WASHINGTON: Within hours of being sworn in as the US President, Joe Biden plans to sign a number of executive orders, including rejoining the 2016 Paris climate accord and ending the travel ban on predominantly Muslim countries, designed to signal an immediate break from President Donald Trump.
“President-elect Biden will take action — not just to reverse the gravest damages of the Trump administration — but also to start moving our country forward,” incoming White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain wrote in a memo released last weekend.
One of Trump’s first actions as president in 2017 was to suspend entry to the United States of travelers from seven majority Muslim nations: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, for 90 days. The executive order created chaos at airports around the world, and lawsuits against the ban quickly followed.
After federal judges barred the first ban’s implementation, Trump issued a second ban that was also quickly tied up in federal courts. A third version of the ban was issued by the White House in the fall of 2017, and this one applied to six majority Muslim countries and two non-majority Muslim countries. The following year, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the third ban, which remains in place today.
“We face four overlapping and compounding crises: the COVID-19 crisis, the resulting economic crisis, the climate crisis, and a racial equity crisis,” Klain, Biden’s chief of staff, wrote. “All of these crises demand urgent action. In his first 10 days in office, President-elect Biden will take decisive action to address these four crises, prevent other urgent and irreversible harms, and restore America’s place in the world.”
The other orders will include the launch of a “100 masking challenge” that will mandate masks on federal property and interstate travel, extend the pause on repayment of and interest on student loans, continue restrictions on evictions and foreclosures, all related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Biden will be inaugurated on January 20 amid unprecedented security with more than 25,000 National Guard troops deployed in Washington DC in the wake of the storming of the US Capitol on January 6. FBI has warned of “armed protests” in days leading up to the inauguration.
President Trump announced US exit from the Paris Agreement in June 2017, saying it disadvantaged the country, blunted its competitive edge, and favoured China. The US return to the Paris Agreement was one of Biden’s key campaign promises, as part of an aggressive climate agenda.
