(TNND) — President Donald Trump hit the ground running, signing a flurry of executive orders in the hours after he was sworn in for a second term.

“Trump 2.0” is no longer a stranger to Washington politics, said Ernesto Sagás, an expert in politics and U.S. immigration policies who teaches at Colorado State University.

Sagás and other political experts said immigration is a key issue – perhaps the key issue – on Trump’s policy agenda.

Sagás said Trump built his political image on being an immigration hardliner.

“It has obviously paid off for him,” Sagás said.

Sure enough, Trump signed several immigration-related executive orders on Day 1: designating cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, declaring a national emergency at the southern border, and trying to end birthright citizenship.

“Immigration is the easiest way for the Trump administration to signal ‘America first, pro-America,’” said Peter Loge, the director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University.

The National News Desk asked Sagás, Loge and Oklahoma State University politics professor Seth McKee to outline what they see as the defining issues and themes for Trump’s first 100 days in office.

Immigration was high on all of their lists, but that certainly wasn’t the only big issue the Trump White House will face in the coming months.

Loge noted that there’s nothing magical about 100 days, even though it’s a nice, round number.

“I think the first really critical hurdle of this administration might be in about Day 52 or 53, which is when we theoretically hit the debt limit,” Loge said. “And I think the other deadlines in between are going to be driven by things like what happens next in the ceasefire in Israel and Gaza. They're not going to wait 100 days.”

Still, the experts said it’s important for Trump to seize his early momentum if he wants to get a lot done.

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“You come in a lot of political capital, a lot of energy,” Loge said. “You got immediate support in Congress. Trump's numbers are better than they ever have been, his popularity is higher than it ever has been. But that typically fades really quickly.”

Immigration

“That is like Priority 1 and 1-A, is the immigration issue,” McKee said. “And then how are you going to deport these people?”

Trump campaigned on the promise of mass deportations of immigrants without legal standing to stay in the U.S.

But McKee said mass deportations present a host of really big challenges, including logistics, resources, costs, and impact on the economy.

“We don't have the resources and capacity and infrastructure to fulfill that promise. ... You'd have to basically bust the piggy bank to make that a reality,” McKee said. “And that's completely separable from the opinion backlash that would come when mass deportation. So, how close does he try to get to actually following through on such an incredible promise?”

Trump hasn’t backed down from his pledge of mass deportations since he won the election, but he’s focused initial expectations on unauthorized immigrants with criminal records or charges.

“Many other issues, like crime, he also relates them to immigration,” Sagás said.

McKee said mass deportations could be a “linchpin” to Trump’s overall success for his wider agenda, because he risks other policies if he pushes too hard on mass deportations.

‘Strength theater’

Loge said “strength theater” will be a big part of Trump’s first 100 days.

That’s saying and doing things that look bold and nationalistic with the content and effects being secondary considerations, Loge said.

Trump has surrounded himself with people who care about a lot of policies, most of which tend to be conservative on taxes, energy, immigration and education, Loge said.

“Then, you've got Trump, who is mostly, I think, concerned with the appearance of power and the show of governing, rather than governing itself,” Loge said.

With Trump, Loge said, there’s often a “huge difference between signal and noise.”

Declaring an end to birthright citizenship through an executive action fits into this category, Loge said.

Loge, McKee and Sagás all said the 14th Amendment protects birthright citizenship.

And 22 states have already sued to block Trump’s day-old order.

“You can't amend the Constitution by signing your name to a piece of paper,” Loge said. “That matters less to him than the action signaling, ‘Aha, America first.’”

Inflation, Jobs and the economy

“More than any other issue, jobs, economy was the reason he won,” McKee said.

Inflation is forefront on the minds of American voters.

Cost of living is too high. Voters blamed the administration that was already in the White House. And Trump was seen as the change agent.

“He has to deliver on that, because 2026 is just around the corner,” Sagás said.

Trump gets to work with Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, but the midterm elections could change the power dynamic in Washington if Americans aren’t feeling better about their finances.

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Trump promised voters he’d bring down prices, but that’s easier said than done.

McKee noted that Trump has even backed off his pledge to lower costs a bit, acknowledging the difficulty in that endeavor.

Stripping regulations, as Trump will do, might clear up “some sludge in the economic system,” McKee said.

But McKee is skeptical that’s going to move the needle much for household budgets.

On the flip side, Trump campaigned on raising tariffs, which a lot of experts view as inflationary.

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“I think this is a real conundrum, because any economist will tell you that if you move forward with these tariffs, they're not going to make things cheaper for the American consumer,” McKee said.

Trade

Sagás said Trump is talking tough on trade with not only China, but our allies, including Canada and Mexico.

“It's a very interesting foreign policy, which you will try to punish and blackmail our allies in order to strike better deals from them,” Sagás said. “And, again, remember this part of his personality. He was a real estate magnate. He feels that he's the master of the art of the deal.”

Sagás said Trump might be using the threat of tariffs as a negotiating ploy.

James Knightley, ING’s chief international economist, previously told TNND that a trade war with our neighbors would be a “lose-lose situation” that would hit Americans in their pocketbooks.

“Imagine a trade war with China, that would be really bad,” Sagás said. “Or really, Mexico, most of our cars are assembled or big components of our cars are assembled in Mexico. Parts come from Canada. So, I don't know if he fails to realize or he doesn't care about the fact that we are so interdependent when it comes to trade with the rest of the world.”

Foreign relations

McKee said Trump seems drawn to a “new manifest destiny” for America under the umbrella of foreign relations.

“It's one of the salient issues, for sure, is are we going to expand our footprint in some way?” McKee said.

It might just be rhetoric, but Trump might also act on some of his desires to expand U.S. control.

“The Panama Canal threat. The Greenland threat. The Canada 51st state threat. It's a sort of an American imperialism, manifest destiny, adventurism ... way, I would say, to think about it,” McKee said. “So, I think that is part of what he's about.”

And, McKee said, Trump in his first 100 days will have to deal with “the big three” areas of concern on the foreign relations front: China, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the Israel-Hamas war.

Trump’s isolationist leanings could clash with his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who is a hawk in some respects and a traditionally engaged globalist, Sagás said.

Rubio might fall out of favor for Trump, Sagás said.

Names of things and culture wars

“I think that hard edge is going to return,” McKee said. “I mean, that's just something that is part of MAGA, is this real hard edge on ‘us’ versus ‘them.’”

Trump signed some executive orders related to this, renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and Alaska’s Mount Denali to Mount McKinley.

Trump also declared that the U.S. would only recognize two official genders, man and woman.

“This is part of the theater, is having fights about stuff that's not doing much to change the condition of the American people,” McKee said.

Sagás said these cultural issues are important to Trump’s base, but those aren’t the actions that are going to sustain Trump’s wider popularity among Americans.

It goes back to kitchen-table issues, namely the economy.

“At some point, he has to deliver on the price of eggs,” Sagás said.