● U.S. decline over, he says, vows to rename Gulf of Mexico, take back Panama Canal
● Pledges to deport illegal immigrants, reverse citizenship by birth
● Trump’s deportation plan a ‘disgrace’, says Pope
● Putin congratulates president, hopes for dialogue on Ukraine, nuclear arms
● Avoid confrontation with Trump, Akinyemi cautions Tinubu
Americans and the rest of the world watched with anxiety as the unpredictable Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States of America yesterday, declaring, “The golden age of America begins right now” in his inaugural speech. Trump, 78, said American decline is over.
“We will be the envy of every nation. I will very simply put America first. Our sovereignty will be claimed, and the chaos of justice will be rebalanced. America’s decline is over,” he declared.
He said he will immediately begin an overhaul of trade and is establishing the “External Revenue Service” to collect all tariff duties and revenues, noting that the revenues will come from “foreign sources”.
“The American dream will soon be back and thriving like never before,” he said. Speaking about the establishment of DOGE – the new Department of Government Efficiency, he said, “After years and years of illegal and unconstitutional restriction of expression, I will also sign an Executive Order to stop all censorship and bring back free speech to America.”
Concluding his speech, he said: “I stand before you as proof that you should never believe something is impossible to do.
“In America, doing the impossible is what we do best.” He added that America will not be conquered or intimidated.
“We will not fail. From this day on, the United States of America will be a free, sovereign and independent nation. The future is ours, and our golden age has just begun,” he said.
Trump is expected to sign a slew of executive actions, including kicking off a process to end birthright citizenship and declaring a national emergency on the US-Mexico border, according to incoming White House officials. He also planned to halt all illegal entries into the U.S.
According to him, millions of “criminal aliens” who illegally enter America would be deported.
“All illegal entries will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions of criminal aliens to the places from which they came,” Trump declared before four past presidents, including Biden.
“We will reinstate my ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy,” he said, vowing to “rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America”, adding that they’ll restore the name of William McKinley to Mount McKinley, which he says is “where it should be and belongs”.
On citizenship by birth, the clause often referred to states that “all persons born or naturalised in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Trump wants to reinterpret the phrasing “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” to mean that the federal government would not recognise automatic birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to parents without legal status, incoming White House officials told reporters on a call yesterday, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss upcoming actions.
Details about who might be impacted or how he plans to move forward are yet to be ascertained. Associate Director of the United States immigration policy programme at Migration Policy Institute, Julia Gelatt, said that ending birthright citizenship would be a huge change in how immigration and the right to belong in the United States is handled, adding that the law contributes to the economic and educational success rates of immigrants’ children.
In addition, Trump said his government will, as a matter of official policy, recognise only two genders, male and female. He pledged to end what he said has been government policy to bring race and gender into “every aspect of public and private life,” vowing to forge a society that is “colour-blind and merit-based” instead. Trump added that the United States will increase its wealth, expand its territory and carry its flag into new horizons, including on Mars.
“We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, to plant the stars and stripes on planet Mars,” he said. He also expressed intentions to take back the Panama Canal, a “foolish gift that should have never been made” to Panama, while accusing China of operating the Canal. On the Middle East, he said he would be a “peacemaker and unifier”, referencing the return of hostages to Israel.
“America will reclaim its rightful place as the greatest, most powerful, most respected nation on earth, inspiring the awe and admiration from the entire world,” he said.
Trump also plans to pardon some January 6 rioters on Day 1, sources tell CNN. The move will come as part of a swathe of executive orders the incoming president will sign on his first day back in the White House.
MEANWHILE, Pope Francis has said that Donald Trump’s plans to deport illegal migrants from the U.S. would be a “disgrace” if they materialised. Speaking to an Italian TV programme from his Vatican residence, Francis said that if the plans went ahead, Trump would make “poor wretches that don’t have anything foot the bill”.
“That’s not right. That’s not how you solve problems,” he said. In a message to Trump shared yesterday, Pope Francis offered him “cordial greetings” and urged him to lead a society with “no room for hatred, discrimination or exclusion” and promote “peace and reconciliation among peoples”.
The Pope is known to hold dear the issue of migrants. During a public audience last August, he said that “systematically working by all means to drive away migrants” was “a grave sin”.
In 2016, before the first presidential election won by Trump, Pope Francis said, “a person who thinks only about building walls… and not of building bridges, is not Christian”.
Referring to Trump’s promise to build a wall on the Mexican border to keep migrants from travelling into the U.S., Francis said: “I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and I will give him the benefit of the doubt.”
This came as Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Trump, expressing optimism for renewed dialogue between Moscow and Washington. Speaking during a rare meeting of Russia’s Security Council televised across state media, Putin underscored his openness to discussions on critical global issues, including the war in Ukraine and nuclear arms control, reports Reuters.
“We see the statements by the newly elected president of the United States and members of his team about the desire to restore direct contacts with Russia,” Putin remarked. He also welcomed Trump’s commitment to averting global conflict.
“We also hear his statement about the need to do everything possible to prevent World War Three. We, of course, welcome this attitude and congratulate the elected president of the United States of America on taking office.”
This statement, Reuters says, highlights cautious optimism within the Kremlin that Trump could pave the way for a thaw in U.S.-Russia relations, which have been strained to their lowest point since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
However, Russian officials privately acknowledge that Washington’s policy complexities could dash these hopes. Addressing the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Putin emphasised the importance of durable solutions rather than temporary measures.
“The goal should not be a brief ceasefire, not some kind of period of respite that would allow a regrouping and rearmament of forces, but a long-term peace based on respect for the legitimate interests of all people and all peoples who live in the region,” he said. Despite Putin’s stated readiness for dialogue, his insistence that Russia’s territorial claims be recognised—a stance rejected by Ukraine—remains a sticking point.
Trump, who has pledged to swiftly end the conflict, has yet to detail how he plans to achieve this without compromising U.S. and allied positions. Also, a former Minister of External Affairs and Professor of Political Science, Bolaji Akinyemi, asked President Bola Tinubu to avoid confrontation with Trump.
“If I were President Tinubu, I would try to steer clear of antagonising him because there is nothing a bully likes better than taking on people who are not strong enough to resist him,” Akinyemi said on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme yesterday.
“You know, there is that African proverb that if you are not strong enough to take on a bully and you take him on, you will suffer more for it. That’s the advice I will give President Tinubu: try and avoid having a confrontation with him, even if that means that he does things that annoy or does things that step on the interests of Nigeria. There are ways in which you could address his reaction without confrontation.”
Akinyemi, a former Director General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), faulted Trump’s inaugural speech as uninspiring, “shocking and depressing”.
The octogenarian said rather than rallying the world for peace, Trump took time to threaten the rest of the world with a bouquet of hostile policies, including tacking back the Panama Canal, renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, tariff wars, and others.
Akinyemi said the U.S. president would “soon learn that there are repercussions to policies, to jingoism”, adding that the world is “in for a rough ride for four years” of the Trump presidency.
He added that Nigeria is out of the focus on the 78-year-old most powerful president and that Africa’s most populous nation should not expect anything extraordinary from the Trump presidency.