Immigration policies, refugee ban, Mexico wall… One week in Trump’s era and the new President of the United States is facing widespread criticism locally and abroad.

As expected President Donald Trump will not enjoy the honeymoon period the American media and public typically grant to a new US Commander-in- Chief. Trump’s first week in office was one of tumult that included controversial executive orders, lawsuits and protests against him, widespread criticisms over White House communications practices and even a spat with a neighbouring country.

The new president’s first day on the job saw hundreds of thousands of people protest in the streets of Washington as he visited the Central Intelligence Agency. President Trump showered praise on the US intelligence community at CIA headquarters in an effort to dispel rumours that he is at odds with it and while there described journalists as “among the most dishonest human beings on earth.” Throughout the day Trump battled the media over news reports that claimed larger crowds attended the Women’s March on Washington than his inauguration. Trump’s press secretary repeatedly made false claims to the media about the easily verifiable crowd sizes at each event and seemed to usher in the ‘alternative facts’ era.

Trump engaged in the misinformation game throughout week one by insisting that the three million votes he lost by in the election were illegal. His basis for this assertion turned out to be an analysis of registered voters conducted by a known US conspiracy theorist and as of now still no evidence has been provided yet. Journalists reminded Trump that if there were millions of illegal votes it would be the largest instance of voter fraud in history. The new president shortly thereafter declared he would launch a formal investigation into the situation since he considers it serious.

“Killings have risen by 50%”

The Trump administration’s information warfare extended beyond press conferences to cyberspace. The process of removing the climate change page from the website of the Environmental Protection Agency was underway within days. On the White House webpage faulty data on crime was posted to order to support the idea of a “dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America.” The page featured data that “killings have risen by 50 percent” in Washington, D.C., but official city statistics proved that murders are actually down 13% over the last year.

New domestic and international opponents of the Trump administration emerged during inaugural week. President Trump warned the mayor of Chicago, America’s third largest metropolitan area, via Twitter to bring down high crime rates or else stand aside for federal forces to handle the situation. Importantly, US relations with Mexico reached their lowest level in years after Trump told Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto to either pay for his now infamous wall or cancel an upcoming visit to the US. Trump proposed a 20% tax on Mexican imports to raise money and sure enough the visit from America’s southern neighbour was off. Another message to the world that economic agreements will be rewritten or torn up by an aggressive Trump administration was an executive order that cancelled the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership deal. A visit to the US by UK Prime Minister Theresa May seemed to be the lone success on the international front during week one, but only White House staff rushed to correct a misspelling of her name put on in a memo to journalists ahead of her meeting with President Trump.

Ethics watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington proved it is not afraid of official intimidation and filed a lawsuit against the president for accepting gifts from foreign governments. The lawsuit argues that because President Trump has not fully divested his business holdings foreign government rentals at his hotels and office spaces are a constitutional violation.

The first seven days of the Trump presidency proved to be as turbulent as the election campaign that brought him to power. The new regime waged wars over basic information and with perceived internal and external enemies. President Trump’s preferred strategy of confrontation might have cowed rivals in the business world, but as America’s top public servant he will need to work to make new allies among a wary media and public instead of creating new enemies at home and abroad.