Trump is breaking norms already. A roundup of policies shocking allies and opponents.
WASHINGTON – Emboldened by a return to power after defying legal and political odds, President Donald Trump is breaking conventions in his first two weeks in office and pushing more boundaries than during his first tumultuous term.
Trump’s actions sparked accusations he was motivated by self-interest and vengefulness. He created a cryptocurrency days before returning to the White House. He seated billionaire captains of industry in front of Cabinet members at his inauguration. And he canceled the security details for former aides who became critics.
Back in the Oval Office, the only president to enter office with felony convictions (which he is appealing), has ignored the letter of the law in shaking up the federal government. He fired inspectors general at 17 agencies who act as watchdogs for waste, fraud and abuse. He temporarily froze federal grants to ensure they matched his priorities. He ordered agencies not to recognize birthright citizenship despite its provision in the Constitution. And his appointees, this time selected especially for their loyalty, distanced themselves from Trump's pardons for people accused of attacking police officers in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
In foreign affairs, Trump has needled allies Canada and Mexico. He picked international fights over climate and health issues. He’s talked about reclaiming the Panama Canal 25 years after the United States relinquished control of the key trade channel. And he staked a claim to Greenland, questioning its attachment to ally Denmark.
"We will not be conquered. We will not be intimidated. We will not be broken," Trump said referencing global conflicts in his inaugural address. "And we will not fail."
Paul Poast, an associate professor of political science and international relations at the University of Chicago, said Trump's golden age for America with the acquisition of territory and politics driven by the super-wealthy seems to be modeled after President William McKinley's in the late 1800s, whom he mentioned in the inaugural speech.
“One way to understand it would be, in a claim that I've made, that Trump is going to be a great 19th century president," Poast told USA TODAY.
Trump coined cryptocurrency before seeking to regulate industry
Just days before returning to oversee the U.S. Mint, Trump coined his own cryptocurrency Jan. 17 memorializing his response to a July 2024 assassination attempt.
The $TRUMP coin soared to $10 billion on Trump’s first day in office. However, experts said it raised ethical red flags because of conflicts of interest over an industry Trump wants to help regulate. He created a group on Jan. 23 to develop regulations for digital assets.
"While it's tempting to dismiss this as just another Trump spectacle, the launch of the official Trump token opens up a Pandora's box of ethical and regulatory questions," said Justin D'Anethan, an independent crypto analyst based in Hong Kong.
Trump favors tech allies ahead of Cabinet designees at inauguration
Trump invited some of the richest people in the world ? Amazon Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk ? to his inauguration and seated them in front of his Cabinet designees.
The prominence given to tech moguls raised concerns among ethics experts about handing too much power to the elite. Trump is seeking a buyer for TikTok to avoid a congressional ban on its Chinese parent company. Musk’s cars and rockets are subsidized by the government, and he won an advisory role in the administration as head of the Department of Government Efficiency.
“Whether you like billionaires or don’t like them, seeing them sit in such close proximity to the highest levels of political power should give one pause,” said Daniel Weiner, director of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a center-left think tank.
Trump halts security teams for former aides who became critics
During his first week in office, Trump pulled the security details for several former top aides who criticized him after they left the government.
Trump had accused retired Gen. Mark Milley, his chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the first term, of treason, which Milley denied. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Disease, said he and his family received death threats after Republican criticism of his handling of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tensions were high enough between Trump and these men that former President Joe Biden preemptively pardoned Milley and Fauci on his last day in office for unspecified, nonviolent crimes they may have committed since 2014.
At least two others lost their security teams: John Bolton, Trump's former national security adviser, who Trump fired by tweet in 2019 and called “stupid,” and Mike Pompeo, his former secretary of State, who disagreed with Trump over foreign affairs but remained under threat from Iran.
“He doesn’t believe that these people should have the right to have security clearances and private details for the rest of their lives," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters about Trump on Wednesday.
Trump fires inspectors general from watchdog positions
Capping off his first week in the Oval Office, Trump fired 17 inspectors general, or watchdogs against fraud and corruption in federal agencies.
But he told reporters Jan. 25 that he'd left one, Michael Horowitz, in place at the Justice Department because of his harsh report on FBI surveillance during an investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump called the report “accurate, well done” and “incredible.”
A president can fire them, but Congress requires 30 days' notice and an explanation for removing an inspector general.
“While IGs aren’t immune from committing acts requiring their removal, and they can be removed by the president, the law must be followed,” the top members of the Judiciary Committee, The top members of the Senate Judiciary Committee – Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill. – wrote to Trump on Tuesday asking for his justifications. “IGs are critical to rooting out waste, fraud, abuse, and misconduct within the Executive Branch bureaucracy, which you have publicly made clear you are also intent on doing.”
Diana Shaw, a former acting inspector general at the State Department and now a partner at Wiley Rein LLP, said the law governing inspectors general calls for them to be appointed regardless of political affiliation and solely for their qualifications.
“It helps bolster the sense that there’s real objectivity here,” Shaw told USA TODAY. Changing inspectors general with each administration “could seriously undermine the credibility of the function," she said.
Trump temporarily freezes federal grants, sparking spending fight
Trump’s Office of Management and Budget sparked a fight with Congress ordering a temporary freeze on federal grants and loans to ensure they aligned with his priorities. One aim was to eliminate funding for diversity and climate programs he opposes.But lawmakers argued the Constitution provides for Congress to set spending priorities. More than 20 states sued to block Trump’s policy, as did advocacy groups for nonprofits, public health agencies and small businesses.The OMB withdrew the memo outlining the freeze after a federal judge temporarily halted the policy. But the litigation continues to smolder since Trump said he would continue pausing grants for a review.
“We are merely looking at parts of the big bureaucracy where there has been tremendous waste and fraud and abuse,” Trump told reporters Wednesday.
Trump seeks to end birthright citizenship
Trump has also taken aim at the Constitution, ordering federal agencies to stop recognizing the citizenship of U.S.-born children when both their parents are not authorized to be in the country.
His order clashes with the 14th Amendment, which says, "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."
A federal judge blocked this order. But Trump said Thursday he expected to win the case if it reaches the Supreme Court.
"I just think we’ll end up winning in court, in the Supreme Court,” Trump said.
Trump's pardons for Jan. 6 defendants irk law-and-order allies
Presidents often wait until their last days in office to dole out controversial pardons. But Trump, who campaigned from day one on pardoning Jan. 6 defendants he called “political prisoners” and “hostages,” acted on his first day in office Jan. 20.
"These are the hostages, approximately 1,500 for a pardon. Full pardon," Trump said in the Oval Office, along with 14 whose sentences he commuted.
His allies at the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Fraternal Order of Police issued a statement saying anyone who assaulted police officers should have served their full sentences.
Trump’s nominees for the Justice Department – Pam Bondi as attorney general and Kash Patel as FBI director – both said at their confirmation hearings, which followed the Jan. 6 pardons, that they opposed pardoning people who assaulted law enforcement officers.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that pardoning police assaulters was "a mistake because it seems to suggest that’s an OK thing to do.”
Trump orders withdrawal from World Health Organization
Trump ordered the U.S. to withdraw from the World Health Organization. The move was unusual because the U.S. helped create the organization to share information among global medical practitioners. Quitting the group technically requires a one-year notice and approval of Congress.
Trump complained that China paid less in dues to the WHO, despite having a larger population than the U.S. He previously criticized the organization’s reluctance to challenge China during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Seemed a little unfair to me,” Trump said when signing the order Jan. 20.
One risk of withdrawing is the U.S. losing access to the medical information shared across the organization. Instead, Trump ordered the National Security Council to set up mechanisms to safeguard public health and fortify biosecurity. Trump directed the secretary of State and Office of Management and Budget to identify new partners to cover the activities previously handled by the World Health Organization.
Dr. Ashish Jha, President Joe Biden's White House coordinator for the COVID-19 response, said before Trump’s order, that the U.S. should overhaul the World Health Organization, “not abandon it,” noting that the risk is not learning about and coordinating the response to new health threats. “I think this would be a mistake,” Jha said in a post on X about Trump’s withdrawal. “It would leave America without intelligence for future emergencies and weaken our global leadership.”
Trump teases Canada about becoming 51st state
Like Mexico, Trump has been jabbing Canada for years, referring to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “governor,” and joking about whether the country should become a U.S. state. Trump contends countries have been trading unfairly so beginning Saturday he added a 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico and 10% on goods from China.
“Canada is totally reliant on us therefore they should be a state,” Trump told reporters Jan. 25.
Trudeau said that's not going to happen.
“One of the ways we define ourselves most easily is, well, we’re not American,” Trudeau told CNN.
Panama's president: the canal belongs to Panama
The stakes are higher for Panama and Greenland.
The U.S. financed and built the Panama Canal in the early 1900s to ease trade between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The U.S. turned the canal over to Panama in 1999, but Trump contends he should take it back, saying that China has gained too much influence over it and the fees on U.S. ships are too high.
“We have been treated very badly from this foolish gift that should have never been made,” Trump said in his inauguration speech on Jan. 20. “The purpose of our deal and the spirit of our treaty has been totally violated.”
Eugene Kontorovich, a law professor at George Mason University, told a Senate hearing on Tuesday that the U.S. need not wait until the canal is closed by sabotage or aggression to move to reclaim it.
“I think it may be shocking to people to hear today, but when one goes over the ratification history and the debates and discussions in this body over this treaty, it was clear that the treaty was understood as giving both sides separately the right to resort to using armed force to enforce the provisions of the treaty,” Kontorovich said.
Trump refused to rule out using the military during a Jan. 7 news conference.
"I'm not going to commit to that," he said. "It might be that you'll have to do something."
Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino ruled out discussing control of the canal with Rubio during a planned visit.
"The canal belongs to Panama," Mulino told reporters.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump's bold policies break norms, shock allies and opponents