Banking on Biden becoming President, his campaign team has already rolled out an agenda for Biden’s first day in office, including at least four executive orders that reverse key Trump decisions on a number of issues.
Among the steps planned are a return to the Paris Climate Agreement; reinstating the “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” program; rejoining the World Health Organization (WHO); and repealing a travel ban that targets Muslim-majority nations.
Trump announced that the United States would be leaving the Paris Agreement in 2017 and that the country would no longer be providing the $3 billion of funding promised by the Obama administration. According to the terms of the Agreement, the earliest the U.S. could file its intent to withdraw was three years after the Agreement came into effect, and the withdrawal would then occur a year later. Ironically, the formal withdrawal thus took force on November 4, 2020 – the day after the presidential election.
Biden had made it a campaign promise to rejoin the Agreement on his very first day in office.
The “Deferred Action” program was stopped by Trump as part of his project to deter illegal immigrants from entering the country. It allows those who entered the United States illegally as children to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation, and also makes those immigrants eligible for work permits.
Democratic Party campaign officials have also announced that Biden intends to repeal the “Mexico City Policy” which prevents federal funds from reaching abortion organizations. Trump reinstated the Policy early on his presidency, in 2017.
The decision to rejoin the WHO is being billed as part of a “broader effort to fight the coronavirus epidemic” by Democratic party officials who condemned Trump’s decision to withdraw from the organization in the midst of a pandemic. Trump retorted that the decision was not just justified but also potentially productive, given that evidence had emerged indicating WHO complicity in covering up the spread of the pandemic in its early stages. The Republican party suggested that withdrawing from the WHO – and withdrawing the massive funding provided by the United States – would motivate the organization to be more accountable in the future.
Biden has already formed a coronavirus advisory board, composed predominantly of scientists and doctors. “The challenge before us right now is still immense,” he said this week. “We are still facing a dark winter.”