly spoke quite favourably towards him, telling a Russian state TV journalist:
“We believe the current president’s statements about his readiness to work together. We are always open to this and ready for negotiations.
It would be better for us to meet, based on the realities of today, to talk calmly.”
Putin continued, describing his relationship with Trump as apparently “businesslike, pragmatic and trustworthy”. Adding that negotiating with Ukraine was complicated by the fact that Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine, had signed a decree preventing him from conducting talks with Putin. And as a part of this apparent attempt to gain Trump’s favour, Putin echoed the US president’s claim that he would have stopped the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in 2022, and repeated Trump’s debunked belief that the 2020 US elections were “stolen” from him. Although this perceived friendliness between Trump and Putin may be quite telling, and it all falls significantly short of Trump’s pre-election claim that he would be able to end the war in a day.
Quite trivially, in my view, he also ordered that the Gulf of Mexico be “officially be renamed the Gulf of America”. This is seemingly already in force, for example a weather update from Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, referred to “an area of low pressure moving across the Gulf of America”. And whilst Trump can change the name of the Gulf on official US government documents all he wants, as Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said, this won’t change what Mexico and the rest of the world call it.
Surprisingly, one topic Trump hasn’t yet covered with an executive order, but has repeatedly mentioned, is tariffs. He promised to introduce them on some of America’s biggest trade partners on day one to protect American industries and generate new government revenue. But economists, even some in Trump’s administration, have warned that tariffs may in fact increase the prices people pay and hurt American businesses reliant on imports in their supply chain. This could be one explanation for why Trump, watching economic growth attentively, is preferring to tread more carefully when it comes to trade.
However, fundamentally, for Trump, issuing a vast number of executive orders in such a short time is far easier than passing the legislation needed for other changes. Therefore, demonstrating he only has a genuine concern for his image and rhetoric, not for any actual significant change he could be working to deliver.
Weekly Recommendation and Action
Given the evident vast scale of drastic reform Trump has introduced and seemingly wants to build upon further, which I am unable to explain in its entirety here, I would encourage you to watch his full inauguration speech here. I hope this gives you an understanding beyond just policy, but also allows you to observe Trump’s use of rhetoric, which he uses to attempt to justify his policies. Although, when it comes to fighting back against Trump’s emerging neofascism, Robert Reich outlines 10 things you can do in his article for The Guardian.
Another key issue threatened by Trump’s presidency is the right to abortion, which beyond just being attacked by political leaders, is currently also interfered with by social media companies such as Meta and TikTok who are removing information about abortion on their platforms. To help stop this practice which denies access to life-saving information, I would urge you to sign this Amnesty International petition aimed at Meta and TikTok.
Teen Politics 
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