After the oath-of-office ceremony as the 46th President of the United States, Biden moved swiftly to set a landmark approach by reversing many of the major foreign policies and national security decisions adopted by the Trump administration that caused the “greatest damage” to the nation, and impacting people across the world. On the day taking oath, Biden remarked, “There’s no time to start like today; then, Biden signed 17 executive orders at the Oval Office, including memorandums and directives to agencies to restore the image of the U.S.
With the inaugural address calling for unity and compromise, Biden’s first actions as president were sharply to sweep aside former President Trump’s pandemic response, reversing his environmental agenda, re-shuffling anti-immigration policies, bolstering the teetering economic recovery and restoring federal efforts to promote diversity. The main things the president is doing with executive orders right now are those which he can roll back quite easily, just ending things that Trump was doing. Biden’s first moves are highly world-wide appreciated and soundly clapped.
Though Donald Trump continuously downplayed the treats and deadliness posed by the COVID -19, despite, despite dire warnings from the World Health Organization, but, Biden’s first priority is made to combat COVID-19, as the U.S. is presently the highest coronavirus caseload and death toll in the world with over 24.6 million COVID-19 cases and more than 4.1 lakh deaths so far. So, he decided to reinstate ties with the World Health Organization (WHO), reversing Trump’s decision to remove the U.S. from the international public health body.
As the first action, Biden initiated a ‘100 day masking challenge’ to encourage his citizens to wear face masks as COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to rise increasingly across the country. He has also launched a mask mandate that will make social distancing and wearing face coverings compulsory for everyone in federal buildings and land.
On the very first day of his presidency, Biden ordered to undo many of President Trump’s controversial immigration policies through a combination of executive orders and proposed legislation. Besides the executive orders on the World Health Organization (WHO) , Biden lifted so-called ban from “Muslim countries,” which was introduced by Trump in 2017 that prevented travel to the US from a number of predominantly Muslim and African countries.
Six of Biden’s 17 orders, memorandums and proclamations were dealt with immigration. The ordered reversed the Trump administration’s restrictions on US entry for passport holders from seven Muslim-majority countries; furthermore, Biden directed the State Department to restart visa processing for individuals from the affected countries, and to develop ways to address the harm caused to those who were prevented from coming to the United States because of the ban by the Trump administration. Biden signed an executive order to invalidate Trump’s “harsh and extreme immigration enforcement”.
To curb climate change, Biden issued a letter to re-join the long-discussed Paris Agreement on climate change within 30 days, which Trump withdrew in 2019 from the coalition of nearly 200 countries working to fight climate change and global warming by reducing green house gas emissions. It is done to show his commitment to the fight against global climate change. Biden also signed a decree on the re-cancellation of the Keystone XL oil pipeline project approved by Trump.
On the first day, Mr. Biden has passed an executive order to “preserve and fortify” the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) further which Trump pushed to end. Biden also brought to an end the construction of Trump’s infamous wall along the Mexican border. He canceled the Trump administration’s plan to prevent the Census from counting undocumented immigrants. To uphold racial and LGBTQI+ equality, Biden ordered to interpret the country’s Civil Rights Act as prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, apart from colour, sex, religion and ethnicity.
Biden has also taken actions on tax cut policy. He reversed $1.5 trillion tax cut, which was imposed by Trump. Biden now plans to raise the tax rate Trump reduced from 35% to between 21% and 28%. The president has also plan to continue a pause on federal student loan interest and principal payments methods. Biden also revoked Trump’s executive order reducing the ability of federal agencies, contractors and other institutions to hold diversity and inclusion training. To bring back White House ethics, Biden directed all federal employees to take an ethics pledge with an aim at restoring and maintain trust in the government. Biden has ordered all of his appointees in the executive branch to sign an ethics pledge.
It is hoped that the executive actions taken on the first day will certainly make an immediate impact in the lives of so many people in home and abroad in desperate need of help. Reversing Trump’s deeply discriminatory ban of some Muslim countries, addressing the Covid-19 crisis, preventing evictions and foreclosures, and advancing equity and support for communities of colour and other underserved communities are significant early actions that represent an important first step in charting a new direction for the U.S.
Former president Donald Trump destroyed the image of the US by many adopting many sorts of actions policies. Trump also created huge problems of world people including Mexicans, and especially Muslims. The actions taken by the US president are not limited to the US people only; rather they influence and impact other communities around the world.
The leaders across the world comment that the dark days are being eliminating with the taking over the presidency by Joe Biden. But, this is quite earlier to make any final comments; rather we have to wait and see how he acts in future. The proverb goes with saying- “morning shows the day”; we hope the proverb will come true for the case of President Joe Biden.
(Dr. Enamul is educational researcher and teacher educator. He is ex-professor of English. Email: [email protected]).
