A New Order
- Isabella Lake
- Feb 3
- 3 min read
During his first week back in the White House, President Donald Trump signed a record-breaking 35 executive orders addressing topics like foreign policy, immigration, the environment, and artificial intelligence.
On Jan. 24, he signed an order enforcing the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds for abortions barring maternal life-threatening circumstances, incest, or rape. In doing so, he revoked two orders instated by President Joe Biden, arguing that Congress’ annual approval of the Amendment reflects “a longstanding consensus that American taxpayers should not be forced to pay for that practice.” As of 2016, 57% of Americans supported the Amendment, and 36% opposed.
He further made an attempt to end birthright citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants born in the country. The order seems bound for the courts, where birthright citizenship has been supported in interpretations of the 14th Amendment for 150 years. While likely infeasible, the move has been taken as a harbinger of future legislation enacting Trump’s promise of the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history.
Another order calls for an extensive investigation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), accusing the agency of political bias against his supporters and of spending “well over a billion dollars to welcome illegal aliens.” Having promoted shuttering the agency entirely before, the president has supported the direct provision of resources to states for emergency relief management. In a different order addressing California’s recent wildfires, he instructed federal agencies to bypass state laws which restricted the provision of water and firefighting services, in addition to expediting the federal housing support projects.
On AI, Trump revoked the former administration’s order for government agencies to halt the use of artificial intelligence tools unless they could prove nondiscrimination based on gender, race, or disability. The order ambiguously refers to repealing policies hindering U.S.-based AI innovation, and calls for an action plan in the ensuing 180-days to ensure American competitiveness in the industry. It further encourages U.S. companies to develop tools “free from ideological bias or engineered social agendas,” reflecting the belief that these softwares trend towards liberal biases. AI innovation companies like Deep Learning AI have voiced their appreciation for Trump’s removal of former policies that may have inhibited development.
An order called for the U.S. to withdraw from the United Nations’ Paris climate accord, which has been evaluated as fairly easy to execute, though some time lag is likely. The order aligns adroitly with the administration’s interest in upping domestic oil and natural gas production, though the U.S. is already the world’s number one producer of each commodity, and it’s second-largest polluter. In regards to trade, the president declared an economic emergency to place heavy tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada, and China—our three largest trading partners. Trump argues that the tariffs are leverage against what he considers damaging policies from our three largest partners, which funnel both immigrants and fentanyl into the United States. In response, Mexico’s President Sheinbaum has said that the country will forestall tariffs of their own for a month to allow negotiations, as well as deploying 10,000 members of the National Guard to the border. Consequences for U.S. consumers are yet unclear, but Trump no longer claims that they will be entirely positive. “Will there be some pain? Yes, maybe (and maybe not),” He wrote. “But we will make America great again, and it will all be worth the price that must be paid.”
The inaugural days of Donald Trump’s second term have been marked by explosive orders and rhetoric, much of which is now codified enduringly into U.S. presidential records. What impact, if any, will these strongly-worded orders have on the execution of policy in the United States? What strategic approaches might those who principally oppose Trump’s policies have, and to what extent can those approaches be effective? Do they undermine the principles themselves?
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