President Donald Trump has been quick with his executive orders since his inauguration yesterday (20 January)
Donald Trump is already making some sweeping changes in his second term as President of the United States.
The inauguration yesterday (20 January) saw the 78-year-old become America’s 47th president after his first term ended in 2021.
The event saw Trump’s wife Melania wear an eye-catching hat (which has resulted in conspiracy theories), and Elon Musk forced to defend claims he gave a ‘Nazi’ salute.
Since being sworn in, Trump has wasted no time in signing a few executive orders – including one on the death penalty.
Since 2021, a moratorium on federal executions has been in place, after just three defendants remain on federal death row when former Democratic President Joe Biden converted 37 of their sentences to life in prison.
In the executive order, which aren’t required to be approved by Congress, Trump has blamed the former president for ‘commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 most vile and sadistic rapists, child molesters, and murderers on Federal death row: remorseless criminals who brutalised young children, strangled and drowned their victims, and hunted strangers for sport’.
Donald Trump has become America’s 47th president (Sky News)
It also claimed that ‘judges who oppose capital punishment have likewise disregarded the law by falsely claiming that capital punishment is unconstitutional, even though the Constitution explicitly acknowledges the legality of capital punishment’.
The order issued by Trump states that ‘capital punishment is an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes and acts of lethal violence against American citizens’.
When the Trump administration was first in power from 2017 to 2021, it carried out 13 federal executions during – more than under any president in modern history, Associated Press reports.
“Before, during, and after the founding of the United States, our cities, States, and country have continuously relied upon capital punishment as the ultimate deterrent and only proper punishment for the vilest crimes,” the order read.
“Our Founders knew well that only capital punishment can bring justice and restore order in response to such evil. For this and other reasons, capital punishment continues to enjoy broad popular support.
“Yet for too long, politicians and judges who oppose capital punishment have defied and subverted the laws of our country.
“At every turn, they seek to thwart the execution of lawfully imposed capital sentences and choose to enforce their personal beliefs rather than the law.”
Trump is making some big changes in his second term (Sky News)
It added: “The Government’s most solemn responsibility is to protect its citizens from abhorrent acts.
“And my Administration will not tolerate efforts to stymie and eviscerate the laws that authorise capital punishment against those who commit horrible acts of violence against American citizens.”
The order also says the Attorney General ‘shall take all necessary and lawful action to ensure that each state that allows capital punishment has a sufficient supply of drugs needed to carry out lethal injection’.
All the executive orders Donald Trump has signed so far
Policy recognising only ‘two genders’
The president signed an order which will make it an official policy that there are only ‘two genders’.
The policy reads: “Agencies will cease pretending that men can be women and women can be men when enforcing laws that protect against sex discrimination.
“These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”
The order will also bring to an end ‘wasteful’ government programmes which promote diversity and inclusivity, as well as ‘defending women from gender ideology extremism’.
Free speech
The president accused the previous administration of ‘trampling free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech’ and vowed to restore freedom of speech.
The order states it will ‘ensure that no Federal Government officer, employee, or agent engages in or facilitates any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen’ and will ‘end censorship of protected speech’.
Leaving the World Health Organisation
The president accused the organisation of fumbling the COVID-19 pandemic and said the US would no longer be ‘ripped off’ by it.
While signing a document to have the US leave the health agency, Trump said: “World Health ripped us off, everybody rips off the United States. It’s not going to happen anymore.”
TikTok ban
As expected, Trump signed an executive order which hits pause on the US’ ban of the popular app, allowing time for an ‘appropriate course forward’.
“I guess I have a warm spot for TikTok that I didn’t have originally,” he said.
Trump has signed a few executive orders since his inauguration on Monday (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
January 6 pardons
Trump’s loss in the 2020 election led to the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in turn resulting in the arrests of a number of Trump supporters.
And as anticipated, the president has wasted no time in issuing pardons for offenders. Trump said he’s pardoned around 1,500 people and issued six commutations.
Immigration
Trump has issued a slew of immigration-related policies during his first day back in the White House as he declared illegal immigration at the US-Mexico border a national emergency.
Trump has already gotten started on reversing several Biden-era immigration orders and has plans to send US troops to help immigration agents and restrict refugees.
The president has also got the wheels in motion to prevent children of immigrants in the US illegally from having citizenship.
Speaking at his inauguration, he said: “All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.”
Restoring the death penalty
Calling capital punishment an ‘essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes’, Trump signed an order which will ensure states have enough lethal injection drugs for executions.
“The Attorney General shall pursue the death penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use,” the order says.
Renaming the Gulf of Mexico
Following through on his promise during a press conference earlier this month, Trump has now ordered the Gulf of Mexico to be called the Gulf of America.
“President Trump is bringing common sense to government and renewing the pillars of American Civilization,” the executive order said.
Despite the order, it won’t change how it is named globally.
Energy policy
Trump has vowed to ‘unleash American energy’, promising to export US energy globally as he signed the order amid what he describes as a ‘national energy emergency’.
“America is blessed with an abundance of energy and natural resources that have historically powered our Nation’s economic prosperity. In recent years, burdensome and ideologically motivated regulations have impeded the development of these resources, limited the generation of reliable and affordable electricity, reduced job creation, and inflicted high energy costs upon our citizens,” the order states.
The order will also reverse Biden’s ban on drilling in Alaska as Trump declared America ‘will be a rich nation again’.
Cost of living
In the order, Trump vowed to issue ’emergency price relief’ to Americans aimed at lowering housing prices and availability and creating ’employment opportunities for American workers’.
Trump will also ‘eliminate harmful, coercive “climate” policies that increase the costs of food and fuel’.
Drug cartels
Trump has said drug cartels will now be classified as terrorist organisations.
“International cartels constitute a national-security threat beyond that posed by traditional organised crime,” the orders says.
Federal workers
Federal employees have now been classified as political hires – a move which in theory would make them easier to fire.
Trump also declared a federal hiring freeze which will reduce the size of federal government.
Featured Image Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
