President-elect Donald Trump’s past few months have been unusually busy for an incoming president and have seen him notch key agenda wins before even returning to office. With President Joe Biden essentially absent from the public eye, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate has taken on the role of a shadow White House, from which he has begun to operate a sort of pre-presidential administration.
Foreign dignitaries, domestic politicians, and billionaire investors alike have flocked to the Palm Beach resort to meet with the incoming president, some of whom have brought with them economic and/or ideological offerings. His reach has extended well beyond the confines of his compound, reverberating across allied nations while he and his surrogates work to seemingly push out opposition figures leading key American partners.
Here’s a look at his biggest moves while waiting to reclaim the Oval Office:
Deposing Trudeau
Outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speedily traveled to Mar-a-Lago after Trump floated the possibility of imposing tariffs on the country. The meeting was widely panned in Canadian media and even led to comedic skits depicting Trudeau eating a Big Mac without the use of his hands at Trump’s behest.
The president-elect’s subsequent retorts referring to Trudeau as the “governor” of Canada further belittled his status in the eyes of the Canuck electorate. Already struggling in the polls, Trump’s proposition of making Canada the 51st state seems to have helped fuel Trudeau’s already significant decline in public opinion and he subsequently announced his plans to resign once the Liberal Party selected his replacement.
Big Tech pays homage
Trump notched a major win on digital censorship when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the platform would end its partnerships with fact-checking organizations and instead switch to a user-driven correction system similar to X’s community notes. The move followed a late November meeting at Mar-a-Lago between Zuckerberg and Trump.
Facebook was one of the major platforms that banned Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, incident at the U.S. Capitol, though it later restored his accounts. In December, Facebook parent company Meta donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund.
Google and Boeing this week each donated $1 million to the same fund, helping the pot reach a record $170 million.
Amazon Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos, moreover, congratulated Trump on his comeback and later met with him at Mar-a-Lago as well. The owner of the Washington Post prevented the left-wing outlet from issuing an endorsement in the 2024 election. He has further worked to tone down the outlet’s anti-Trump bias in the wake of the election.
Democrats jump on board with key agenda items
Trump’s victory evidently signaled to some Democrats that the public favors some of key policies, namely on reducing the size of government and cracking down on illegal immigration.
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., made headlines this week with plans to visit Mar-a-Lago at Trump’s request. Fetterman has developed a reputation as a moderate willing to work with Republicans and co-sponsored the “Laken Riley Act” in the Senate, which would require the detention of illegal immigrants accused of a wide array of crimes.
That bill passed the House this week and cleared a procedural hurdle in the upper chamber. It is expected to pass the Senate and reach the president’s desk in time for Trump’s inauguration.
“I think it’s pretty reasonable that if the president would like to have a conversation — or invite someone to have a conversation — to have it. And no one is my gatekeeper.”
He also appears to have found an ally in Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., who in December joined the DOGE Caucus, a group of lawmakers dedicated to working with Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“The Caucus should look at the bureaucracy that the DHS has become and include recommendations to make Secret Service and FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] independent federal agencies with a direct report to the White House,” Moskowitz said of the bloc.
Foreign investors line up
Trump notched two multi-billion dollar investment deals with foreign companies during his transition, including from SoftBank and DAMAC Properties, which pledged $100 billion and $20 billion investments in the U.S., respectively.
DAMAC Chairman Hussain Sajwani and SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son both visited Mar-a-Lago and announced their investments in joint press conferences with Trump. The incoming president used the DAMAC conference to highlight his pledge to help clear administrative red tape for foreign investors as an incentive to do business in the U.S.
“And I made it a point of telling people, if you invest a billion dollars or more, and we’ll do this for people with far less too, but we guarantee it, we’re going to move them quickly through the environmental process,” he said this week.
Manifest Destiny
Trump has also used the transition period to unveil an ambitious foreign policy agenda that includes the acquisition of foreign territory, including at the expense of treaty allies. He has vowed to use economic coercion to reclaim the Panama Canal and acquire Canada and Greenland.
He further said he wouldn’t rule out military force to take Greenland or the Canal Zone. Denmark currently maintains official control over Greenland and is a member of NATO, as is Canada.
When pressed on whether he would rule out a military seizure, he told reporters that “I’m not going to commit to that now, it might, it might be that you’ll have to do something. Look, the Panama Canal is vital to our country.”
Trump has insisted that Panama, which purchased the canal zone for $1 dollar under President Jimmy Carter, has repeatedly violated the terms of the agreement by overcharging American ships for passage and allowing the Chinese government to exert control over the critical waterway.
The president-elect has insisted that the United States needs the Panama Canal and Greenland “for economic security.”
“The Panama Canal was built for our military,” he added during a press conference in Palm Beach, Fla. Donald Trump Jr. visited Greenland this week along with Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk in a highly publicized trip that saw them tour the area and meet with locals.
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