Donald Trump puts all US government diversity staff on paid leave, starting ‘immediately’ – BBC.com
Up to 10,000 troops could be sent to the US-Mexico border as part of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, an internal memo suggestsThe US president has already ordered 1,500 troops to the border to install barriers – a military source says they won’t be involved in “law enforcement”The Kremlin says it is “ready for an equal dialogue” after Trump threatened to impose sanctions on Moscow if it didn’t end the war in UkraineIn his first interview since returning to the White House, Trump plays down concerns about TikTok being used by the Chinese government to spy on its users, saying the app will “stay around” – Watch the key clip belowThis afternoon, Trump is set to deliver his first major speech to global business and political leaders of his second term at the World Economic Forum in DavosAnalysis: Trump comes out swinging in rapid start to presidency, writes our North America correspondent Anthony ZurcherThis video can not be playedWatch: Trump says TikTok is ‘going to stay around’Edited by Tinshui YeungDonald Trump has shaken up global politics, and the UK, along with Europe, needs to act more confidently in this new environment, says Britain’s former top spy.Speaking on the BBC’s Today Podcast, the ex-MI6 chief says UK national security is now “conditional and transactional” under Trump.He says that the UK was in a “security bubble curated by the United States”. “The world we were in as Europe was not real, it was like The Truman Show,” he says, referencing the US film about a man unknowingly living in a reality show.Now, with Trump in office, Younger says the country has to face some “harsh realities”.He adds that this means the UK has no choice but to increase its defence spending.”Deterring Putin now is going to be a hell of a lot cheaper than deterring him in the future.”He advises the UK to play to its strengths: “Be confident – deal makers smell fear. Don’t get defensive; double down on what we’re good at.”Meta denies claims circulating on social media that users have automatically been made to follow official accounts belonging to senior figures in the new Trump administration.Some users of Facebook and Instagram have complained following Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday that they have “automatically” been made to follow the new president, as well as Vice-President JD Vance and First Lady Melania Trump.Meta spokesman Andy Stone explains that the accounts are managed by the White House, which has updated them to reflect the new position holders.”This is the same procedure we followed during the last presidential transition,” he writes in a statement.Meta’s public affairs director Nkechi Nneji also tells our US partner CBS News: “Meta doesn’t make anyone follow any account and we never have,” adding that users may have forgotten they followed the official accounts under previous administrations.Anthony ZurcherNorth America correspondentIf you’ve been enjoying live updates on this page, continue following the twists and turns of Trump’s second presidential term with my US Politics Unspun newsletter.Each week, I’ll send you my takeaway of what you really need to know about US politics and help you see the bigger global picture.I’ll also suggest articles for essential further reading that I hope will make you feel well-informed.Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.As we’ve been reporting, there’s already been plenty of talk at the World Economic Forum in Davos about Donald Trump ahead of the new US president’s speech this afternoon.We’ve now heard from Mark Rutte, the head of Nato, who says the alliance urgently needs to increase its defence spending.This comes after concerns from Nato countries about Trump’s commitment to the defensive alliance.Rutte says member states must spend significantly more than the current two per cent of GDP.”We are really in crisis mode here,” he says, adding that money needs to be spent “fast”.He also says Nato can’t wait any longer. The new spending target will be decided later this year, but it “will be considerably more than that two (percent),” Rutte warns.”We are really in a bad place here,” he adds.Trump previously addressed the summit in Switzerland five years ago.One of the key moments we are expecting today will be President Trump’s speech at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos at 16:00 GMT.This will be his first major speech to global business and political leaders in his second term.He is set to address the gathering remotely, delivering a speech and then taking part in a discussion.The first few days of Trump’s return to Washington have already dominated conversations in the Swiss village this week, with his name being mentioned in discussions, on shuttle buses and at parties.Today, CEOs from the banking and oil industries will have the chance to ask the president questions.”He’s not boring,” one WEF regular tells the AFP news agency, “it’s kind of exciting.””It’s clear Trump views Putin as the problem, he is the cause of the war (in Ukraine) and he needs to stop the war,” Kurt Volker, Trump’s former special representative to Ukraine, tells BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.In a post on Truth Social last night, external, the president threatened further sanctions against Moscow if a deal isn’t struck soon.”This is putting things in the right framework,” Volker continues, “the only reason there is a war is because Putin is continuing it.”He adds that further sanctions on Russia could do “substantial” damage.”Russia has already had its foreign exchange reserves which are abroad frozen. It’s in a budget deficit, it’s spending 40% of its government budget on the military.”It can do this for several months but not several years. This sends a signal to Putin, it’s going to get worse. We should incentivise Putin to say we should have a ceasefire.”Russia says it remains “ready for an equal dialogue, a mutually respectful dialogue”, reacting to US President Donald Trump’s threat to impose sanctions against Moscow if it did not “stop this ridiculous war” in Ukraine.”We’re waiting for signals that are yet to arrive,” says President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov.He adds that Russia sees nothing new in Donald Trump’s threats to impose sanctions.”He likes these methods, at least he liked them during his first presidency.”The response comes after a comment yesterday from Russia’s deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy, who says the Kremlin would need to know what Trump wants in a deal to end the war before taking any further steps.Neyaz Farooquee and Gavin ButlerBBC NewsAs Trump signs a series of executive orders to tackle illegal immigration and deport millions, we’re now hearing a response from India.The country’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who met his US counterpart Marco Rubio on Wednesday, told journalists that India is open to the legitimate return of undocumented Indian immigrants.According to data from the Pew Research Centre, Indians are the third-largest undocumented immigrant group in the US.A process of verifying those who could be deported to India is ongoing.Referring to recent reports that India is working with the Trump administration for the deportation of some 18,000 illegal or undocumented Indians, external in the US, Jaishankar cautioned against taking these numbers at face value.“While I’ve seen some numbers… I caution you about them because for us, a number is operative when we can actually validate the fact that the individual concerned is of Indian origin,” Jaishankar said.Illegal migrants entering the US will no longer be able to seek asylum before being deported, after the Trump administration invoked public health and national security laws to justify the move, according to government documents and officials.Two Customs and Border Protection officials tell BBC’s US partner CBS that migrants won’t have access to immigration judges or asylum officers under executive orders signed by Trump shortly after taking office.This effectively suspends US obligations under domestic and international law to protect people fleeing persecution from being returned to danger.CBS reports that internal documents show any request to release migrants in the US with a court notice must be approved by Border Patrol headquarters and will only be considered in “life-threatening” cases.Trump has cited an immigration law which allows presidents to block entry of foreigners deemed “detrimental” to the US, including those from countries with “communicable diseases”.Robert Reich, a secretary of labour under former US president Bill Clinton, has been speaking to our colleagues at BBC World Service’s Newsday programme – telling them he thinks Trump has started his second presidential term “more energetically and cruelly” than many anticipated.Trump’s “very political existence” is based on “his fear of immigration”, Reich says, adding that the president believes illegal immigrants in the US are “dangerous” and “criminals”. (There’s more on that in our last post.)Reich also criticises Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship – where anyone born in the US becomes a citizen – saying it’s a violation of the US constitution: “Decent people could lose their citizenship… children could lose their parents…some parents may not have the right papers.”Migrants often take up low-paid jobs that others won’t, Reich tells Newsday, adding there’s “no advantage to the American workforce to have this kind of attack” on illegal immigration.As we’ve reported, Trump has already declared a national emergency at the US-Mexico border and in an executive issue he says there’s been an “invasion” of America. “This assault on the American people and the integrity of America’s sovereign borders represents a grave threat to our Nation,” the document says.This video can not be playedWatch: Trump says it is a ‘sad thing’ Biden did not pardon himselfLast night, President Donald Trump took part in his first sit-down interview since returning to the White House, during which he spoke on an array of issues. Here’s a recap of what we learnt:Immigration: He said “prisons from all over the world have been emptied out into our country”, carrying on an election claim he made that a spike in illegal border crossings under the Biden administration meant thousands of convicted murderers had entered the US. BBC Verify found at the time that these claims were misleading – read their analysis. TikTok: “I think TikTok’s going to stay around,” he told Fox News’s Sean Hannity, following his decision to delay the app’s ban in the US. When asked about fears that the app is being used by the Chinese government to spy on US citizens, Trump argued “you can say that about everything made in China”, and that “we have our telephones made in China”. There’s more on the delayed TikTok ban in our earlier post. Political pardons: Pressed on his decision to pardon Capitol rioters, including ones who admitted to violently attacking police officers, Trump doubled down – saying: “I said I was gonna release them, and probably very quickly. And they voted for me. I won in a landslide.” He also made light of Joe Biden’s last-minute pre-emptive pardons of various family members, saying it was a “sad thing” the outgoing president “didn’t give himself a pardon”. FBI files on JFK: Trump was also asked why he hasn’t released all the government files related to the 1963 assassination of President John F Kennedy (JFK), as he promised to do in his first term. He said he was “asked by some government officials not to – and you have to respect them”.Following that update on up to 10,000 US troops being sent to the southern border with Mexico, let’s look at the data showing just how many illegal crossings there’ve been since 2018 – when Donald Trump was last president. Trump has been highly critical of the Biden administration’s approach to immigration, pledging to address “record” illegal border crossings and casting current migration as an “invasion”. Crossings did reach record levels under President Biden, but numbers began dropping significantly even before Trump won the election.The graph below shows the number of “encounters” recorded by US border officials, which include people who attempted to cross illegally and people who tried to enter legally but were deemed inadmissible. The number of encounters is not a count of individuals who stay in the US, as some migrants will be returned and the same person can be recorded trying to enter multiple times, and it doesn’t count the number who cross undetected.We reported late last night that 1,500 US troops were being deployed to the southern border, where they’d help install barriers but wouldn’t be involved in “law enforcement”. It forms part of Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration. There’s an update to that figure now – with an internal government memo, seen by the BBC’s US partner CBS News, suggesting up to 10,000 troops could actually be deployed. The Customs and Border Protection memo is dated 21 January – one day after Trump’s inauguration – and shows a plan to dispatch “10,000 soldiers” to help the agency. The initial boost of 1,500 troops, to be sent to San Diego in California and El Paso in Texas, will join the 2,500 soldiers already stationed at the border.The memo also says that US Department of Defense bases may be used as “holding facilities” for migrants waiting to be deported. Donald Trump has signed sweeping executive orders since returning to the White House, including one on the social media platformThe row in the US over TikTok continues – here’s what you need to know:Want to know more? Get up to speed with Trump’s decision to delay the the US’s ban of TikTokWe’re hearing that billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s foundation will step in to fund America’s financial obligations to the UN’s climate change body – after Trump called for the US to withdraw from the Paris Agreement for the second time.In one of many executive orders, signed on his first day back in office, Trump said he would end all of the US’s international climate financial commitments.Bloomberg, who serves as a UN special envoy on climate change, says his intervention aims to ensure the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) remains fully funded.”From 2017 to 2020, during a period of federal inaction, cities, states, businesses and the public rose to the challenge to uphold our nation’s commitments – and now, we are ready to do it again,” he says.Marco Rubio has pledged Washington’s “ironclad” commitment to defending the Philippines against Chinese provocation in the South China Sea, as he speaks to leaders across Asia after being sworn in as secretary of state.In his first call with Philippines Foreign Minister Enrique Manalo on Wednesday, Rubio said Beijing’s behaviour in the South China Sea “undermines regional peace and stability and is inconsistent with international law”, according to a statement by the State Department.“An armed attack in the Pacific, including anywhere in the South China Sea, on either of their public vessels, aircraft, or armed forces – which includes their coast guards – would invoke mutual defence commitments,” the statement said.Rubio also had a phone call with South Korea’s Foreign Minister
Cho Tae-yul, where he agreed to continue close cooperation on North Korea, and Indonesia’s Foreign
Minister Sugiono, where he discussed trade, maritime
security and the importance of peace and
stability in Indo-Pacific.For those in the UK and Europe who are just joining us, welcome. Here’s a brief recap of some key developments on the third day of Donald Trump’s presidency:Sarah RainsfordEastern Europe CorrespondentOn social media, there is a generally scathing response from Ukrainians to Donald Trump’s call to Vladimir Putin to end the war.Trump’s words were re-posted, in translation, by one popular account on X inviting comments. Most mocked the president’s ignorance of world history and inability to count. Many suggested that more sanctions were a weak reply to Russian aggression. But the biggest question for most is what Putin is actually open to discussing with Ukraine at any peace talks.It’s Trump’s position then, that matters. After 11 years of war with Russia, and a history of poor peace deals, Ukrainians aren’t inclined to be hopeful.There’s also the fact that Russian state media and officials keep referring to Ukraine as “the country currently known as Ukraine”. Just before launching a full-scale invasion, Vladimir Putin wrote a whole essay denying Ukraine’s very existence as a state.In Moscow, some see signs the Kremlin may be readying Russians to accept less than the victory once envisaged, which included tanks rolling all the way west to Odesa. TV editor Margarita Simonyan, who is stridently pro-Putin, has begun talking of “realistic” conditions for ending the war, which she suggests could include halting the fighting along the current frontline.That would mean the four Ukrainian regions that Vladimir Putin illegally pronounced as Russian territory more than two years ago, like Zaporizhzhia, were still partially controlled by Kyiv.Russian hardliners, the so-called Z bloggers, are furious at such defeatism.Earlier, the newly-sworn-in Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Rubio, who is the US’s top diplomat, emphasised US support for Israel according to a readout of the call. He also reportedly congratulated Netanyahu on Israel’s successes against Hamas and Hezbollah.Around 1,500 members of the US military have been ordered to deploy to the US-Mexico border, as we reported earlier.Here are a few more details that we received from a military and defence background briefing. Several hundred troops were expected to arrive soon, where they will be engaged in tasks such as placement of physical barriers and other border missions. They will not be tasked with law enforcement, Trump officials say.“This is just the start,” said one senior defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity. A separate military official said troops have not yet been asked to house immigrants at military bases, something that Trump aides have suggested could be coming.Officials also said troops plan to provide aerial support to border patrol, including via air lifts, and also plan to send intelligence analysts to the border.You can read more in our story here.© 2025 BBC. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.
