Biden issues multiple Executive Orders

Newly sworn-in US President Joe Biden signed 15 executive orders from the Oval Office on the first day of his administration to undo his predecessor Donald Trump's key policies over the last four years.

These orders concerned the COVID-19 pandemic, economic crisis, racial inequality and climate crisis.

The first executive order signed by President Joe Biden was on COVID-19, aimed at boosting the federal response to the coronavirus crisis. The order mandates masks to be worn and social distancing be kept on Federal property. He said in a statement, “Wearing masks isn’t a partisan issue.”

He also signed an executive order that made the United States rejoin the Paris Climate Accord, from which former President Trump had formally withdrawn the US in 2020. He also halted US withdrawal from the World Health Organisation and recommitted to fight alongside the international body.

He ended the Muslim Travel Ban, which stopped people from the Middle East and Africa from entering into the US. He did so while also halting the construction of Trump's border wall with Mexico by terminating the administration's national emergency declaration that helped fund the building of the wall, and while strengthening DACA, to protect immigrants who came into the US as children.

He also revoked the presidential permit that was granted to the Keystone XL Pipeline project, a project against which several environmentalists had been protesting against the project for over a decade.