On his first day as president, Trump says he’s considering imposing tariffs on Canada and Mexico that could start as early as February: “We’re thinking in terms of 25% (levies) on Mexico and Canada…” The US trade deficit with Canada is largely due to US purchases of oil. Mexico also runs a trade surplus with the US and for the first 11 months of 2024 was the top exporter to the world’s largest economy.

Trump declares national energy emergency and order US to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. The president also repealed Biden administration goals that require half of all new car sales be zero-emission vehicles by 2030 and that the country reaches a carbon-free electricity sector by 2035.

Tech elites and billionaires attended Trump’s inauguration, underscoring the president’s influence to leaders of some of the most important companies in the country. According to the Financial Times, “Trump’s inauguration was attended by 5 of the world’s 10 richest people,” including Elon Musk (Tesla), Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and Mark Zuckerberg (Meta).

The world’s five wealthiest men have more than doubled their wealth since 2020, according to a report from Oxfam. ” A huge concentration of global corporate and monopoly power is exacerbating inequality economy-wide,” the organization advises. ”Seven out of ten of the world’s biggest corporates have either a billionaire CEO or a billionaire as their principal shareholder.”

Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller says “animal spirits” have returned to markets. “I’ve been doing this for 49 years, and we’re probably going from the most anti-business administration to the opposite,” he tells CNBC. “We do a lot of talking to CEOs and companies on the ground. And I’d say CEOs are somewhere between relieved and giddy. So we’re a believer in animal spirits.”

Trump appoints crypto-friendly Mark Uyeda as acting chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Trump’s permanent choice for the position, Paul Atkins, awaits Senate confirmation. Acting Chair Uyeda has supported easing regulations on the crypto industry.

The Trump administration is considering selling up to two-thirds of the federal government’s office stock to the private buyers. In addition, the 70 million square feet of office space leased by the General Services Administration from the private sector may be canceled, reports The Wall Street Journal.

US foreign direct investment as a share of the global total soars to a record high. “The proportion of new FDI projects announced in the US rose from 11.6 per cent in 2023, to 14.3 per cent in the 12 months to November 2024, according to FT analysis of data,” reports Financial Times. “The US is pulling in more and more global investment projects and this reflects the strong demand outlook and much stronger productivity growth than elsewhere,” says Innes McFee, global economist at Oxford Economics. “We expect that US exceptionalism to continue.”

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