Hours after being, Donald Trump started signing executive orders.
The orders range from withdrawing the U.S. from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, to blocking federal agencies from hiring new staff.
An executive order is the U.S. President’s way of enacting policy without Congress’ approval.
Here’s what you need to know.
Executive branch
The U.S. Government has three branches: legislative (Congress), judicial (courts), and executive.
The President is the head of the executive branch of government.
The Constitution, the founding document of the U.S, says the powers of each branch shouldn’t overlap.
Therefore, the President’s powers are mostly contained to ordering the executive branch of government to act on a certain directive.
The President is also referred to as the ‘commander-in-chief’ because they are the head of the U.S. military.
National environmental, education, intelligence, health, labor, treasury, and security agencies all fall under the executive government.
The heads of these departments and other senior government officials form part of the President’s Cabinet.
Executive orders
An executive order is the President’s main power.
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It does not require Congress’ approval, and therefore is considered an ‘instant law’.
However, Congress can take action to block these orders.
For example, it can deny necessary funding to stop an order from going ahead.
This can lead to a complicated legal to-and-fro between the White House and Congress.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, the U.S. President during the Second World War, signed theat 3,721.
During his first term as President, Trump signed 220 executive orders.
Over the past four years, Joe Biden has signed 162.
Trump today
Trump has already signed a raft of executive orders, reportedly promising to deliver more than 200 during his first day as the 47th President.
One of his first executive orders was to withdraw the U.S. from the 2015 Paris Agreement, repeating an act from his first presidency. The agreement calls on participating countries to take action “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”
Biden re-entered the agreement when he became President in 2021. Trump has now begun the process of leaving the agreement again.
Trump has now revoked almost 80 of Biden’s executive orders.
The stated aim is to undo the Biden administration’s “deeply unpopular, inflationary, illegal, and radical practices within every agency and office of the Federal Government”.
The measure will reverse some Biden-era orders immediately, such as a directive to “prevent and combat” discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation, and blocking offshore drilling for oil and gas.
