On January 20, the second term of Republican Donald Trump began.

Since then, the US president has initiated a radical restructuring of the state apparatus and issued an almost incalculable number of decrees.

Starting with the most recent ones, here are the most important announcements and decisions made by the new US administration. The chronicle reflects the status on the date mentioned. Trump himself has already reversed some of his decisions, and some others have been stopped by the courts.

Trump has spoken out in favour of a tariff rate of 50 percent on goods from the European Union.

The regulation is to apply from June 1, as he wrote on his online service Truth Social. As a reason for his decision, Trump cited sluggish progress in trade talks with the European Union

Decrees of the US President

In the USA, presidents have the option of issuing binding orders for authorities by decree and clarifying or further developing existing laws. The president can also declare a national emergency by means of a so-called executive order.

Many US presidents have been accused of ruling by decree. Since the so-called executive orders do not go through the legislative process, the president has the option of bypassing Congress by resorting to decrees. Congress can replace presidential decisions with new laws or withhold money to prevent the implementation of a presidential decree. However, the president can veto this. This can only be overruled by a two-thirds majority of Congress.

Decrees remain in force until the president himself or his successor repeals them. Courts can also declare decrees null and void if they classify them as a violation of the constitution. Donald Trump's decree to abolish the right to citizenship by birth in the USA, for example, has already been stopped by several courts.

Already in his first term in office, courts had overturned several of Trump's decrees.

For example, judges overturned essential provisions of the so-called Muslim Ban, with which Trump had issued entry bans for people from Muslim-majority countries a few days after taking office in 2017. Trump eventually rescinded the decree and replaced it with a new one, which also contained travel bans. His successor Joe Biden rescinded this decree on the day of his inauguration in 2021.

Does Trump really believe in all the crap he is talking and doing?

Lets remains ourselves what and how it was in 2019 (see graph bellow):