Republican leader Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States along with his Vice President JD Vance on Monday.

Trump won the US presidential election on November 6, securing 295 out of the 538 electoral college votes, to return for his second term. Democratic Party candidate and outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris’s tally was 226.

The popular votes determine the electoral college seats candidates win in every state. A candidate needs to win at least 270 out of the 538 electoral college votes in order to be elected as the president.

Trump was the president between 2017 and 2021.

“I was saved by god to make America great again,” the Republican leader said in his inaugural address. He was elected comes months after surviving two assassination attempts against him.

Trump went on to say: “I will declare a national emergency at our southern borders. All illegal entry will immediately be halted and we will return criminal aliens back to where they came from. I will end the practice of catch and release. I will send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country.”

“I will also be declaring a national energy emergency…We will ‘Drill, baby, drill!’” Trump added. “We will export American oil and gas all over the world.”

“I will also end the government policy of engineering race and gender into every aspect of public and private life,” the president said. “We will forge a society that is colourblind and merit-based. It will be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: Male and female.”

The ceremony was attended by Trump’s adviser Elon Musk, the chief executive officer of Tesla and SpaceX, Executive Chairman of Amazon Jeff Bezos, Chief Executive Officer of Meta Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Executive Officer of Google Sundar Pichai.

Among the foreign leaders in attendance were India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Japan Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya.

Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani and Reliance Foundation founder and chairperson Nita Ambani also attended the inauguration ceremony at the US Capitol.

After outgoing US President Joe Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 elections, the Republican leader had claimed that the polls were not fair and there was a conspiracy to stop him from winning another term.

Trump’s assertion led to his supporters storming the US Capitol building, or parliament, on January 6, 2021, to prevent Biden from being certified as the next president.

Hours before the inauguration, Biden pre-emptively pardoned US’ Covid-19 response chief Anthony Fauci and the members of the Select Committee to Investigate the riots to prevent “unjustified...politically motivated prosecutions”.

“The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense,” said Biden. “Our nation owes these public servants a debt of gratitude for their tireless commitment to our country.”

In May, Trump became the first former US president to be convicted of a felony after a court in New York found him guilty in a case pertaining to illegally influencing the 2016 presidential election.

With his victory, he became the second person in history to secure non-consecutive presidential terms after Grover Cleveland in the late 19th century.

After winning the election, Trump had said he would seek to end “birthright citizenship” in his country. The rule entails giving citizenship to anyone born in the country irrespective of their parents’ immigration status.

Trump indicated that his government may try to amend the country’s constitution to reflect the rule change. The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution says that all persons born in the country are citizens.

He also said that he would deport families with mixed immigration status, or families in which children were in the United States legally but the parents did not have the requisite documents.

“I don’t want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together, and you have to send them all back,” he said.

Trump has also at least twice warned of imposing reciprocal tax on India, stating that New Delhi imposes high tariffs on foreign goods.

On September 17, Trump called India a “very big abuser” of the trade relationship with his country.

In August 2023, he claimed that India imposes excessively high tax rates on American products, and said that he would introduce reciprocal taxes if he were to come to power in 2024.