February 19 It has been nearly a month since US President Biden entered the White House.
The new official has taken office three times, and Biden has signed dozens of executive orders, drastically reformed in areas such as internal affairs and foreign affairs, and repealed many controversial policies of former President Trump.
The Biden administration is liquidated Trump’s “political legacy” and it is not difficult to reverse the decisions made in the past, but there is still a long way to go to completely repair the “scars” left by Trump’s administration.
“America is back”
Biden focuses on “reshaping” the card?
During Trump, the United States withdrew from many international organizations and multilateral treaties.” The Trump era has come to an end, but the American-first “Trumpism” is far from exiting.
After Biden came to power, he deliberately reversed the “decome” of the past four years.
He said that diplomacy would once again become the center of the foreign policy of the United States, claiming that “the United States is back”.
Re-“join the group”
After Biden was sworn in as President of the United States on January 20, he signed several executive orders announcing that the United States would rejoin the Paris Agreement and the World Health Organization.
Biden says the U.S. will tackle climate change in a “doing way it hasn’t taken so far.”
On the same day, Biden wrote to United Nations Secretary-General Guterres announcing the withdrawal of the U.S. government’s withdrawal from the World Health Organization. In the letter, Biden said that the WHO plays a key role in the global fight against the coronavirus pandemic and the global public health threats.
On February 17th, local time, U.S. Secretary of State Blincoln said that the United States would pay more than $200 million in assessed contributions to the WHO, including arrears under Trump’s administration.
In addition, the United States will return to the United Nations Human Rights Council as an observer. In June 2018, the Trump administration announced that the United States withdrew from the United Nations Human Rights Council, claiming that the United Nations Human Rights Council was “biased” against Israel and “inability to effectively protect human rights”.
Biden wants to add back the “group” Trump has retreated, but the negative impact of “outgrouping” is difficult to make up for in a short time.
According to expert analysis, there should be no high expectation of the full return of the United States to the international community, because Biden’s term is only four years, and there is not enough time to quickly eliminate the consequences of Trump in one term.
The candidate for the WTO Director-General, who had been difficult to give birth due to the opposition of the Trump administration, was finally determined on February 15 after the Biden administration expressed “strong support”.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s former finance minister, finally won, after Yu Mingxi, a South Korean candidate supported by the Trump administration, had announced his withdrawal. But the WTO Appellate Body, which was suspended under the obstruction of the Trump administration, has yet to return to multilateralism.
Restore relationship and consultation issues
After taking office, Biden said that the United States will focus on rehabilitating its relations with NATO allies, Japan and South Korea and other countries. He announced a moratorium on the withdrawal plan of some U.S. troops in Germany, calling the American alliance “our greatest asset”.
For Iran and Russia, the two “old rivals”, the U.S. government has also focused on multiple focus issues.
Biden promised that when he took office, he would reverse Trump’s “dangerous failure” policy towards Iraq and sought the United States to rejoin the Iran nuclear agreement.
But the deadlock between the United States and Iran is difficult to break. Iran insists that the lifting of sanctions imposed by the United States on Iran is the premise of a comprehensive agreement on Iran’s return to the Iranian nuclear issue. Biden said that the United States will not lift sanctions to facilitate Iran’s return to the negotiating table. It is still unknown who can take the first step.
Compared with the uncertainty of the U.S.-Iran relations, the United States and Russia have made progress on the issue of arms control. The Trump administration has responded negatively to the extension of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. After Biden came to power, Russia and the United States began negotiations on the only remaining major arms control treaty between the two sides. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on February 3 that the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty was extended for five years.
On the same day, Brolind said that after the extension of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the United States would interact with Russia “in a way that is in the interest of the United States” to discuss the possibility of reducing crises and conflicts.
Adjustment of counter-terrorism strategy
Blinc recently issued a statement saying that from February 16 local time, the recognition of the Houthis in Yemen as a “foreign terrorist organization” will be withdrawn.
On January 10, 2021, the then Trump administration announced that it would list the Houthis as a “foreign terrorist organization” and a “special identification of global terrorists” entities.
Analysts worry that this move will have a negative impact on the international community’s humanitarian relief operation in Yemen and the United Nations-led peace process, further perpetuating the Yemeni conflict.
Biden intends to close the Guantánamo U.S. military base prison in Cuba, which currently holds about 40 terrorist suspects.
Former U.S. President Obama promised to close Guantánamo Prison, but he failed to fulfill during his tenure. After Trump took office in 2017, he overturned his predecessor’s practice and kept prison.
According to the report, the Biden administration will face resistance from Congress and legal and other restrictions. At the same time, how to place terrorist suspects in custody after the closure of the prison is also a difficult problem.
A big stroke, but there is still a long way to go.
Biden reverses Trump’s tough measures internally
In addition to diplomacy, in terms of domestic policy, Biden’s New Deal also points to Trump and overturns the measures he has implemented in the fields of economy, immigration and so on.
Strengthening Employment Protection
On January 22nd local time, Biden signed an executive order revoking three orders issued by Trump in 2018, which weakened employment protection for federal employees and limited the time federal employees spend paid to deal with union affairs.
The Biden administration believes that Trump’s executive order has damaged workers’ collective bargaining ability.
Suspension of the construction of the border wall
The construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall is Trump’s self-proclaimed “political achievement”. Biden, on his first day as president, issued an executive order to suspend the construction of all border walls.
On February 11th local time, the White House announced that Biden had cancelled Trump’s national emergency order to build the border wall and stopped funding for the construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
The White House has repeatedly warned about the security risks faced by immigrants who have been migrating long distances trying to seek asylum across the U.S.-Mexico border. White House spokesman Pousaki stressed that it was “still a dangerous journey” and “now is not the time to go to the United States”.
Reorder the rules for immigration
In fact, nearly a month after taking office, Biden has signed many administrative documents related to immigration policy.
On February 2nd local time, Biden announced the establishment of an inter-departmental working group to solve the problem of “separation of flesh and blood” for illegal immigrants.
The Trump administration has implemented a “zero tolerance” policy against illegal immigrants, and border law enforcement officials forcibly separate their minor children when arresting them, which has attracted unanimous condemnation from all walks of life in the United States.
Four days later, Blincoln announced that the Biden administration had begun to end immigration agreements signed by the United States with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras and reform the asylum system under Trump.
The United States signed agreements with each of the three countries in July 2019, limiting the ability of some asylum seekers in these countries to apply for asylum in the United States and requiring them to seek protection in their countries of origin.
In addition, several people familiar with the matter said that the Biden administration and Democratic congressmen may announce the immigration reform plan later this week, including giving 11 million illegal immigrants the opportunity to naturalize and expanding the refugee resettlement program.
Trump’s “public burden” immigration exclusion rule during his term is also coming to an end, which strictly restricts the issuance of green cards to poor immigrants receiving benefits.
Although Biden has briefly revoked many of his predecessor’s tough immigration policies, American public opinion points out that the Biden administration still has a long way to go before these policies “land”.
The Associated Press said that “Biden can roll back Trump’s policies with a big stroke”, but the real change in the U.S. immigration system must be supported by Congress, which is a difficult task that many U.S. presidents of Trump, Obama and George W. Bush failed to accomplish during their tenure.
And Biden’s approach has not shown more innovative and effective ideas so far. The most important and primary purpose of the Biden administration since he came to power is to “detrump” as soon as possible, to fish up the political legacy of Obama-era Democratic parties from the pile of paper, and to return the United States to the way that Washington’s political elite can “see”.
