Last updated 6.34pm

Donald Trump was sworn in for a historic second term as president Monday, promising a blitz of immediate orders on immigration as he capped his extraordinary comeback.

With one hand raised in the air and the other on a Bible given to him by his mother, the 47th US president solemnly took the oath of office beneath the huge Rotunda of the US Capitol.

He immediately declared that 'The golden age of America begins right now' and claimed he had been saved by God in an assassination attempt to make America great again.

"America's decline stops now," he added.

Trump said he would immediately declare a national emergency on the southern border. All illegal entry would be immediately halted and "millions of millions" of migrants would be returned to Mexico. All foreign gangs would be eliminated, he said.

He promised he would rapidly bring down inflation and declare a national energy emergency, allowing oil companies to "drill, baby, drill".

The green new deal will be ended and he would reverse policies which were the death of the auto industry, he said.

An external revenue service would be set up to tax imports from countries “to enrich US citizens”.

He said he would immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America. And the powers of the state would not be used to prosecute political opponents.

Society, he said, would be colour-blind and merit-based. And there were only two genders, he said - male and female. 

He said the armed forces would be strengthened, but the US would also be measured by the wars it ended or did not get involved in. He wanted to be remembered as a peacemaker and unifier, Trump said, noting the release of hostages held by Hamas on the eve of his inauguration. 

He said the Gulf of Mexico would be renamed the Gulf of America.

Trump warned that Panama had broken promises to the United States over its handling of the Panama Canal.

"We are taking it back," he said to applause.

He also said the US would plant astronauts to plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars.

He said America would be respected and admired again, it would be prosperous, proud and win like never before. It would not be intimidated, and it would fail. 

Trump, Biden travel to the Capitol together

Trump and outgoing President Joe Biden travelled by motorcade together to the Capitol, where the ceremony was indoors -- and with a much smaller crowd -- for the first time in decades due to frigid weather.

Earlier, they and their spouses met for a traditional tea at the White House.

"Welcome home," Biden said to Trump as he and First Lady Jill Biden greeted their successors at the front door to the presidential home.

The frigid weather has forced 78-year-old Trump's inauguration indoors, missing out on the customary massive crowds along the National Mall. However, the first hours of the most extraordinary comeback in US politics will be a blaze of activity. 

Trump has promised that his second term will be a new "golden age" in the United States.

Trump earlier attended a service at a church near the White House -- the same church where he controversially posed with a Bible in 2020 just minutes after security forces forcefully ejected peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters.

If Trump painted a dystopian picture of "American carnage" at his first inauguration in 2017, this time around he is mixing his dark vision with a more upbeat promise of a "brand new day."

"I will act with historic speed and strength and fix every single crisis facing our country," Trump told an inauguration eve rally where he danced with the Village People band.  

At sunrise on Monday, the National Mall, where the inauguration was originally due to be held, was largely empty -- save for the Fairchild family, who travelled from Michigan to pay tribute to Trump.

"Ecstatic," said grandmother Barb, when asked how they were feeling, adding she thought the move indoors was made "to protect our president."

In his final hours in office, Biden issued extraordinary pre-emptive pardons for former Covid-19 advisor Anthony Fauci and retired general Mark Milley to shield them from "politically motivated prosecutions" by Tump.

Biden gave similar pardons to members, staff and witnesses of a US House committee probing the violent January 6, 2021 US Capitol attack by Trump's supporters.

Biden said he had also restored the tradition of leaving a letter for his successor -- though he said the contents were between him and Trump.

Trump will make history by replacing Biden as the oldest president to be sworn in. He is also just the second president in US history to return to power after being voted out, after Grover Cleveland in 1893.

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Trump ahead of the inauguration and said Monday he was open to talks on the Ukraine conflict, adding he hoped any settlement would ensure "lasting peace".