San Francisco Frontiers - Trump arrives for inauguration vowing sweeping change

Trump and outgoing President Joe Biden traveled by motorcade together to the Capitol, where the ceremony was being held indoors -- and with a much smaller crowd -- for the first time in decades due to frigid weather.

Earlier, they and their spouses met for a traditional tea at the White House.

"Welcome home," Biden said to Trump as he and First Lady Jill Biden greeted their successors at the front door to the presidential residence.

Republican Trump, 78, was a political outsider at his first inauguration in 2017, but as he takes the oath as the 47th US president he is surrounded by America's wealthy and powerful.

The world's richest man, Elon Musk, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon chief Jeff Bezos and Google CEO Sundar Pichai all had prime seats in the Capitol alongside Trump's cabinet members.

Musk, who bankrolled Trump's election campaign to the tune of a quarter of a billion dollars and promotes far-right policies on the X social network, will lead a cost-cutting drive in the new administration.

While Trump refused to attend Biden's 2021 inauguration after falsely claiming electoral fraud by the Democrat, this time Biden has been keen to restore a sense of tradition.

Biden was joining former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton at the Capitol. Former first ladies Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush were there but ex-first lady Michelle Obama stayed away.

- 'American decline' -

Unusually for an inauguration where foreign leaders are normally not invited, Argentina's hard-right president Javier Milei was attending, along with Italy's far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

The frigid weather has forced Trump's inauguration indoors for the first time since Ronald Reagan's in 1985, missing out on the customary massive crowds along the National Mall.

Behind the pomp and ceremony, the billionaire is kickstarting his nationalist, right-wing agenda with a barrage of around 100 executive orders undoing Biden's legacy.

Trump will declare a national emergency at the Mexico border, give the US military a key role on the frontier, and end birthright citizenship, as he seeks clamp down on undocumented migrants, an official from his incoming administration said.

Trump has pledged to start immediate deportations of undocumented migrants.

He will also sign an order for the US government to recognize only two biological sexes and seek to eliminate federal government diversity programs as he takes office.

The announcement of the hardline policies came a day after Trump had promised a "brand new day" and to end "four years of American decline."

"I will act with historic speed and strength and fix every single crisis facing our country," Trump told an inauguration eve rally where he danced with the Village People band.

- 'Ecstatic' -

Despite promising a new "golden era," populist Trump also campaigned on often apocalyptic depictions of the country in his victorious election campaign against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in November.

At sunrise on Monday, the National Mall, where the inauguration was originally due to be held, was largely empty -- save for the Fairchild family, who traveled from Michigan to pay tribute to Trump.

"Ecstatic," said grandmother Barb, when asked how they were feeling, adding she thought the move indoors was made "to protect our president."

In his final hours in office, Biden issued extraordinary pre-emptive pardons for former Covid-19 advisor Anthony Fauci and retired general Mark Milley to shield them from "politically motivated prosecutions" by Tump.

Biden gave similar pardons to members, staff and witnesses of a US House committee probing the violent January 6, 2021 US Capitol attack by Trump's supporters.

Biden said he had also restored the tradition of leaving a letter for his successor -- though he said the contents were between him and Trump.

Trump will make history by replacing Biden as the oldest president to be sworn in. He is also just the second president in US history to return to power after being voted out, after Grover Cleveland in 1893.

For the rest of the world, Trump's return means expecting the unexpected.

From promising sweeping tariffs, to making territorial threats to Greenland and Panama and calling US aid for Ukraine into question, Trump looks set to rattle the global order once again.

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Trump ahead of the inauguration and said Monday he was open to talks on the Ukraine conflict, adding he hoped any settlement would ensure "lasting peace".

Q.Nelson--SFF