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U.S. President Donald Trump holds up an executive order after signing it during an indoor inauguration parade at Capital One Arena on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Donald Trump’s dictator promise, fulfilled: His 2025 executive orders so far, from the awful to the truly evil

So far, it doesn't look like he will be stopping anytime soon.

It’s become abundantly clear that Donald Trump has been mulling over how to maximize the effects of his new era of tyranny given that he wasted absolutely no time in getting dozens of presidential decrees signed to reverse many of the things his predecessor had set out to do.

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Trump’s aides took his folder of executive orders with him into the inaugural parade at Capital One Arena, where the president began signing a series of decrees that withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, overturned the recognition of any genders by the federal government outside of male and female, froze the hiring of any new federal workers, froze any new regulations, founded his bestie Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency aka DOGE, reversed the sanction on Israeli settlers, and issued a mass pardon for January 6 rioters, to name a few.

Trump’s numerous executive orders are all aimed at undermining the Democrats’ work and pushing the country towards his peculiar vision of the MAGA movement, so here’s an extensive overview of everything he’s signed so far.

What executive orders has Trump already signed and what do they entail?

Going through every single order might be a bit of an overkill since many of them overlap in nature, so here’s a general rundown of every sweeping change awaiting the federal government and the country at large.

  • Immigration orders: Trump has promised the mass deportation of the undocumented, even if he has yet to detail the exact method. This includes a declaration of national emergency at the Mexico-U.S. border and the deployment of the National Guard. There are also supposed to be additional border barriers beside the wall, with Trump designating cartels like Tren de Aragua and MS-13 as foreign terrorist organizations.
    The “Remain in Mexico” policy, first implemented by Trump in 2019 and then halted by the Biden administration, is once again in effect.
    Trump is suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program until Homeland Security confirms that the planned refugee entries are in the best interests of the United States. He has also revoked plans for thousands of cleared Afghans to resettle in the U.S., many of whom are family members of military personnel.
    The federal parole programs supporting refugees fleeing countries like Nicaragua, Haiti, Cuba, and Venezuela are to be terminated, per instructions outlined in the executive orders. Trump is also bringing back the death penalty for illegal immigrants who have committed capital crimes.
  • Energy executive orders: The president made good on his repeated promise of “drill, baby, drill” by issuing orders permitting the unregulated drilling of oil. Trump is also suspending offshore wind leasing. (Which only goes to show how petty he can be.) The key state targeted in this directive is Alaska, with the president pledging to unleash “Alaska’s extraordinary resource potential.”
  • Climate orders: Just like he did during his first administration, Trump signed an order withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement. (You’ll remember that Joe Biden rejoined the agreement via an executive order on his first day, so I can’t help but wonder how this will further tarnish the country’s reputation in the eyes of other nations around the world.)
    Trump revoked the 2021 executive order by Joe Biden that designated 50% of vehicle sales to be electric by 2030. He has directed his Energy secretary, Chris Wright, to relaunch the country’s liquefied natural gas exports. Trump is also effectively ending Biden’s Green New Deal initiative, which was supposed to promote green jobs and reduce the effects of climate change and pollution.
  • Birthright citizenship revoked: Trump has issued an executive order ending birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants.
  • Orders affecting federal workers: Trump has demanded in-office, full-time work for all federal employees, and further froze any hiring across federal agencies.
    Trump also effectively put a Project 2025 motion on the table by reinstating Schedule F, making it easier to fire civil servants whom he deems “disloyal.”
  • DOGE: Trump formally founded Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, with the aim of cutting government spending.
  • TikTok ban: Trump suspended TikTok’s ban for 75 days until a new deal is reached between the company and the administration.
  • WHO executive order: The president has withdrawn the United States from the World Health Organization.
  • Prescription drug prices: One of Trump’s more concerning decrees was to rescind a 2022 executive order by Biden to lower the price of prescription drugs.
  • Revoking security clearances: Trump has revoked the security clearance of his former national security advisor John Bolton, calling him a “warmonger.” He also did the same to several former intelligence officials who discredited the controversy around Hunter Biden’s laptop.
  • COVID: Trump has signed an executive order that revoked Biden’s mandate that all federal workers should be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
  • Renaming landmarks: Trump has renamed Denali to Mount McKinley and the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, though the legality of this is still under dispute.
  • January 6 pardons: Just as he promised, the 47th president has issued the mass pardon of around 1,500 individuals detained for taking part in the Jan. 6 riot.
  • Free speech order: Trump has ordered federal agencies to avoid censorship and any abridgment of the freedom of speech.
  • DEI and transgender decrees: One of the most talked-about executive orders by Trump declared that the federal government will henceforth only recognize two genders, male and female. Trump is rescinding a Biden order to allow transgender people into the military (further baring his bigotry for all to see) not to mention that he is now dismantling every initiative involving DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) across the government agencies. This doesn’t only affect different sexes, but even anti-discrimination rules dating back to the Equal Employment Opportunity signed in 1965.
  • Recognizing the Lumbee Tribe: The president has signed a decree supporting the recognition of the Lumbee tribe, a group of around 50,000 Native Americans living in North Carolina, giving them federal grants such as health and housing.
  • Artificial intelligence: Via another executive order, Trump is removing certain AI policies that, in his opinion, stop the United States from becoming the world leader in Artificial Intelligence.

January 23 update

  • Declassification of JFK files: Trump has just signed an executive order to declassify the documents related to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr., as he’d promised during his campaign. “That’s a big one. Lots of people are waiting for this a long, for years, for decades,” he said while signing the order and gifting the pen to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his new secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services.
  • Digital assets: Trump also signed an executive order titled “Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology” aimed at ensuring access to public blockchain networks, promoting the U.S. dollar, and providing regulatory laws for digital assets in the financial sector.

February 2 update

Over the last week, President Trump has signed a flurry of executive orders to further his MAGA agendas.

  • A proposed “American Iron Dome”: Trump signed an executive order on January 27, tasking his defense secretary Pete Hegseth to begin the process of developing an advanced missile defense system similar to Israel’s Iron Dome. “The United States will provide for the common defense of its citizens and the Nation by deploying and maintaining a next-generation missile defense shield,” the order read.
  • Further reforms in the military: Trump has signed three more executive orders to reshape the structure of the military. These will remove DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) standards and reinstate soldiers who had been dismissed for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19. It’s worth noting that these orders will not ban transgender soldiers from the military, but the Pentagon has been charged with revising the policy in regards to that in the near future.
  • Gender-affirming care executive order: Trump has signed a decree banning gender change for people under the age of 19. Per the White House: “Accordingly, it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”
  • Guantanamo Bay detention center for migrants: The 47th president has recently signed an executive order directing the Pentagon to create a 30,000-person detention center in Guantanamo Bay to hold illegal immigrants deported from the United States. While the legality of this order is still in question, officials are already scrambling to find viable methods to implement this policy.
  • Parental rights and educational opportunity: One of Trump’s latest executive decrees focuses on expanding “educational freedom” for families by directing the Department of Education to support K-12 scholarship programs. The order also calls on Congres to “pass the School Choice Now Act and the Education Freedom Scholarships and Opportunity Act.”
  • Combating anti-semitism: This new act, which expands on Executive Order 13899, asks all federal agencies “to combat the explosion of anti-semitism on our campuses and in our streets since October 7, 2023.” The Department of Justice has also been tasked to quell pro-Hamas movements and anti-Jewish racism.
  • 10-to-1 Deregulation Initiative: Trump signed an executive order compelling agencies to identify at least 10 existing rules and guidelines to be repealed whenever they want to promote a new regulation.
  • Tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China: Perhaps most disastrous of all, Trump just signed an executive order imposing tariffs on imported goods from Canada, Mexico, and China. These will include an additional 25% tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada until the border issues are addressed, and a further 10% tariff on the trade with China.

If you think these are the very stuff nightmares are made of, then I would like to remind you that Trump is only getting started, and we have at least four more years of this to bear through. It’s also worth noting that not all of these executive orders — or the many more that are to come — will take immediate effect, nor is it possible for Trump to put them in motion promptly, as some will require legislative review. Though with the GOP winning across the board, the idea of any discernible resistance is a far-flung hope.


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Author
Image of Jonathan Wright
Jonathan Wright
Jonathan is a religious consumer of movies, TV shows, video games, and speculative fiction. And when he isn't doing that, he likes to write about them. He can get particularly worked up when talking about 'The Lord of the Rings' or 'A Song of Ice and Fire' or any work of high fantasy, come to think of it.