President Donald Trump said Monday that he expects to put 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico starting on Feb. 1, while declining to flesh out his plans for taxing Chinese imports.

Trump made the announcement in response to reporters’ questions while signing executive actions in the Oval Office on his first day back in the White House.

Trump threatened tariffs of as much as 60% on China during his campaign, but appeared to temper his plans after a phone call last week with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He said Monday there would be more discussions with his counterpart in the world’s second largest economy.

“We’re going to have meetings and calls with President Xi,” Trump said.

Trump is placing a big bet that his executive actions can cut energy prices and tame inflation and that the tariffs will strengthen the economy instead of exposing consumers to higher prices. But it’s unclear whether his orders will be enough to foster the growing economy with lower prices that he promised voters.

Trump specifically blamed the inflation on the $1.9 trillion in pandemic aid provided in 2021 by then-President Joe Biden, while saying that his predecessor’s policies restricted oil drilling despite domestic output being near record levels.

“The inflation crisis was caused by massive overspending,” Trump said in his inaugural address.

Orders on Monday included opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil drilling and easing the regulatory burdens on oil and natural gas production. He also declared a national energy emergency in hopes of jumpstarting more electricity production in the competition with China to build out technologies such as artificial intelligence that rely on data centers using massive amounts of energy.

Trump also signed a directive telling federal agencies to conduct a 30-day review of how they can help to lower the costs of housing, health care, food, energy and home appliances as well as finding ways to bring more people into the workforce.

Senate confirms Rubio as secretary of state

The Senate quickly confirmed Marco Rubio as secretary of state Monday, voting unanimously to give President Donald Trump the first member of his new Cabinet on Inauguration Day.

Rubio, the Republican senator from Florida, is among the least controversial of Trump’s nominees and vote was decisive, 99-0. Another pick, John Ratcliffe for CIA director, is also expected to have a swift vote, as soon as Tuesday. Action on others, including former combat veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth for defense secretary, is possible later in the week.

“Marco Rubio is a very intelligent man with a remarkable understanding of American foreign policy,” Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the senior-most Republican, said as the chamber opened.

It’s often tradition for the Senate to convene immediately after the ceremonial pomp of the inauguration to begin putting the new president’s team in place, particularly the national security officials. During Trump’s first term, the Senate swiftly confirmed his defense and homeland security secretaries on day one, and President Joe Biden’s choice for director of national intelligence was confirmed on his own Inauguration Day.

With Trump’s return to the White House, and his Republican Party controlling majorities in Congress, his outsider Cabinet choices are more clearly falling into place, despite initial skepticism and opposition from both sides of the aisle.

Interim FBI director abruptly retires

The White House on Monday named a veteran agent to serve as acting FBI director after the official who’d been expected to run the bureau on an interim basis following the departure of Christopher Wray retired after nearly 30 years.

Brian Driscoll was tapped to lead the FBI pending the Senate confirmation of Kash Patel, who is President Donald Trump’s pick for director. The move came hours after Paul Abbate, who served for the last four years as Wray’s deputy and had been in line to serve as acting director, told colleagues in an email that he was retiring.

“When the Director asked me to stay on past my mandatory date for a brief time, I did so to help ensure continuity and the best transition for the FBI. Now, with new leadership inbound, after nearly four years in the deputy role, I am departing the FBI today,” Abbate wrote in the email, which was obtained by the Associated Press.

Abbate’s abrupt departure after a 28-year FBI career creates additional transition for a law enforcement agency that had already been preparing for upheaval in the event Patel is confirmed. A Trump loyalist, Patel has repeatedly criticized FBI leadership and decision-making and has alarmed Democrats with statements that suggest he would be willing to use the FBI to exact retribution on Trump adversaries.

Ramaswamy exits cost-cutting effort

The Department of Government Efficiency’s first order of business was itself: It’s now down to one leader.

Vivek Ramaswamy is no longer part of the commission that President Donald Trump championed, officials confirmed hours after the Republican took office Monday, and that leaves billionaire Elon Musk to run the cost-cutting operation alone.

Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur who sought the GOP nomination for president in 2024, has signaled plans to run for governor of Ohio next year. A native of Cincinnati, Ramaswamy, 39, had shown interest in Vice President JD Vance’s recently vacated Senate seat before Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine chose Lt. Gov. Jon Husted as Vance’s successor.

“Vivek Ramaswamy played a critical role in helping us create DOGE,” Anna Kelly, a spokesperson for the commission, said in a statement. “He intends to run for elected office soon, which requires him to remain outside of DOGE, based on the structure that we announced today. We thank him immensely for his contributions over the last 2 months and expect him to play a vital role in making America great again.”

Trump picked Musk and Ramaswamy to lead DOGE, a nongovernmental task force that Trump has assigned to find ways to fire federal workers, cut programs and slash federal regulations — all part of what the new president calls his “Save America” agenda for his second term.

Pentagon removes new Milley portrait

The Pentagon on Monday removed a portrait of Gen. Mark A. Milley, the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from a corridor of the building filled with paintings of all of his predecessors.

The decision to take down the portrait was an early salvo by the new administration against a military establishment that President Donald Trump has assailed for a variety of perceived offenses.

The portrait of the now retired Milley went up last week in the last days of the Biden administration. Less than two hours after Trump took the oath of office, Pentagon officials had taken it down. A U.S. official said that “the White House” ordered the removal. The official declined to speak further.

Trump has called Milley “a woke train wreck.” The president has complained in particular about the general’s calls to his Chinese counterpart during the waning weeks of Trump’s first term, an act the president, in a post on Truth Social, called “so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”

President Joe Biden issued a preemptive pardon for Milley before he left office.

Awaiting Hegseth vote, Pentagon fill-in named

President Donald Trump has named an acting defense secretary because his choice to lead the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, has not yet been confirmed by the Senate.

Robert Salesses, deputy director of the Pentagon’s Washington Headquarters Service, will fill in as acting secretary of defense, and three other career Defense Department civilians will be filling in as acting heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force.

To serve in the posts, the incoming Trump administration needed senior executives at the Pentagon who had already been confirmed by the Senate. Salesses is a retired Marine who served in the Gulf War.

He has been leading the Washington Headquarters Service, which includes all of the capital region support services, including facilities management and the office of general counsel and others that support the military branches and Pentagon leadership.

Hegseth could see his nomination advanced by the Senate Armed Services Committee this week.

Senate approves bill on criminal migrants

Fresh off President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Senate on Monday passed a bill that would require federal authorities to detain migrants accused of theft and violent crimes, the first measure he likely will sign into law and giving more weight to his plans to deport millions of migrants.

Trump has made a broad crackdown on illegal immigration his top priority, and Congress, with Republicans in control and some Democrats willing to go along, is showing it is ready to follow suit. The bill passed 64-35, with 12 Democrats joining with Republicans voting in favor.

Passage of the Laken Riley Act — named after a Georgia nursing student whose murder by a Venezuelan man last year became a rallying cry for Trump’s White House campaign — was a sign of how Congress has shifted sharply right on border security and immigration. Passage came just minutes before Trump signed the first of his executive orders.

“We don’t want criminals coming into our country,” Trump told supporters at the Capitol earlier Monday, adding he looked forward to holding a bill signing “within a week or so.”

The bill now heads back to the Republican-controlled House.

Trump kicking out senior career diplomats

A large number of senior career diplomats who served in politically appointed leadership positions and also lower-level posts at the State Department are leaving their jobs at the demand of the incoming Trump administration, which plans to install its own people, according to current and outgoing U.S. officials.

Personnel changes in the senior ranks of the department, like those at all federal agencies, are not uncommon after a presidential election, and career officials serving in those roles are required, just as non-career political appointees, to submit letters of resignation. However, it is unusual for incoming administrations to seek the resignations of officials serving in positions not nominated by the president.

In the past, some resignations have not been accepted, allowing career officials to remain in their posts at least temporarily until the new president can nominate his team. That offers some degree of continuity in the day-to-day running of the bureaucracy.

Trump withdraws U.S. from WHO

President Donald Trump moved quickly Monday to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization, a move that public health experts say will undermine the nation’s standing as a global health leader and make it harder to fight the next pandemic.

In an executive order issued about eight hours after he took the oath of office, Trump cited a string of reasons for the withdrawal, including the WHO’s “mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic,” and the “failure to adopt urgently needed reforms.” He said the agency demands “unfairly onerous payments” from the United States, and complained that China pays less.

The move was not unexpected. Trump has been railing against the WHO since 2020, when he attacked the agency over its approach to the coronavirus pandemic and threatened to withhold United States funding from it. In July 2020, Trump took formal steps to withdraw from the agency. But after he lost the 2020 election, the threat did not materialize. On his first day in office, President Joe Biden blocked it.

— News service reports