Donald Trump’s new world order for business elites

He’s back, so buckle up.

Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency has investors braced for another four-year roller-coaster ride with bouts of volatility and trading spikes driven by late-night social media posts and throwaway lines.

The 78-year-old followed his inauguration by signing the first of some 200 presidential orders giving shape to his second-term “America First” policies after a rambling speech promising a “greater, stronger, and far more exceptional (US) than ever before”.

“Sunlight is pouring over the entire world, and America has the chance to seize this opportunity like never before,” he said.

Trump has yet to act on his plan to hit Mexico and Canada with 25 per cent tariffs, but here are some of his more significant presidential orders, actions and proclamations made overnight Monday that could potentially carry fall-out for businesses in Australia and other countries.

Climate policy

Trump withdrew the US a second time from the Paris Climate Agreement, a 2015 pact in which governments agreed to limit global warming to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

The US rejoins Iran, Libya and Yemen as the only countries in the world outside the agreement.

Trump, a climate change sceptic, described the accord as an “unfair, one-sided . . . rip-off” before signing the executive order.

“The United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity,” he said.

Electric cars

He revoked a non-binding executive order signed by his predecessor Joe Biden and supported by car makers aimed at making half of all new vehicles sold in the US in 2030 electric.

The order said the Trump administration should consider “the elimination of unfair subsidies and other ill-conceived government-imposed market distortions that favour EVs over other technologies and effectively mandate their purchase”.

Drill, baby, drill

He declared a national energy emergency in the US to “unleash” already strong US energy production.

The order includes a roll-back of restrictions on drilling in Alaska and will allow his administration to fast-track development of new fossil-fuel projects.

“We will drill, baby, drill,” Trump said in his inauguration speech at Washington’s Capitol Rotunda.

“We will bring prices down, fill our strategic reserves up again . . . and export American energy all over the world,” he said. “We will be a rich nation again. And it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it.”

Offshore wind farms

Ordered a freeze on new offshore wind farms, including permitting and the sale of new wind leases.

Underlining his focus on advancing fossil fuel developments, Trump told an audience of supporters in Washington after his inauguration that the US was blessed with large reserves of oil and gas, “and we’re going to use it . . . we’re not going to do the wind thing”.

The move was not unexpected given Trump’s often-professed loathing of wind farms, reiterating on Monday that “big ugly windmills” harmed whales and killed birds.

Corporate taxes

Effectively quit the global corporate tax deal negotiated by Biden with more than 100 countries through the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development in 2021 by declaring it has “no force or effect” in the US.

The two-part pact covered a treaty detailing how global multi-nationals would reallocate profits to countries where they were operating, such as Australia, and an agreement on a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15 per cent.

The White House said in a memorandum to the new US Treasury Secretary that it was “recapturing our nation’s sovereignty and economic competitiveness by clarifying that the global tax deal has no force or effect in the US.”

WFH

Ordered Federal workers to return to the office, the first salvo in a campaign critics say is aimed at gutting a federal bureaucracy Trump has derided as the “deep state”.

In an announcement posted on the White House website, Trump ordered department heads to “take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis, provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary”.

Diversity and inclusion

Scrapped federal diversity, equity and inclusion programs introduced under Biden to prevent discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation.

The White House said the Democrats’ diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies had “embedded deeply unpopular, inflationary, illegal, and radical practices” in federal offices and agencies.

“The injection of diversity, equity, and inclusion into our institutions has corrupted them by replacing hard work, merit, and equality with a divisive and dangerous preferential hierarchy,” it said. Trump said also his administration would recognise only two genders — male and female.

Jobs freeze

Instituted a federal hiring freeze while his administration addresses “broken, insular, and outdated” hiring practices and comes up with a plan to cut jobs.

The new hiring scheme, which will work in tandem with the new bans on diversity policies, would target “only highly skilled Americans dedicated to the furtherance of American ideals, values, and interests”.

His administration said current hiring practices “no longer focus on merit, practical skill, and dedication to our Constitution” and “put critical government functions at risk, and risks losing the best-qualified candidates”.

Enforcement agencies

Ordered a review of key government departments, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, to end the purported “weaponisation” of the government by the Biden administration.

Trump claims he and other opponents were the subject of politically-motivated prosecutions. His executive order provides for the US Attorney General “shall take appropriate action to review the activities of all departments and agencies exercising civil or criminal enforcement authority” over the past four years.