US President Donald Trump has begun his promised flurry of executive action on Day 1. With his first batch of memoranda and orders, Trump repealed dozens of former President Joe Biden's actions and withdrew the US from the Paris climate accords, among other actions. He also said he's pardoned hundreds of people for their roles in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, the AP reported.
Trump, meanwhile, has additional executive orders awaiting his signature as he returns to the White House for the first time since his swearing-in earlier in the day. Those documents would end diversity, equity and inclusion funding, crack down on border crossings and ease regulations on oil and natural gas production.
Quitting Paris climate deal
The White House said Monday that Donald Trump, who was inaugurated as the 47th US president, will pull the US out of the Paris climate accord, Xinhua reported.
The move, expected in an executive order Trump will sign later in the day, is part of the president's effort to "MAKE AMERICA AFFORDABLE AND ENERGY DOMINANT AGAIN," read the statement.
The first Trump administration officially let the United States, one of the world's top emitters of greenhouse gases, exit the Paris climate accord in November 2020, dealing a major blow to international efforts combating the climate crisis. The upcoming executive order by Trump will mark another round of back-and-forth move regarding US commitment to dealing with climate change on the global stage, per Xinhua report.
"The US withdrawing from the Paris Agreement is unfortunate, but multilateral climate action has proven resilient and is stronger than any single country's politics and policies," said Laurence Tubiana, a key architect of the accord. UN climate chief Simon Stiell added the "door remains open" for Washington, France 24 reported.
Additionally, Trump plans to declare an declare an energy emergency as he promises to "drill, baby, drill," and says he will eliminate what he calls Biden's electric vehicle mandate, the AP reported.
Withdrawing from WHO
President Trump moved quickly on Monday to withdraw the US from the World Health Organization, a move that public health experts say will undermine the nation's standing as a global health leader and make it harder to fight the next pandemic, the New York Times reported.
In an?executive order?issued about eight hours after he took the oath of office, Trump cited a string of reasons for the withdrawal, including the WHO's "mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic," and the "failure to adopt urgently needed reforms."
Tariffs and inflation
n Monday evening, Trump also signed a largely symbolic memorandum that he described as directing every federal agency to combat consumer inflation. By repealing Biden actions, Trump also is trying to ease regulatory burdens on oil and natural gas production, something he promises will help bring down costs of all consumer goods. Trump specifically wants to make it easier to extract fossil fuels in Alaska, the AP reported.
On trade, the president said he expects to impose 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico starting on February 1, but declined to flesh out his plans for taxing Chinese imports, according to the AP.
However, CNN said in a fact check article that "In his inaugural address, Trump said, 'Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.' But this description of tariffs is false. Tariffs imposed by the US government are paid by US importers, not foreign countries."
End Biden-era border policies
Trump has issued broad pushback to former president Biden's immigration policies, vowing to use his first day in office to "terminate every open-borders policy of the Biden administration," according to NBC.
Trump also said during a New Hampshire campaign event in October that he would "use Title 42," a public health law that was implemented toward the start of the COVID-19 crisis and allowed the White House to deport migrants faster. The law was continued partway through the Biden administration but the government stopped using it in 2023, NBC reported.
The AP reported that Trump declared a national emergency at the US-Mexico border, and he plans to send US troops to help support immigration agents and restrict refugees and asylum. He's also pledged to restart a policy that forced asylum seekers to wait over the border in Mexico, but officials didn't say whether Mexico would accept migrants again. During the previous effort, squalid and fetid camps grew on the border and were marred by gang violence. Trump is also promising to end birthright citizenship, but it's unclear how he'd do it — it's enshrined in the US Constitution.
Trump also is ending the CBP One app, a Biden-era border app that gave legal entry to nearly 1 million migrants, according to the AP.
Photo: US President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025 © VCG.
Source: The Global Times.
