Donald Trump has refrained from imposing tariffs during his first day as US president, betting big that his executive actions can lower energy prices and tame inflation. But it is unclear whether his orders will be enough to jumpstart the US economy as promised.

When he was a candidate, Trump promised to impose tariffs ranging between 10 and 20 percent on all imports and up to 60 percent on imports from China. He also threatened to impose a 25% tax on imports from Canada and Mexico if they failed to curb the flow of illegal drugs and immigrants entering the United States illegally.

Experts warned that these threats did not materialize on Monday, his first day in office, but that does not mean they disappeared.

Trump announced the creation of the Foreign Revenue Service “to collect all tariffs, duties, and revenues.” “It will be a significant amount of money from foreign sources,” he said in his inaugural address.

“He chose not to make a knee-jerk tariff move today that could then be negotiated away, but the Trump administration and GOP’s goals for tariff revenue suggest the tariff threat still exists,” said Rachel Ziemba, an economic and political risk expert. Al Jazeera said.

While Trump is set to sign an executive order to prioritize a review of trade relations — including starting a review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement — the lack of tariffs on Monday “suggests to me that some members of his team… [including Treasury Secretary pick Scott Bessent] “Congressional advisers may have succeeded in convincing him to impose tariffs and think about the strategy rather than announce and negotiate it,” Ziemba said.

Regarding China, the Trump team is expected to focus on the 2020 agreement from Trump’s previous term as president, under which Beijing was supposed to buy large amounts of US resources to bridge the trade deficit between the two countries, a promise it failed to keep. .

“Focusing now on such purchases buys time before tougher tariffs are imposed and signals that the United States may be open to such purchases and investment targets,” Ziemba said.

This not only arms Trump with more negotiating leverage in the future, Ziemba added, but also takes into account concerns about market pressures and concerns that the rapid imposition of broad tariffs would be inflationary, undermine US economic interests and undermine tariff revenues in the long term.

“Dig, baby, dig!”

Increasing oil and natural gas production in the United States was another big topic on Monday as Trump said so He intends to declare a national energy emergency.

Trump said at his inauguration: “America will be an industrialized country again, and we have something that no other industrialized country will ever have: the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we will use it.” Speech at the US Capitol. “We’ll dig, baby, we’ll dig.”

Former President Joe Biden entered the White House in 2021 promising to wean the United States off fossil fuels, but US oil and gas production reached record levels under his watch as drilling companies chased higher prices in the wake of sanctions on Russia after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Trump also said the United States “will fill our strategic reserves again, right to the top” and export energy around the world. Biden had sold a record amount of crude oil from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) of more than 180 million barrels. The sale helped keep gasoline prices under control after Russia started its war on Ukraine, but it led to the strategic oil reserve falling to its lowest level in 40 years.

In his first administration, Trump pledged to fill the strategic reserve in an attempt to help local oil companies suffering from low demand during the height of the pandemic. The promise was not fulfilled.

Trump also said Monday that the United States would rescind what he called the electric vehicle mandate, saying that would save the American auto industry.

While there is no mandate from Biden to force the purchase of electric vehicles, his policies have sought to encourage Americans to purchase electric vehicles and auto companies to switch from gasoline-powered vehicles to electric vehicles.

Reuters quoted an unnamed Trump official as saying: “The common theme is unleashing reliable, affordable American energy.” “Because energy permeates every part of our economy, it is also key to restoring our national security and exercising American energy dominance around the world.”

Trump said that the United States is locked in an arms race in the field of artificial intelligence with China and other countries, which makes the voracious power of this industry a national priority.

The Energy Department predicted that energy demand in US data centers could nearly triple in the next three years and consume up to 12 percent of the country’s electricity on demand from artificial intelligence and other technologies.

The first Trump administration considered using emergency powers under federal energy law to try to implement its pledge to bail out the coal industry, but never implemented it.

This time, Trump could use emergency powers to ease environmental restrictions on power plants, speed up construction of new plants, ease permits for transportation projects or open federal lands to new data centers.

Trump is also expected to sign another order aimed at using Alaska’s natural resources. The state is A controversial area of ​​the country when it comes to energy and the environment as Republicans have long seen opportunities for oil and gas production there while Democrats have sought to preserve pristine lands.