*This article was written in February of 2025, and covers a limited number of President Trump’s executive orders signed since his inauguration.
Since his inauguration as the 47th president of the United States on January 20th, 2025, Donald Trump has already made drastic changes to the nation’s laws and policies.
As the leader of the Republican party, he holds far-right views, as opposed to former president Joe Biden’s more progressive views. Since returning to presidency, he has signed over 50 executive orders over the course of just a few weeks. Executive orders are declarations by the president that do not require congressional approval (the law-making and management sector of the US government), and cannot be overturned.
Nearly all presidents release these orders at least once in their time in office, as they ensure quick decision-making, allowing the president to implement changes that may not reach a consensus in Congress. Trump has released orders concerning many areas of society, but they fall primarily into five categories: Environmental, Diversity, Economy, Patriotism and Immigration.
Some of the most dramatic, yet expected changes are those relating to environmental protection and climate change. Trump has withdrawn the US from the Paris Climate Agreement — an international deal created in 2015 to tackle rising global temperatures. Previously, Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement in 2017, a move that was seen as controversial and disappointing, and reversed by President Biden in 2021. The United State’s second withdrawal from the Agreement signifies a clear focus on economic success over environmental sustainability from the Trump Administration. Due to this, the Green New Deal, a series of measures aimed at limiting pollution and regulating the industry of fossil fuel, has also been halted. To replenish oil reserves, Trump has also promised to “drill, baby, drill” in response to what he describes as a “national energy emergency”, prioritising economic benefit over environmental cost.
As some may have noticed on Google Maps recently, Trump has released orders to change the name of the “Gulf of Mexico” to the “Gulf of America”, as part of his initiative to, “restore names that honor American Greatness”. President Trump also renamed North America’s tallest peak, known as Denali since 2015, back to Mount McKinley, disregarding the Alaskan cultural heritage behind the now former name. In regards to competition with China, Trump has also advocated making the US “the global leader in AI”, proposing a $500bn project aiming to create massive AI data centres as part of his plan to challenge China’s rapidly-developing technology systems. On January 18th 2025, the popular Chinese-owned app TikTok was banned briefly for 12 hours before Trump issued an executive order giving the platform’s owners an additional 75 days to comply with the law.
The topic of immigration has also continued being an issue President Trump holds strong opinions on, as he proclaims “America’s sovereignty is under attack”. Taking an “American-First” approach, Trump announced he is pausing foreign aid to focus on the United State’s needs. On January 20th, he ordered officials to deny birthright citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants or those with temporary visas–a move that is currently contested in courts. Additionally, Trump will be shutting down a major immigration pipeline supporting migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, while reinforcing the US-Mexico border. Diversity has also been a major concern of Trump. All offices of diversity, equity and inclusion (the DEI) programmes in the federal government have been shut down. He has declared that the US will recognise “two sexes, male and female…are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality”, thereby barring transgender recruits from enlisting in the US military. These changes will affect documents such as passports, as well as the freedom of the affected individuals. However, some orders have been blocked for now due to their controversial nature. Trump has also received backlash from many notable figures as a result. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said Trump’s ban on refugees is “shameful and cruel”. Likewise, Sir Mo Farah, a British-Somali athlete, expressed his concern, stating it is “deeply troubling that I will have to tell my children that Daddy might not be able to come home”.
With rapidly changing policies and political relationships between countries, it will be interesting to see how the United States, as well as affected countries, will respond to Trump’s new laws and executive orders.