Here we go.
An “urgent request” from a recruiter at the US International Development Finance Corp. on Day One of the Trump administration asked ImpactAlpha to remove the DFC’s posts from our Career Hub. The urgency: Immediate compliance with the new president’s hiring freeze memorandum.
The freeze was among more than two dozen new executive orders (among 46 executive actions), which trumped the previous record of nine first-day orders signed by President Joe Biden.
Trump started the clock on US withdrawals from the World Health Organization and the Paris climate accords (again) and declared, perhaps dubiously, an end to birthright citizenship (a lawsuit filed Tuesday by 22 states sought to block the order).
Some of the actions were clearly performative, such as renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” Others will have immediate impact: Newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio paused all foreign aid for 90 days to ensure the funding is “fully aligned with the foreign policy of the President of the United States.”
ImpactAlpha pored through the raft of orders so you don’t have to (but probably should!). Some to watch:
Climate and energy
Many of Trump’s executive orders will be challenged in court, and perhaps even by Republicans in Congress (see, “Betting on the low-carbon transition, against the odds”). The president’s “Unleashing American Energy” order directs the federal government to eliminate the electric vehicle “mandate” (there isn’t one), while only “considering” the end of “unfair subsidies” that favor EVs (hello, Elon?). It also calls for an immediate pause in disbursements under the Inflation Reduction Act and bipartisan infrastructure law, pending a 90-day review.
Trump declared a national energy emergency to facilitate the refining and production of domestic energy resources, including on federal lands. A single order revoked over 70 of Biden’s executive orders tackling the climate crisis, mitigating climate-related financial risk and promoting environmental justice. He also disbanded a group that had set the social cost of carbon, a calculation used in government decision-making – at $190 a ton.
Whither wind?
Trump dedicated an entire directive to his longtime bête noire – wind power. The order freezes new leases for off- and on-shore wind farms, and cancels a wind farm in Idaho greenlighted last month.
The new Interior Secretary will review existing wind projects for “the necessity of terminating or amending” them. The order flies in the face of Trump’s energy emergency declaration, as Jason Grumet of the American Clean Power Association, called out.
“On one hand the Administration seeks to reduce bureaucracy and unleash energy production, on the other it increases bureaucratic barriers, undermining domestic energy development and harming American businesses and workers,” said Grumet. That the federal government “could seek to actively oppose energy production by American companies on private land is at odds with our nation’s character as well as our national interests.”
AI arms race
Among the dozens of Biden-era orders the new president rescinded was a directive to safeguard the development of artificial intelligence by testing AI models and identifying ‘deep fakes.’
Trump announced a $100 billion commitment from OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle to stand up Stargate, a Texas-based joint venture that Trump called the “largest AI infrastructure project in history.” The companies could plow up to $500 billion into the project, starting with 10 data centers in Texas, which Trump claimed would create 100,000 jobs.
SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Oracle’s Larry Ellison joined Trump at the White House.
Global trade and development
The US is effectively out of the Global Tax Deal, according to one presidential action, which Biden negotiated in 2021 to establish a global corporate minimum tax.
Newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio has begun implementing Trump’s executive order pausing all foreign aid for 90 days so that it can be reviewed to be made sure that it is “fully aligned with the foreign policy of the President of the United States.” NGOs and other federal contractors are “scrambling to figure out what to do,” reports The New York Times. “Many programs in impoverished and war- or disaster-stricken parts of the world could suddenly end,” said one official.
Faten Aggad of African Future Policies Hub pulled together a list of executive orders most relevant to Africa.
Diversity and racial equity
As promised during his campaign, Trump took particular aim at programs promoting diversity, equity and inclusion, which he called “a divisive and dangerous preferential hierarchy.” In the most sweeping anti-DEI order, Trump directed the Office of Management and Budget to “coordinate the termination of all discriminatory programs,” under “whatever name they appear.” Last night, Trump placed all federal employees in DEI roles on paid leave.
Illumen Capital’s Daryn Dodson told Bloomberg, “The challenge of those that would be fully against DEI is that they’re also against… economic returns… market optimization… economic value within corporations… (and) basic underlying principles of modern portfolio theory.”
