Trade wars, border safety and more: 5 things to watch out for in the US in 2025

What to watch out for in the US in 2025:

1. Donald Trump and immigration: The president-elect has asserted that border security will be his top priority after assuming office in January, and has vowed that mass deportations will be carried out. “When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries — and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here,” Trump said in November. “There is no price tag.” Trump also aims to curtail legal immigration by ending humanitarian “parole” programs that the Biden administration enacted, allowing a huge influx of migrants with US sponsors. However, it is unclear if Trump would restart his administration’s controversial family separation policy at the US-Mexico border. Trump defended the policy in an interview last year, saying it “stopped people from coming by the hundreds of thousands.” The policy notably separated thousands of migrant families back in 2018.
2. Donald Trump and global trade policies: Trump’s second term could lead to the United States becoming a defining year for global trade policy. The US unleashing a major expansion of tariffs might as well provoke retaliatory measures from targeted countries. This, in turn, could strain international trade relationships. Trump has revealed his plan to impose a 25% tariff on all imports from Canada and Mexico on the day he takes office. He also said he would impose an additional 10 percent tariff on China, which sparked fears that a bitter global trade war would take place.
3. What to expect from DOGE: Trump has picked Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). DOGE, an outside advisory department, will work in conjunction with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). A former senior Trump administration official told Al Jazeera what Musk and Ramaswamy may be planning, saying, “From everything we’ve heard now, what Elon and Vivek are proposing to do would be something similar to what the Office of Management and Budget and GAO [Government Accountability Office] does. OMB serves the president specifically to help manage federal agencies across the executive branch. Anything that goes to the president has to go through OMB first. Anything that comes from the president to other agencies has to go through OMB first.” DOGE aims to significantly shrink the size of the federal government, streamlining agencies and cutting costs. Ramaswamy previously stressed the importance of having clear expiry dates for government initiatives. In an X post, the former Republican presidential contender wrote, “Most government projects should come with a clear expiry date. That’s why we set one for @DOGE: July 4, 2026.”

4. No abortion ban: Trump said during the presidential debate with Kamala Harris that he does not plan to sign into law a national abortion ban. “I am not signing a ban,” he said at the time, adding that a national abortion ban is not needed.

5. January 6 rioters could be pardoned: Trump reportedly said he would “free” some of the people convicted of offences during the riot in Washington DC on January 6, 2021. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol building to try and thwart the 2020 election victory of Joe Biden at the time, with the violence leading to several deaths. Trump was accused of inciting the violence, but he has maintained that many of the rioters are “wrongfully imprisoned.” However, he did acknowledge that “a couple of them, probably they got out of control.”