Washington: On the eve of taking office as the 47th President of the United States of America, Donald Trump told supporters at a victory rally that he will end the war in Ukraine and stop the chaos in West Asia and order a most aggressive drive to throw out illegal immigrants.
President-elect Trump previewed his inauguration speech and the spate of executive orders he is planning to issue on his first day in office in a general sense without offering specifics.
He will become the 47th President at noon US Eastern time on Monday in a ceremony that has been moved indoors into the Capitol Rotunda because of frigid conditions.
“I will end the war in Ukraine,” Trump told supporters at a rally at a sporting arena in Washington DC on Sunday.
“I will stop the chaos in the Middle East (as West Asia is known in the West), and I will prevent World War Three from happening. And you have no idea how close we are.”
Ukraine has been able to withstand Russia’s 2023 invasion mostly because of support from a US-led coalition of Western countries, with outgoing President Joe Biden committing his administration to a whatever-it-takes approach, and that any ceasefire or truce will be Ukraine’s decision.
President-elect Trump has indicated before that he would like the war to end but his public resolve to end the war as stated on Sunday leaves little room for Ukraine to decide.
Trump has already inserted himself into West Asia and his special envoy for the region Steve Witkoff was a part of the US team that worked on the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that went into effect on Sunday.
Trump has sought to take credit for bringing the negotiations to an end after months of back-and-forth and Biden has bristled at any suggestion of sharing the credit with his incoming successor.
The President-elect repeated his desire to move swiftly to end all illegal entries into the US.
He said he would make announcements in his inaugural address on Monday that would be “the most aggressive, sweeping effort to restore our borders the world has ever seen”.
He said he would cut climate regulations to free up exploration and drilling for oil, which he called “liquid gold”, he would bring back companies and promote buy American and hire America policies, slash taxes and government bureaucracy, and boost transparency in government affairs and to that end “in the coming days” he would release never-before-seen records about the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr.
(IANS)
