As with tradition, a new President of the United States was sworn in on January 20th. With Donald Trump once again holding the presidential office, he also signed brand new executive orders into action. Executive orders are not like laws, because the legislative branch is not involved in the ratification process.
Among one of the first executive orders Trump signed into law was an executive order that “enshrines the right of the American people to speak freely in the public square without Government interference.” Donald Trump along with Republicans believe that social media websites and apps have engaged in activities that censored only right-leaning politicians. This executive order looks to protect the 1st Amendment of the Constitution that protects freedom of speech.
Another one of Trump’s executive orders is renaming several American geographical features to different or previous names. Trump signed an executive order renaming the largest mountain in the United States to a more patriotic name. Native Americans gave Mount Denali its name after their word for “tall”. In the 1890’s, gold miners renamed the Alaskan mountain after the 25th President, William McKinley, who was President at the time. That name lasted until the latter part of Barack Obama’s presidency when he renamed it Mount Denali. Trump’s new order would make it once again back to Mount McKinley. Notably, Alaskan Republicans are against the new order, but Trump went ahead with the legislation.
In addition to renaming Mount McKinley, Donald Trump is also seeking to rename the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf of Mexico has had its name unchanged since the 1600’s. However, after tensions have risen between Trump and the Mexican government, he is seeking to rename the body of water to the Gulf of America. It is worth noting the International Hydrographic Organization is in charge of surveying the world’s seas and naming them. Different countries can have different names, for example if two nations border one sea, they might have different names as respective to the language they speak in that nation. Historically, there have been other nations who have disagreed over the name of the body of waters. For example, the Sea of Japan has seen pushback from South Korea.
Donald Trump’s executive orders concerning Mexico span past renaming the Gulf of Mexico, but he also wants to name cartels as a “national-security threat”. It is worth noting that the order doesn’t call out Mexican cartels, however considering the state of the southern border, this seems unlikely to cool tensions between the U.S. and Mexico.
Along with the orders he put into place, Trump also passed orders on leaving several organizations. Firstly, Trump is seeking to leave the World Health Organization. In the order, Trump is looking to leave the WHO because of their “mishandling” of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, Trump is seeking to leave the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement sets out rules surrounding climate change and emission limits. During the First Trump Administration, he also left, but Joe Biden joined back again in 2021. Currently, only Yemen, Libya and Iran are the only countries to not have signed the Paris Agreement.
Donald Trump’s new administration also made an order issuing pardons for people convicted for their role in the events of January 6th, 2021. During his campaign, Donald Trump was noncommittal on whether he would pardon January 6th convicts. In the last days of Joe Biden administration he too gave out pardons to family members of his.
Several executive orders covered the topics of race and gender. Firstly, the new Trump Administration passed an order ending DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) departments and policies. DEI policies faced pushback from Republicans throughout the election cycle, and they are now pushing legislation to lessen such policies. In addition to that order, a new executive order was passed clarifying that there are two sexes.. Much like DEI policies, Republicans made gender politics a large part of their platform for the 2024 election cycle. The executive order states that this order will, “defend women’s rights.”
Trump’s first day included many several executive orders that were not covered during his first day in office. Some of the executive orders that are not included above but are still important are: pushing back the TikTok ban for 75 days, implementing DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), reimplementing the death penalty and several orders concerning border security. It remains to be seen if all or some of these executive orders will survive judicial review.
