Trump Shakes Up US and World in Extraordinary First Week in Office

On his first day, Trump signed more executive orders than any president in history, consolidating his power over every lever of the U.S. government.

Since then, he has seemingly been everywhere, doing everything all at once to further impose his will, and his conservative, nationalist version of a "golden age", on the country.

The theme has been "promises made, promises kept": Starting with his mass pardons for the 2021 U.S. Capitol rioters and a slew of executive orders from immigration to gender.

From Trump and his supporters, the theme has been one of regal, even divine, power.

Trump's influence on the world stage is outsized too, as he flaunts mass tariffs and threats of American territorial expansion.

"Early in his new term, emboldened by his astonishing resurrection, Trump appears to be Godzilla domestically and abroad," Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, told AFP.

The Republican's orders launched a long-promised immigration crackdown, eliminated birthright citizenship, and said the U.S. government would only recognize two genders.

He yanked the United States out of the Paris climate agreement and the World Health Organization.

"We are so back," was the repeated refrain heard in the corridors of the White House.

And the contrast with Trump's own first term could not have been greater.

Instead of chaos and fights, the first days of Trump 2.0 have been marked by what appears to be careful planning, steely discipline and intense messaging.

Internationally, Trump appeared at the Davos forum on a huge screen where he towered over the gathered global elite.

Trump has told other countries to either make products in America or face tariffs.

All week, he has repeated his territorial threats against Greenland and Panama, calling their sovereignty into question even as he asserted America's.

But the return of Trump has also some challenges.

Key promises remain unfulfilled: U.S. grocery prices remain high despite Trump's pledge that they would come down, and the war in Ukraine that he vowed to end within 24 hours of his return grinds on.

But as billionaire Trump promises a golden age, his critics fear it will come with a dark side.

For instance, the freed leader of one far-right militia toured the Capitol two days after the Jan. 6 pardons.

And a neo-Nazi group paraded at an anti-abortion march in Washington that Trump himself addressed by video message.

"Trump would love to restore the so-called imperial presidency" that existed from Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s until Richard Nixon's fall in 1974, said Sabato.

However, Sabato added that "era was long gone and Trump lacks the strong public support necessary to sustain the tough image he's projecting."

Source: AFP