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President Trump made major policy moves immediately after taking office, withdrawing from major international agreements, promising steep tariffs and pardoning nearly all of the Jan. 6 rioters.
Jan. 21, 2025, 5:01 a.m. ET
President Trump took the oath of office at noon Monday, and within hours he had signed dozens of executive orders and issued nearly 1,600 pardons as he quickly sought to remake the federal government and test the limits of his authority.
His actions touched on some of the biggest policy issues in American life, from health to the environment to immigration, and he promised other consequential changes in the coming days.
Here are eight of the most significant moves the president made on Day 1.
He pardoned nearly all the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Mr. Trump issued a sweeping grant of clemency to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, issuing pardons to most of the defendants and commuting the sentences of 14 members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers militia, most of whom were convicted of seditious conspiracy. The pardon order also directed the Justice Department to dismiss any pending indictments against people facing charges for the riot.
He withdrew from the World Health Organization.
Mr. Trump moved to withdraw from the World Health Organization, an act that had been foreshadowed by the president’s frequent attacks against the health agency over its approach to the coronavirus pandemic. Public health experts say that the withdrawal will undermine America’s standing as a global health leader and make it harder to fight the next pandemic.
He began a crackdown on immigration.
A series of orders Mr. Trump signed set off a policy barrage aimed at sealing the nation’s borders to migrants and cracking down on immigrants already in the country. Those orders included a declaration of a national emergency to deploy the military to the border and a bid to cut off birthright citizenship for the children of noncitizens. Many of the orders test the legal limits of his authority, and birthright citizenship in particular is protected by the Constitution.
