WASHINGTON — From the flurry of pen strokes that demonstrates his renewed authority, to the streets of the capital crawling with true believers in his “Make America Great Again” movement, presidential power in the United States once again belongs to Donald Trump.
Weeks of anticipation and close attention to his every utterance finally broke a few minutes past noon on Monday, when Trump was sworn in as the 47th president. In the following hours he celebrated his political resurrection, delivered at least three speeches, and signed a series of executive orders from the stage of a packed hockey arena that began to shape the U.S. according to his vision — one that will no doubt impact Canada and the wider world.
Late Monday, after failing to mention his threat to slap punishing tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he still intends to impose them, possibly on Feb. 1. That keeps the prospect alive of a possible trade war with the U.S., as the federal government has pledged to respond with countertariffs that hurt American consumers.
U.S. military troops will also now be deployed to the country’s border with Mexico, Trump’s White House announced, as the new president vowed to deport “millions” of “criminal aliens” from the country, and designate drug cartels as terrorist groups. He also signed an order to withdraw from the World Health Organization, and another to pull out of the Paris Agreement, a major international accord designed to limit the climate crisis.
“The golden age of America begins right now,” said Trump, 78, in his inaugural address immediately after he was sworn-in as president.
“We will be the envy of every nation, and we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer.”
The moment capped a political return that saw Trump survive an assassination attempt, endure a criminal conviction, and get past investigations into his alleged role in seeking to overturn the election he lost at the end of his first term as president in 2021. After clinching expanded support from Americans in November’s presidential vote, Trump was sworn in as president inside the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Building that his rioting supporters had attacked four years earlier.
“The journey to reclaim our republic has not been an easy one,” Trump said, referring to how the failed assassin’s bullet grazed his ear at a rally last September.
“I was saved by God to make America great again.”
The breadth of his new-won influence was also on display Monday, with a host of tech billionaires and powerful business leaders packed into the rotunda. They included the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, who later sparked outrage online for making a gesture to a crowd of Trump supporters that some compared to a Nazi salute. Also in attendance were Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple chief executive Tim Cook, and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
They were present just days after outgoing president Joe Biden warned of a new generation of powerful oligarchs with outsized influence over the spread of information in a “tech-industrial complex.”
But beyond the pageantry of the inauguration, the streets of downtown Washington were choked with security checkpoints, dump trucks blocking intersections, MAGA supporters in their signature red hats, and men pedalling around on bicycle rickshaws blaring the Village People song “YMCA,” which Trump has adopted as a sort of political anthem.
Thousands of Trump enthusiasts lined up in the early morning to watch the inauguration proceedings on the Jumbotron of the Capital One Arena, and attend a rally where Trump and a host of other MAGA luminaries addressed the crowd later in the day.
Gabriel Mervin, a 20-year-old from Pennsylvania, said he arrived at 4 a.m. to make sure he got in. Adjusting his Trump-branded scarf, he told the Star that he feels the president’s return is the culmination of the MAGA movement that started 10 years ago, before Trump’s first term in the White House.
“America’s back,” he deadpanned.
Steps away, Elaine Noulis, a grandmother from North Carolina, beamed under her Trump Inauguration toque.
“I’m just so happy he made it again,” she said. “I thank God.”
A few blocks to the west, a bullhorn blared from a group of about two dozen men who identified themselves as Proud Boys, a militant group that is a designated “neo-fascist” terrorist organization in Canada. Marching in yellow and black jackets, some puffed on vape pens while others had bandanas that covered their faces. A woman with a megaphone regularly yelled at them, as they walked behind a large banner congratulating Trump for his election win, calling them “losers” and “traitors” and demanding they leave the city.
Nikki Taylor, a physician from Detroit who earlier attended a ceremony to mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day — an American holiday honouring the Black civil rights leader — said she was alarmed to come across the marching Proud Boys.
“It’s quite shocking,” Taylor said. “It’s like another slap in the face for Black and brown people in this country.”
Meanwhile, in his final moments in office, Biden moved to protect officials and members of his family from Trump’s promised retribution. Through pre-emptive pardons, Biden aimed to shield officials who investigated the riot of Trump supporters who attacked the Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021 — a group that Trump has referred to as “hostages” who have been unfairly maligned.
Biden also pardoned former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, and Anthony Fauci, a top health official during the COVID-19 pandemic. Like the officials who investigated the Jan. 6 mob, both Milley and Fauci have faced ire from Trump, and Biden said in a statement that he wanted to prevent “baseless and politically motivated investigations” into their conduct.
He similarly pardoned members of his own family, citing “unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me — the worse kind of partisan politics.”
Trump has vowed to take revenge against political opponents he blames for “weaponizing’ the American justice system against him. There were also reports last year, including from Axios, that Republicans planned to launch criminal investigations into Biden’s family if Trump was re-elected.
Trump later criticized the pardons and said he would issue some of his own to the “hostages” who faced criminal consequences for taking part in the Jan. 6 riot.
But while the mood of his supporters in Washington was jubilant, Trump’s return to the White House had some in the capital feeling rattled. Standing on the side of Pennsylvania Avenue, the broad boulevard through the heart of the capital, Heribert von Feilitzsch and his son Matthias held placards that denounced Trump on behalf of the “Citizens for Democracy, Ethics and Decency.”
Von Feilitzsch, an author who is writing a multi-volume history of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, said he feels a responsibility to show dissent. The world should know not all Americans back Trump, he said, citing fears of creeping authoritarianism.
“Sometimes you have to show that you’re out there, even if you don’t have any power … to change anything at this point,” he said.
”(We’re) just trying to get the people that are reasonable and law-abiding and for democracy, for decency, to stick together.”
Later, at the Capital One Arena, Trump emerged for an evening celebration to chants of “U-S-A!”, and signed a stack of executive orders from a small wooden desk on stage as supporters cheered and applauded.
Partway through the signing, Trump grabbed a microphone beside the desk and said, “Can you imagine Biden doing this? I don’t think so.” Then he tossed the pens into the crowd and left the arena.
And they kept on cheering.
