On Day 1, Biden signs 15 executive orders
January 21, 2021 10:26
Sand artist Sudarshan Patnaik on the new US presidency
On day one in office, US President Joe Biden has signed 15 executive orders, reversing some of the key foreign policies and national security decisions of his predecessor Donald Trump.
The executive orders ranged from rejoining the Paris agreement on climate change, halting America's withdrawal from the World Health Organisation, revoking Muslim travel ban and stopping immediate construction of Mexico border wall.
"I'm proud of today's executive actions, and I'm going to start by keeping the promises I made to the American people. A long way to go. These are just executive actions. They are important, but we're going to need legislation for a lot of the things we're going to do," Biden told reporters in the Oval Office of the White House as he signed the first lot of executive orders on Wednesday.
The president said he will be signing a number of executive orders over the next several days of the week. "And I'm going to start today on the compounding crisis of COVID, along with the economic crisis following that, and climate crisis, racial equity issues," he said.
His first executive order was launching his 100-day masking challenge, asking Americans to mask up for 100 days. Biden is doing his part as well, issuing a mask mandate that will require anyone visiting a federal building or federal land or using certain modes of public transportation to wear a mask, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said.
Biden also officially appointed a COVID-19 response coordinator, a position and team that he had already previously announced but made it official today to create a unified national response to the pandemic. He re-established the national security team responsible for global health, security and bio-defence. -- PTI
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