28 Policy Promises Trump Has Made For His First Week In Office

If President-elect Donald Trump lives up to his promises, he is going to have a prolific first week in office come January.

Trump has pledged action on dozens of policy fronts on Day One or Week One in the White House as part of an aggressive agenda to reverse immigration flows, juice American energy production, reorient global commerce and purge his political enemies. Some of his promises are improbable — such as ending the war in Ukraine in his first 24 hours — but he can achieve many of his aims through executive actions, which aides are alreadyscrambling to prepare.

POLITICO compiled a list of the biggest promises Trump made on the campaign trail or since winning the election to provide a snapshot of what his first week in office might look like:

Education

Repeatedly: Trump promised to sign a new executive order on Day One that would cut federal funding to any school “pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content onto our children.”

May 10, 2024: Trump said on the conservative radio show “Kayal and Company” that he would end Title IX discrimination protections for transgender students on Day One. The question posed to Trump was about a regulation but his response suggested he would repeal Biden’s own Day One executive order asserting that Title IX prohibits discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.

Energy & Climate

Aug. 29, 2024: Trump promised during a speech in Michigan to “declare a national emergency to allow us to dramatically increase energy production” in an effort to reduce energy costs. He said that starting on Day One, he will “approve new drilling, new pipelines, new refineries, new power plants, new reactors and we will slash the red tape.”

July 20, 2023: In a campaign video, Trump promised to “terminate these Green New Deal atrocities” on his first day in office, referring to the climate law the Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden signed into law in 2022.

Oct. 22, 2024: Trump promised during a campaign event in North Carolina to end the Biden administration’s “electric vehicle mandate.” Biden’s EPA implemented limits on climate pollution from passenger cars, pushing for electric vehicles to make up two-thirds of new car sales by 2032.

Sept. 7, 2023: Trump has promised to increase domestic oil and gas production in his second term, coining “drill, baby, drill” as the policy’s slogan. Part of this promise includes rescinding “Biden’s industry-killing, jobs-killing, pro-China and anti-American electricity regulations” on Day One, per a campaign video.

May 11, 2024: Trump swore he would end offshore wind projects on Day One, saying in a speech, “They ruin the environment, they kill the birds, they kill the whales.” Scientists have not found evidence of offshore wind having this effect, The Associated Press reported.

Foreign Policy

May 11, 2023: Trump said he would end the war between Russia and Ukraine “in 24 hours” during a CNN town hall.

Health Care

Feb. 1, 2023: In a campaign video, Trump promised to revoke Biden’s “cruel” gender-affirming care policies. Biden had signed an executive order calling on the Department of Health and Human Services to increase access to gender-affirming health care and counter state efforts that would limit treatment for transgender minors.

Feb. 1, 2023: In the same video, Trump said he would sign an executive order “instructing every federal agency to cease the promotion of sex or gender transition at any age.”

Feb. 1, 2023: The president-elect also said he would ask Congress to “permanently stop federal taxpayer dollars from being used to promote or pay for” gender-affirming surgeries.

Feb. 1, 2023: He also promised to pass a law that prohibits “child sexual mutilation” in all 50 states.

Feb. 1, 2023: Trump’s final Day One promise in the video was to declare that any “hospital or health-care provider that participates in the chemical or physical mutilation of minor youth” as not meeting federal health and safety standards, blocking them from receiving federal funding.

Immigration

May 30, 2023: In a campaign video, Trump said he plans to sign an executive order on his first day as president to end automatic citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants born in the United States. He has raised the issue often, at least since October 2018.

May 30, 2023: In the same video, Trump promised to sign a separate executive order ending “birth tourism,” where pregnant women legally travel to the U.S. solely so that they can give birth here and their children can be citizens.

June 28, 2023: At the Faith & Freedom Coalition's annual conference, Trump said he would “order my government” on Day One to deny entry to all “foreign Christian-hating communists, Marxists, and socialists.”

Nov. 8, 2023: At a campaign rally in Hialeah, Florida, Trump said he plans to “restore the Trump travel ban on entry from terror-plagued countries,” a policy from his first administration that blocked entry from seven Muslim-majority countries, on his first day in office.

Repeatedly: Trump promised to implement mass deportations of undocumented immigrants on “Day One” of his second term.

Repeatedly: Trump has promised in interviews and op-eds that on his first day back in the Oval Office, he will “seal the border,” “stop the invasion” and “terminate every open borders policy of the Biden administration.”

Nov. 18, 2024: Twelve days after he became the president-elect, Trump confirmed on Truth Social that he plans to declare a national emergency and use the military for mass deportations.

Sept. 28, 2024: At a campaign rally in Prarie du Chien, Wisconsin, Trump promised to “stop all of the migrant flights,” a reference to a parole program for residents of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, on his first day in office.

Labor

March 21, 2023: As part of his pledge to “dismantle the deep state,” Trump promised in a campaign video to reissue his 2020 executive order on Day One that would remove job protections for thousands of federal workers by redesignating their roles from policy positions to a “Schedule F” category — making them political appointees who could be fired by the president.

Legal/Department of Justice

Repeatedly: Trump has promised to pardon some Jan. 6 rioters charged with storming the U.S. Capitol “if they’re innocent” on “the first day” he returns to office. Presidents can pardon anyone convicted of a federal crime.

Oct. 24, 2024: Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in an interview that he would fire special counsel Jack Smith “within two seconds” of taking office. Smith had been overseeing the Justice Department’s investigations into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and his keeping of classified documents, though the special counsel moved last week to drop both criminal cases.

Technology

Dec. 2, 2023: Trump promised at a campaign rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to repeal President Joe Biden’s artificial intelligence executive order on Day One, which calls for new checks and risk analysis on the technology while also vetting its usefulness for the government, among other directives.

Dec. 15, 2022: In a campaign video, Trump promised to issue an executive order “within hours of my inauguration” to “shatter the left-wing censorship regime and reclaim the right of free speech for all Americans.” The EO would ban federal departments and agencies from working with any group limiting speech, ban federal money for being used for labeling any speech as mis- or disinformation and fire any federal employees “engaged in domestic censorship.”

Trade

Feb. 4, 2024: In an interview on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures," Trump promised to impose between a 10 and 20 percent blanket tariff on all $3 trillion worth of U.S. goods imports and at least a 60 percent tariff on all Chinese goods.

Nov. 25, 2024: Trump promised in a Truth Social post to implement 25 percent tariffs on Day One on all goods from Canada and Mexico until they clamp down on drugs and migrants crossing the border. He also promises an additional 10 percent tariff on all Chinese goods unless China implements the death penalty for all drug dealers linked to fentanyl.