Donald Trump takes oath of office as US President, says he will save America from decline.

Donald Trump aged 78 was sworn in as the 47th president of the US and pledged in his inauguration address to rescue America from what he described as years of betrayal and decline, prioritizing a crackdown on illegal immigration. Trump declared his intention to sign a number of executive actions in his first hours as president, including a number focused on border security and immigration, his top priority. Trump announced a "national emergency" at the US-Mexico border, declared drug cartels as terrorists, and will scrap government diversity programmes. His vice president, JD Vance, was sworn in just before him.

"First, I will declare a national emergency at our southern border," he said. "All illegal entry will be immediately halted and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came." The speech echoed many of the themes he sounded at his first inauguration in 2017 when he spoke darkly of the "American carnage" of crime and job loss that he said had ravaged the country.

The inauguration completes a significant comeback for a political disruptor who survived two impeachment trials, a felony conviction, two assassination attempts and an indictment for attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss. Trump will be the first felon to occupy the White House after a New York jury found him guilty of falsifying business records to cover up hush money paid to a porn star.

"The journey to reclaim our republic has not been an easy one, that I can tell you," Trump said, before referring to the assassin's bullet that grazed his ear in July. "I was saved by God to make America great again." The ceremony was moved inside the Capitol due to the cold, four years after a mob of Trump supporters breached the building, a symbol of American democracy, in an unsuccessful effort to forestall Trump's loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Biden and outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost to Trump in November, were present inside the Capitol's Rotunda, along with former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in 2016, arrived with her husband Bill, but Obama's wife, Michelle, chose not to attend. Numerous tech executives who have sought to curry favor with the incoming administration - including the three richest men in the world, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg - had prominent seats on stage, next to cabinet nominees and members of Trump's family.

Trump, the first US president since the 19th century to win a second term after losing the White House, has said he would pardon on day one any of the more than 1,500 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. He skipped Biden's inauguration and has continued to claim falsely that the 2020 election he lost to Biden was rigged.

In another controversial announcement  in his inaugural speech Trump said that in "a short time from now," the name of Gulf of Mexico will be changed to "Gulf of America." 

Source: commonspace.eu with agencies Photo: BBC

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Key European countries back Denmark in the face of Trump's continuing insistence on taking over Greenland

Key European countries back Denmark in the face of Trump's continuing insistence on taking over Greenland

 Six major European countries have declared their support to Denmark following renewed insistence by the US that it must have control over Greenland. "Greenland belongs to its people, and only Denmark and Greenland can decide on matters concerning their relations," said the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Spain, in a joint statement, issued on Tuesday (6 January), together with Denmark. On Sunday, Donald Trump said the US "needed" Greenland - a semi-autonomous region of fellow Nato member Denmark - for security reasons. He has refused to rule out the use of force to take control of the territory, and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned on Monday that an attack by the US would spell the end of Nato. The issue of Greenland's future resurfaced in the wake of the US military intervention in Venezuela, during which elite troops went in to seize the country's President Nicolás Maduro and take him to face drugs and weapons charges in New York. Following the raid, Trump said the US would "run" Venezuela for an unspecified period of time. He also said the US was returning to an 1823 policy of US supremacy in its sphere of influence in the Western hemisphere - and he warned a number of countries the US could turn its attention to them. The US military raid in Venezuela has reignited fears that the US may consider using force to secure control of Greenland. A day after the raid, Katie Miller - the wife of one of Trump's senior aides - posted on social media a map of Greenland in the colours of the American flag, alongside the word "SOON". On Monday, her husband Stephen Miller said it was "the formal position of the US government that Greenland should be part of the US". In an interview with CNN, he also said the US "is the power of Nato. For the US to secure the Arctic region, to protect and defend Nato and Nato interests, obviously Greenland should be part of the US." Asked repeatedly whether the US would rule out using force to annex it, Miller responded: "Nobody's going to fight the US over the future of Greenland." Stressing they were as keen as the US in Arctic security, the seven European signatories of Tuesday's joint statement said this must be achieved by Nato allies, including the US "collectively" - whilst "upholding the principles of the UN Charter, including sovereignty, territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders". Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen welcomed the statement and called for "respectful dialogue". "The dialogue must take place with respect for the fact that Greenland's status is rooted in international law and the principle of territorial integrity," Nielsen said. Trump has claimed that making Greenland part of the US would serve American security interests due to its strategic location and its abundance of minerals critical to high-tech sectors. Greenland, which has a population of 57,000 people, has had extensive self-government since 1979, though defence and foreign policy remain in Danish hands. While most Greenlanders favour eventual independence from Denmark, opinion polls show overwhelming opposition to becoming part of the US.

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