On the eve of his 100th day in office, President Trump signed an executive order that aims to expand offshore drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, received news of weak economic growth in the first quarter of the year, and promised members of the National Rifle Association he would ‘‘never infringe on the right of the people to bear arms.’’
Trump’s ‘‘America-First Offshore Energy Strategy’’ would eventually make millions of acres of federal waters eligible for oil and gas leasing, just four months after President Barack Obama withdrew these areas from possible development. In late December, Obama used a little-known provision to bar energy exploration in large portions of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, and a string of canyons in the Atlantic stretching from Massachusetts to Virginia.
At the signing in the Roosevelt Room, where the audience included Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress, Trump emphasized that the United States has abundant offshore oil and gas reserves, ‘‘but the federal government has kept 94 percent of these offshore areas closed for exploration and production, and when they say closed, they mean closed.’’
Trump administration officials said it would take years to rewrite federal leasing plans and open up these areas to drilling. Environmental groups decried the policy shift as reckless and possibly illegal.
Meanwhile, new figures out Friday showed that the US economy turned in the weakest performance in three years in the January-March quarter as consumers sharply slowed their spending.
The result fell far short of Trump’s ambitious growth targets.
In Congress, lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Friday to keep federal agencies open for another week, defying Trump’s desire for action on both a border wall and health care legislation by focusing on what lawmakers viewed as the greater priority: avoiding a government shutdown.
Lawmakers planned to work through the weekend to finalize a longer-term deal that would fund the government through the end of the fiscal year in September.
Amid the flurry of activity in the lead-up to the 100-day mark, the administration has also released a tax plan and made and then rescinded a threat to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement.
With his appearance before the NRA, Trump marked the coming 100-day milestone in much the same way he has governed in the early stages of his presidency: by appealing to his base.
The NRA claims 5 million members, including many white rural voters, a demographic that helped tip the Electoral College in Trump’s favor.
Trump, the first sitting president to address the NRA since Ronald Reagan, delivered a fiery speech in which he recounted his election victory and early actions from his administration that are friendly to the gun rights group, and he promised there would be more to come.
‘‘You came through big for me, and I am going to come through for you,’’ Trump told thousands of members attending the NRA’s annual convention. ‘‘The eight-year assault on your Second Amendment freedoms has come to a crashing end. You have a true friend and champion in the White House.’’
The president was received as a hero, in part for successfully installing a conservative Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch, seen as a likely protector of gun rights.
Trump has also previously signed legislation that reversed an Obama-era rule that would have required the Social Security Administration to provide information about mentally ill people for background checks on gun purchases.
Trump treated the gun convention like a political rally, joyfully recalling his election victory and mocking the journalists and Democrats who were confident that he would lose.
“Remember, they said there is no path to 270,” he said, referring to the number of electoral votes a candidate needs to win the presidency. “There is no route — there is no route to 270. We ended up with 306, so they were right.”
He brashly predicted that he would have no problem dispatching any rival during a 2020 reelection campaign, suggesting at one point that Democrats might nominate Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. He referred to her as he did during the campaign, derisively calling her Pocahontas, a reference to claims she once made about being part Native American.
“It may be Pocahontas, remember that,” he said, prompting laughter in the cavernous room. “She is not big for the NRA, that I can tell you.”
Before the president’s arrival, attendees watched hours of videos assailing Obama, Democrats, and anyone who has advocated gun control measures.
Leaders of the NRA heaped praise on Trump. Chris Cox, executive director of the group’s political and lobbying arm, called Trump the “most proudly pro-gun presidential candidate” in history and accused the news media of lying about the number of people who watched Trump’s inauguration.
“The only number that mattered was the number who watched Hillary Clinton’s inauguration — zero!” Cox said.
Gun control organizations accused Trump of supporting what they call the “extremist” agenda of the NRA.
In a statement on Thursday, two of those groups — Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action — vowed to oppose efforts by the gun group to “allow more guns for anyone, anywhere, no questions asked.”
Those gun control groups are planning a rally for Saturday in Atlanta to demonstrate their willingness to “stand and fight back against the NRA leadership’s dangerous ‘guns everywhere’ agenda that contributes to the more than 90 Americans shot and killed and the hundreds more injured every day.”
In a statement after Trump’s speech, Gabby Giffords, a former Democratic congresswoman from Arizona who was shot in the head, criticized Trump for failing to confront the problem of gun violence in the United States.
“It’s time for our elected officials to listen to the American people, protect our communities, and reject the gun lobby’s extreme agenda,” Giffords said.