In his first few weeks back in office, Donald J. Trump delivered his characteristic ‘shock and confusion’ tactics by unleashing dozens of draconian and vindictive executive orders aimed at rescinding scores of executive orders and actions adopted by the Biden administration. The 47th president of the United States wasted no time after his inauguration ceremony on January 20, 2025, before signing and releasing a blizzard of contentious presidential directives to advance the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) agenda. These include overhauling the US government to end what he claims is its endemic waste, reducing the size of the federal agencies and work force, destroying what he deems the “deep state,” and securing American borders, among others.
The newly revamped official White House website is already bragging that “America is back,” as if the United States government has been on a sabbatical from the real world for the past four years but has now, under Trump, resumed its path to make America “Great Again.” Two factors highlight the superficial and propagandistic nature of many of Trump’s executive orders. The first is the unpopularity of some of his early measures. As far as the American public at large is concerned, American citizens are not too excited about all of his dramatic actions. For example, a recent Marquette University Law School poll found that “while substantial majorities support some of Trump’s early initiatives, equally substantial majorities oppose others.”
The second factor is that the current administration’s backing does not seem consistently supportive or ideologically committed to all of Trump’s executive orders at this early juncture in its political life span, although the president has already wagered the prestige of the White House and the legacy of his second term behind them. It would not surprise any keen political observer of American politics if some of these executive orders were to gradually fall by the wayside or get downgraded by the administration itself for purely practical reasons. A case in point is the issue of tariffs highlighted by the Trump campaign as the flagship of its foreign trade policy. Only a few days after declaring tariff wars and imposing arbitrary taxes on Canada and Mexico, the president and his advisors appear to be saving face by making a U-turn and delaying the implementation of their highly-touted 25 percent tariffs due to rising concerns among business groups, affected domestic communities, and the shocked financial markets over the administration’s muddled strategy. This led some political commentators to ridicule Trump for losing his trade war before it even started.
Targeting the Middle East
As a foreign policy analyst affiliated with a Washington-based think tank focused on the Arab World and US national interests in the Middle East, this writer was admittedly quite intrigued by President Trump’s focus on the Middle East in his campaign of executive orders more than his executive directive officially renaming the Gulf of Mexico as “The Gulf of America,” or his banning transgender women from participating in female sports. Very notably, at least a quarter of his orders issued in the first two weeks dealt, directly or indirectly, with Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East in general. Below is a list of the key executive orders and related public statements issued by the Trump White House to illustrate the emerging foreign policy direction of the new administration.
- Trump started his anti-Palestinian campaign by rescinding sanctions imposed by his predecessor on extremist Jewish settlers accused of engaging in violent acts against innocent civilians in the occupied West Bank. The 17 individuals and 16 settler organizations were absolutely well known to Israeli authorities and US Embassy Jerusalem staff for their persistent violent campaigns to drive Palestinians off their native land. The new message from Washington is quite clear: there is a new sheriff in town who is not opposed to the violent activities by extremist Jewish settlers aimed at “undermining peace, security, and stability in the West Bank,” as the Biden administration said when introducing the sanctions a year ago. No wonder Trump’s proposals for Gaza and the West Bank were warmly received by the extreme rightwing Israeli government which immediately ordered logistical plans for a Palestinian population transfer.
- Another Inauguration Day executive order related to Middle East policy was the 90-day freeze of all US foreign aid programs, among the very exceptions to which is the $4.6 billion politically-linked annual military aid to Israel and Egypt. Mr. Trump apparently considers what he calls “the US foreign aid industry and bureaucracy” as wasteful and “not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values,” except when it directly benefits the state of Israel (and Egypt by extension). However, his claim that such cuts would save precious taxpayer funds ring hollow because, in actuality, US foreign aid does not exceed 2 percent of the annual federal budget.
- Continuing his unprecedented streak of “a diktat a day,” on January 25, 2025, Trump ordered the US military to resume the supply of US-made 2,000-pound bombs to Israel. The Biden administration had restricted delivery of these weapons due to its concern over Israel causing civilian casualties in urban battles in Gaza, in particular Israel’s use of the massive bombs against the civilian population during the 2024 fight over the city of Rafah in southern Gaza.
- Under the guise of combating anti-Semitism around the world and protecting American citizens at home, particularly at colleges and universities, the Trump administration issued another executive order to curtail campus activities especially critical of Israeli practices in Gaza by limiting constitutional free speech rights on American campuses and threatening to deport international students and other noncitizens for their pro-Palestine and anti-war activism. Civil rights groups around the United States warned of potential violations of constitutionally protected free speech rights by Trump’s executive orders and committed to challenge them in US courts.
- Trump’s “America First” mindset and his animosity toward the Palestinians propelled his campaign to end funding to specific United Nations agencies and organizations, particularly those involved in supporting Palestinian rights, criticizing Israeli occupation policies, and consequently, from Trump’s perspective, acting against US national interests. On January 20, 2025, he withdrew the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO), UNRWA, and the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and and called for additional scrutiny of American involvement in UNESCO. Trump has clearly adopted the same position advocated by extreme Israeli rightwing religious and nationalist parties by targeting UNRWA for its economic, educational, and humanitarian support for Palestinian refugees, whose insistence on their right of return has been viewed by these groups as an existential threat to continued long-term Zionist colonialism in Palestine.
- Although the United States and Israel, for that matter, are not members of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the court has no jurisdiction over either country, President Trump signed another executive order on February 6, while hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, that accused the international tribunal of engaging in “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel” and of abusing its power by issuing “baseless arrest warrants” against Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant. The White House threatened to impose “tangible and significant consequences” on the ICC to isolate the court and stifle its vital international role, including by targeting its renowned prosecutor Karim Khan.
Conclusions
It has been said by various political pundits that Trump’s second term would be a replica of Trump I (between 2017-2021) but this time, without the minimal discipline and guardrails imposed by a few adults in the room. Dealing with Trump under normal circumstances is identical to dealing with the theater of the absurd. It is a lethal combination of predictable political choreography and unforeseeable improvisation. It is a rare form of governance even by relatively flexible non-ideological American standards. The extensive list of executive orders issued since inauguration was the equivalent of a drum roll setting the stage for a stunning finale.
In this case, the finale came in the form of a political bombshell timed with Netanyahu’s February 4 White House visit to pursue the remaining stages of the American-sponsored ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel. As Netanyahu stated before his departure from Ben Gurion Airport on February 2, the aim of his visit was “to redraw” the Middle East. Unfortunately, Trump obliged by putting aside the declared purpose of his encounter with Netanyahu, i.e., full ceasefire implementation and regional normalization, and granting the legally and politically besieged Israeli leader his ultimate dream: ethnic cleansing of Gaza under United States leadership. Netanyahu arrived in Washington worried about the “day after” in Gaza but returned home with an ill-conceived and ill-timed commitment by the President of the United States of America to turn the war-torn strip into an American colony that Trump dreams of transforming into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” After this announcement, Trump doubled down by declaring that he wants to “take over” the Gaza Strip to which expelled Palestinians would not be allowed to return. And to coerce Egypt and Jordan into accepting displaced Gazans, he threatened the two US allies with ending the US foreign aid that has been a mainstay of their survival for decades.
The views expressed in this publication are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab Center Washington DC, its staff, or its Board of Directors.
Featured image credit: X/The White House
