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President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One before arriving at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on Jan. 27, 2025.
White House pushes pause on all federal funding
Why is this happening? The Trump administration wants the government to stop funding prior administrations’ programs – which the memo accuses of advancing “Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering” – so that it can harness those resources for its own priorities and executive orders. It calls for agencies to complete a “comprehensive analysis” to align their programs with Donald Trump’s recent executive orders on energy, immigration, and DEI. It also calls for a Trump administration official to be appointed to ensure federal funding “conforms to Administration priorities.”
The directive’s scope appears sweeping, potentially affecting nearly all federal agencies, with a temporary pause in place until they submit program information by Feb. 10. Meanwhile, a vast network of federal funding recipients – including those relying on disaster relief, education grants, transportation funding, NGO support, and foreign aid – face uncertainty about maintaining their operations during the freeze.
Opinion: The yellow brick road to a Golden Age
A week into the second Trump administration, the conviction held by many that the world was more prepared for Donald Trump in the US presidency has quickly faded. This weekend’s flare-up between Trump and Colombian President Gustavo Petro over tariff threats for deportation flights further strained any remaining optimism. In its place is a stark reality: Trump is back with a bang.
Trump launched an opening salvo – a campaign not of military might but of the pen. Dozens of executive orders and presidential actions have papered the field, overwhelming and scrambling forecasts of a much hoped-for manageable Trump 2.0.
Within his record-breaking number of executive actions, Trump has begun to lay out a roadmap for the “Golden Age” of America he intends to deliver.
Setting the stage
Trump held the (virtual) spotlight late last week at the World Economic Forum’s annual sessions in Davos, Switzerland, an emerald city showcasing the world’s who’s who. With the global community eager to hear him contextualize his plans, Trump featured a highlight reel of his young administration’s greatest hits including negotiating the ceasefire in Israel-Gaza, saying, “We have accomplished more in less than four days … than other administrations have accomplished in four years. And we are just getting started.”
Many of the headlines relating to these early accomplishments have been devoted to the set of Trump executive orders with clear and specific implications. The decision, for instance, to pardon or commute sentences for certain offenses relating to Jan. 6, 2021, sent ripples through the domestic political environment. As did his order to instruct the attorney general not to take action to enforce the so-called TikTok ban for 75 days. A move by a federal judge in Washington state to place a nationwide temporary restraining order on Trump’s Day 1 “Birthright Citizenship” executive order previews the court challenges ahead for the president’s targeted initiatives.
A Trump 2.0 blueprint
Yet, there is a second set of presidential actions with broader impact that deserve deeper scrutiny. In these, Trump and his team have been more open-ended, memorializing their ambitions across trade and economic policy, national security, and foreign policy for the months and years ahead.
On trade, there was initial relief abroad when Trump did not impose blanket tariffs on Day 1. Instead, he issued a wide-ranging action laying out an “America First Trade Policy,” which includes an instruction to the Department of Commerce, Treasury, and United States Trade Representative to undertake a host of investigations and reviews to address unfair and unbalanced trade. This includes the creation of an External Revenue Service to collect tariffs, duties, and other foreign trade-related revenues. Paraphrasing former vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz during the 2024 campaign – you don’t create a new governmental organization if you don’t plan on collecting the tariffs. Alluding to these plans in his Davos remarks, Trump suggested that if firms do not make their product in America – which is their “prerogative” – they will have to pay some tariff.
In addition to the spat with Colombia, Trump has threatened to impose 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico on Feb. 1. Trump’s near-term focus on his northern and southern borders is almost certainly to apply pressure for concessions on immigration but also ahead of forthcoming renegotiations of the USMCA agreement. And while Europe may escape the first round unscathed, it would do well to pay attention. If Trump can impose tariffs on US allies close to home, he can easily do the same across the Atlantic, where he will be looking for leverage on US LNG sales, European automotive manufacturing, NATO defense spending, and his emerging dream of bringing Greenland into the US fold.
On foreign policy, Trump has set for himselfan aspiration agenda. Gone are the days of isolationism, now replaced by eyes that roam from Canada to the Panama Canal and the “Gulf of America.” In his inaugural address, Trump suggested that the US is a nation “more ambitious than any other.” In a directive to the Secretary of State, Trump codifies this expansionist vision: “From this day forward, the foreign policy of the United States shall champion core American interests and always put America and American citizens first.” To that end, the administration placed an immediate 90-day hold on all new US foreign development assistance pending review and consistency with US foreign policy. A consequential development for US relationships and soft power worldwide.
As the conversations across Europe and the world shift from an election post-mortem to looking forward, the focus has narrowed to an essential question: What kind of America are we in for, and where do we go from here? With a flurry of activity since taking office, Trump has cast aside (misguided) expectations of restraint. His government will be busy on many fronts laying a path toward a golden age.
Lindsay Newman is a geopolitical risk expert and columnist for GZERO.
John F Kennedy and his wife Jackie Kennedy in the Lincoln Continental in Dallas on November 22, 1963, just moments before he was assassinated.
HARD NUMBERS: Trump declassifies JFK docs, Saudis pledge huge US investment, Nepal hikes Everest fees, Taiwan tackles lizards, Trump releases activists, Oscars make transgender history
3: Donald Trump on Thursday ordered the government to declassify documents pertaining to three of the biggest, and most controversial, assassinations in American history: President John F. Kennedy in 1963, his brother Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., also in 1968. Will this finally put to rest the question of whether there was a second shooter on the grassy knoll? Back and to the left … back and to the left.
600 billion: Saudi Arabia has pledged to invest some $600 billion in the United States, part of a charm offensive with the kingdom’s most important Western ally. Trump suggested Thursday in his address to the World Economic Forum in Davos that the Saudis should top that up closer to $1 trillion. He suggested earlier this week that such investments could mean he’d consider making the kingdom his first foreign trip as America’s 47th president. Saudi Arabia has invested heavily in companies linked to Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner.
15,000: For the first time in nearly a decade, Nepal has hiked the permit fee for climbing Mount Everest. If you want to summit the highest peak on Earth, you’ll need to pony up $15,000, an increase of 36%. Each year, several hundred people attempt the ascent, which was first completed in 1953 by Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay.
120,000: If you love lizards, you’re ’guana cry about this one. Taiwan has announced plans to cull up to 120,000 green iguanas, an invasive species that is native to Central America and the Caribbean. Stretching to 2 feet in length, the sharp-toothed green iguanas pose no threat to humans, but they eat and destroy crops, wreaking havoc on the agriculture sector.
23: President Donald Trumpsigned pardons on Thursday for 23 anti-abortion activists who were convicted of illegally blocking access to abortion clinics. Among them was 31-year-old Lauren Hardy, who was serving a five-year term for leading a blockade on a clinic that resulted in the protesters forcing their way into the facility and injuring a nurse. The release came just in time for the annual March for Life, set for today in Washington, DC.
13: The musical film “Emila Pérez,” a Spanish-language French production about a drug kingpin who undergoes a gender transition, has garnered 13 Oscar nominations, the most of any film this year. Its star, Karla Sofía Gascón, became the first openly transgender actress to be nominated for an Oscar. Coming just three days after the new Trump administration moved to roll back recognition and protections for transgender people, the nominations carry a distinct political significance. The Academy Awards will take place on March 2.
Will Elon Musk be good for America?
SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has such an influential role in Donald Trump’s new administration that he’s been called the “shadow president.” Will his outsize presence in the Trump White House help usher in a new era of US tech policy or lead to geopolitical chaos? On GZERO World, Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson joins Ian Bremmer to discuss technology and the incoming Trump administration. Musk’s role in everything from space travel to AI development to social media will have a huge impact on America’s technology and economic future. The ‘Elon-ification’ of Twitter/X has also given Musk a platform to influence politics abroad, which could complicate America’s relationship with geopolitical allies who want him to stop interfering but don’t want to jeopardize their relationship with the new US President. Though Thompson believes Trump’s technology policy will ultimately be better because of Musk’s influence, he also says Elon could create a lot of instability and inefficient regulations.
“Elon cares deeply about some of the most important issues, like climate change and space exploration, so you get a lot of benefits,” Thompson says, “On the other hand, you get the chaos that comes with him and might end up with really inefficient regulations because they’re all skewed towards Musk companies.”
Watch full episode: Big Tech under Trump 2.0
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don't miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
Washington , DC - January 20: President-elect Donald Trump arrives ahead of the 60th inaugural ceremony on January 20, 2025, at the US Capitol in Washington, DC. Trump becomes the 47th president of the United States in a rare indoor inauguration ceremony. The parade was also moved inside Capitol One Arena due to weather.
Trump’s 2025 Inaugural: From American Carnage to Golden Age
“Nothing will stand in our way. The future is ours and our golden age has just begun.”
With those words, President Donald J. Trump concluded his 2025 inaugural address, promising an American renaissance. Invoking the doctrine of American exceptionalism, he declared that “We are going to win like never before” and pledged to be a unifier and peacemaker who would nonetheless put America First.
A shift in tone. The speech was a stark contrast to Trump’s inaugural address of 2017, where he painted a gloomy picture of “American carnage”: a nation riddled with crime, poverty, and economic decline. This time, while he heavily criticized the previous administration for its decisions, Trump adopted a more optimistic and forward-looking tone, emphasizing unity and national restoration – and even territorial expansion. Trump invoked the concept of Manifest Destiny, promising to plant the American flag on Mars, as well as rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and retake the Panama Canal.
Border Security and Immigration. Trump will declare a national emergency at America’s southern border (which earned him one of several standing ovations), reinstate his “Remain in Mexico” policy, and designate drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. He also pledged to use the Enemy Aliens act of 1798 to deploy military power to eliminate foreign gangs in American cities.
Health and Wealth. Trump promised to “end the chronic disease epidemic” but gave no further specifics. On the prosperity front, he promised to restore America’s strength in manufacturing and that his cabinet would “marshal powers to defeat inflation and bring down costs and prices”, which he said were caused by government overspending and high energy prices.
Drill baby drill. To that end, Trump promised to overturn President Joe Biden’s Green New Deal and expand the exploitation of oil and gas resources, which he dubbed the “liquid gold beneath our feet” that America should export. He spoke of tariffs, but without specifics, promising to create an External Revenue Service to collect all tariffs duties and revenues, as well as a department of government efficiency to cut spending.
Woke wars. Trump promised to sign an executive order to “stop all government censorship”, “bring back free speech to America” and create a society that is “colour blind and merit based.” He declared that the United States has only two genders, male and female.
The military. Trump promised to restore back pay to servicemen who had lost their jobs for refusing the federal COVID vaccine mandate. He pledged to remove “radical theories” from the military and leave it “free to focus on its sole mission – defeating America’s enemies.”
Big Tech under Trump 2.0
The tech landscape has shifted dramatically since Donald Trump’s first term in office: AI is booming, Meta and Google are fighting antitrust battles, and Elon Musk turned Twitter into “X.” In anticipation of Trump 2.0, social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram have announced they’ll prioritize free speech over content moderation and fact-checking. So what’s in store for the tech industry in 2025? On GZERO World, Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson joins Ian Bremmer on GZERO World to discuss recent shifts at Big Tech companies and the intersection of technology, media, and politics. What does the tech industry stand to gain–or lose–from another Trump presidency? Will Elon Musk have a positive impact on the future of US tech policy? And how will things like the proliferation of bots and the fragmentation of social media affect political discourse online?
“Social media platforms, in general, are shifting to the right, and they are less important than they were five years ago. They’re bifurcated, dispersed, conversations happen across platforms,” Thompson explains, “As communities split, there will be less and less one town square where people discuss issues of consequence.”
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don't miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
Graphic Truth: Trump’s inauguration shatters records
Corporate America is showing unprecedented support for Donald Trump’s inauguration, donating record-breaking amounts. Many companies from the tech, fossil fuel, financial services, and automotive industries have doubled their donations since Trump’s first term in 2017.
Not only are companies giving larger amounts than they did for Trump’s first inauguration, but they are also announcing their contributions months before required federal reporting – a contrast from 2017, when many companies tried to distance themselves from the president-elect, or in 2021, when many companies publicly cut ties with Trump following the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Top donating companies include the world's five biggest tech firms like OpenAI and Uber, major auto manufacturers like Toyota, Ford, and GM, healthcare companies like Pfizer, and financial services like Robinhood and Intuit – all of which have each donated at least $1 million. Microsoft doubled its usual contribution to $1 million, while Google more than tripled its previous donations to $1 million as well.
Government watchdogs question how this money will be spent. While the inaugural committee must disclose donors who give more than $200 within 90 days of taking office, there are no restrictions on contribution amounts or requirements to disclose how the money is spent. Trump also has an allied super PAC and a 501(c)4 group accepting donations which do not need to be disclosed. Between the private donations to the inaugural fund and the PACs, Trump is expected to rake in $250 million before taking office.
The logic: Companies don’t give unless they expect to get something in return, and the writing on the wall right now – from the inauguration’s overflowing coffers to dinners costing $250 thousand a plate – is that companies believe they can, or need to, pay up if they want to influence or enjoy favorable policies under the incoming administration.
How Biden’s presidency will be remembered
Jon Lieber, Eurasia Group's head of research and managing director for the firm's coverage of United States political and policy developments, shares his perspective on US politics from Washington, DC.
This is what we're watching in US Politics this week: One question that's going to be debated for a long time in the coming years is what is President Biden's legacy? I think there are a couple of things that he's going to be remembered for.
The first is the extraordinarily chaotic global environment over which he presided. Republicans will tie this back to the shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan that President Biden presided over. But following that, you had the Russian invasion in Ukraine and the events of October 7th in the Middle East that led to the ongoing war there that is just now starting to look like it's settling down. But this is clearly going to be one of the background themes of any assessments of President Biden's legacy.
Biden's now one of four one-term presidents in the last 50 years, and one of the reasons that he lost was of course inflation. And inflation, you could argue was fueled by the pandemic or you could argue it was fueled by early actions taken by the Biden administration to spend a lot of money, perhaps more money than was necessary. But either way, the inflationary story of 2021 and 2022 is going to be remembered as one of his key legacies and one of the reasons that he lost reelection. Now that loss to Donald Trump, allowing probably one of the more controversial presidents in certainly recent American history, to come back into office and mount an unprecedented political comeback is also going to be part of Biden's legacy. Because of the fact that he decided that he was able to run even at his advanced age, that blocked out the Democrats from having an opportunity to hold a primary and then forced the Democrats to change horses midstream and move over to Kamala Harris in the middle of the election cycle, who of course lost to Trump. That is also going to be part of his legacy.
And it's unclear. Biden thinks, says it publicly, he could have won election if he just stayed in. He's 82 years old. He'd be the oldest president ever if he did, and there's obvious decline in his faculties over the course of the year. But more importantly, the American people really started to lose confidence in Biden as time went on this year. So not at all clear that he would've won that election or that any other Democrat could have won that election if there were a primary process. But his sticking around and the White House staff and other Democratic operatives that covered for the age-related decline that he was experiencing is also going to be a part of President Biden's election.
Probably one of the more consequential things I think he's going to end up having done over the longer term is increasing the US confrontation with China, particularly over technology policy. The world is at a critical juncture when it comes to the advanced semiconductors and artificial intelligence. And the wall that the Biden administration has been trying to erect around Chinese access to US advanced technologies is going to have ripple effects and repercussions for years to come. The Trump administration's likely to continue a lot of that, and this could potentially be an inflection point in 10 years time as we look back and look at the two different tech ecosystems that are being built out. A lot of that legacy is going to trace back to the Biden administration.
So that's a pretty complex, mixed legacy. The US doesn't have lot of one-term presidents in recent history. Most one-term presidents aren't remembered that fondly. Presidents like George H.W. Bush look a lot better in the long distance of history, whereas President Jimmy Carter who recently passed away still has a bit of a mixed legacy. And that's probably where Biden's going to end up.
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