Donald Trump announces his new cabinet with Elon Musk at its head
- Make America Great Again
- Department of Government Efficiency
- First woman to lead White House leadership
- National Security and Immigration
- Foreign Policy and the Environment
Following the election results of 5 November, which proclaimed Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States, the New York magnate has announced in a statement on his social network, Truth Social, the names of the officials - and businessmen - who will make up his new government team.
Always controversial in his statements and decision-making, Donald Trump has carefully selected prominent members of the MAGA movement for the main state posts. The positions these new members will occupy will be key in immigration enforcement, environmental protection, national security and foreign policy.
Make America Great Again
Make America Great Again (MAGA) has gone from being Donald Trump's rallying cry to forming a movement that has burst onto the American political scene in a way that has never happened before. This current, which continues the political approaches of Trump's first term in office, is characterised by its ultra-conservative stance, especially on immigration.
Trump's desire to preserve the positions he defended during his previous term in office has led him to select a whole list of officials and businessmen who share the theories and policies baptised by European and world political leaders as ‘Trumpist’.
The select list includes: Elon Musk, head of the Department of Government Efficiency; Matt Gaetz, Attorney General; Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense; Marco Rubio, Secretary of State; John Ratcliffe, Director of the CIA; Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence; Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security; Vivek Ramaswamy, Department of Government Efficiency; Mike Huckabee, US Ambassador to Israel; Lee Zeldin, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); Mike Waltz, National Security Advisor; Steve Witkoff, Special Envoy to the Middle East; Elise Stefanik, Ambassador to the UN; Tom Homan, Immigration and Customs Enforcement's ‘Border Czar’ for deportation enforcement; and Susie Wiles, White House Chief of Staff.
Department of Government Efficiency
The creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is the spearhead of the MAGA movement and will be led by Donald Trump loyalist Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, Space X and the social networking site X. Throughout the campaign Elon Musk has hinted that he would lead a new Department of Efficiency to cut government spending as much as possible, alongside Vivek Ramaswamy.
The functions of the Elon-Vivek duo will be to dismantle government bureaucracy, reduce excessive regulations and wasteful spending, and restructure federal agencies. This task will be carried out until July 4 (US Independence Day) 2026, when these functions are expected to be completed.
However, it has begun to slip in the US media that Musk's actions could incur conflicts of interest both for the sponsorship of cryptocurrencies and for the concessions that his space company Space X could receive on new space explorations.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2024
First woman to lead White House leadership
Susie Wiles will be the first woman in US history to be White House chief of staff. As the most politically experienced member of Donald Trump's new cabinet, Wiles will hold the most powerful position in the country, behind only the President and Vice President JD Vance.
She is an experienced political operative who will have direct influence on all decisions made by the US government. However, the position of chief of staff is the one that has been replaced most often by Donald Trump, so Susie Wiles will have to be prepared for any kind of setback that could hit the interests of the New York magnate and/or the White House.
National Security and Immigration
Security, conflict resolution and immigration issues, the cornerstones of the administration, have been the Republican's main focus throughout the election campaign. Protecting American interests and borders is the main objective that Donald Trump has set for himself since he first launched the idea of building a wall separating the United States from Mexico during the 2016 election campaign.
On numerous occasions, the new US president has linked crime and the social problems of American citizens to the massive arrival of Latin American immigrants. These problems have led Trump to include in his cabinet Fox News host and Iraq and Afghanistan veteran Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defence, who has on more than one occasion mentioned that the army should ‘toughen up its actions’; he has even defended former members of the Navy such as Edward Gallagher, accused of war crimes.
As for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Donald Trump has put his trust in former Texas House of Representatives member John Ratcliffe. Known for his constant attacks on the Democratic ticket, Donald Trump has referred to John as ‘responsible for exposing the fake Russian collusion as a Clinton campaign operation to uncovering the FBI's abuse of civil liberties in the FISA Court’ and being a ‘bulwark of honesty’.
Joining Hegseth and Ratcliffe at the helm of national security are also Tulsi Gabbard, the new Director of National Intelligence, whom Trump highlights as ‘sympathetic to Russia’, although she is weighed down by the constant spreading of theories about China's creation of biological weapons; and Kristi Noem, former governor of South Dakota.
Noem will be assigned to the immigration agenda, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Secret Service, the Coast Guard and the TSA. Finally, there is Mike Waltz, who has been given the post of Homeland Security Advisor, one of the most unstable positions in American politics in the last century.
On immigration, Tom Homan, one of the most experienced men in the field, has been chosen. With hundreds of thousands of deportations under his belt, the new head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, baptised by Donald Trump as the ‘Border Czar’, has suggested, among other things, that ‘family separation will not be a problem’, alluding to the fact that immigrant deportations will be carried out without any hint of empathy.
Foreign Policy and the Environment
In line with his famous phrase ‘when I become president I will end the war between Russia and Ukraine in less than 24 hours’, the new president has completely revamped the top brass in charge of international relations with the United Nations, Israel and the Middle East.
Since the outbreak of war between Russia and Ukraine, and between Israel and the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist factions, US aid has accounted for more than 60 per cent of the total money and weapons involved in both conflicts.
Despite the image of Trump as a guy who will bring war and disaster around the world, the truth is that during his previous term in office he did not start any wars: he was the first US president to set foot in North Korea and, most importantly, he sponsored the Abraham Accords which, until the terrorist attack in Israel on 7 October 2023, had achieved pacts between several Arab nations and Israel.
Seeking to maintain those achievements, Trump has entrusted his foreign policy to Elise Stefanik, giving her the post of US ambassador to the United Nations. In Trump's words, Elise will be the sponsor of peace through force and international policies under the slogan of ‘America First’. In relation to Israel, Stefanik has reiterated that the bombing of Gaza must be maintained while accusing the UN of being an anti-Semitic organisation.
Alongside Elise will be Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy for the Middle East, whom Trump has said ‘will make Americans proud with his work and involvement in resolving the conflicts in the region’; and Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, chosen for ‘his love of Israel and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him. Mike will work tirelessly to bring peace to the Middle East!’
A peace that, according to Huckabee, will not come hand in hand with a two-state solution, as he has stated on television on more than one occasion that ‘there's really no such thing as a Palestinian, no such thing as a Palestinian, no such thing as the West Bank. It's Judea and Samaria'.
In his fight against climate change, Lee Zeldin has been chosen. Appointed head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee will prioritise America's energy potential, revitalising the auto industry, raising environmental standards and implementing artificial intelligence in environmental studies.
