Many of your voters probably consider the president of the United States, Joe Biden, and his predecessor in the White House, Donald Trump, as polar opposites.
If you judge by the large number of policies of the real estate magnate that the new president has tried to reverse through executive decisions in the first two weeks of his government, that seems to be the case.
This Tuesday, Biden re-signed a series of orders aimed at reversing the heavy-handed immigration policy of his predecessor.
And only during his first week in the White House, Biden signed 21 executive orders, more than the sum of the issued in the same period by the previous four US presidents, since Bill Clinton in 1200 to Trump in 2016.
The objective of a part A substantial part of these decisions has been to reverse policies applied by Trump .
Biden has already ordered the re-entry of the United States into the Paris Climate Agreement and the Organization World Health Organization, stopped the construction of the border wall with Mexico, ended the veto that prevented the arrival of travelers from a group of predominantly Muslim countries and reopened the doors for the entry into the Armed Forces of transgender people, among other things.
All these were controversial decisions imposed by Trump using his presidential powers.
However, there are other controversial policies of the previous government that have survived the onslaught of the new president against the legacy of his predecessor.
BBC Mundo tells you which are 5 of these policies.
one. Abraham Accords
One of the milestones that marked the Trump administration’s foreign policy legacy are the so-called Abraham Accords, through which – thanks to the patronage of the United States – Israel normalized its relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan.
Signed in 2020, these agreements were presented at the time by the White House as a step forward in the search for the peace in the Middle East, by facilitating the establishment of relations between the Jewish state and Arab countries , something almost unprecedented since until then Israel only maintained formal relations with Egypt and Jordan.
These new agreements were cr Iticated because they indirectly weakened the position of the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel, since historically one of the ways in which the Arab countries had supported them was through their refusal to recognize the Jewish state.
Another criticism of these agreements was that to make them a reality, the United States made some important concessions such as agree to sell 50 next generation fighter aircraft F – 40 to United Arab Emirates.
Last week, the new US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken , supported these agreements by calling them “a very positive development” and announcing that the Biden presidency plans to build its policies on them.
However, the new government has also announced that it will review the sale of the fighter planes to the United Arab Emirates something that – although it is considered n usual procedure when there are changes of government- it could affect these agreements if Washington ends up withdrawing from the operation.
2. Hard line with China
A policy with which Donald Trump made a key difference from his recent White House predecessors 40 years was the adoption of a policy of open confrontation with China.
Although the presidents before him had not avoided criticizing Beijing on issues such as the human rights situation or its business practices, Trump not only assumed a harsher tone but also launched a trade war with China and adopted sanctions against some of its flagship companies such as Huawei.
During his confirmation hearing before the Senate, Blinken said he thought Trump He was right to take a tougher stance on Beijing and he has no doubt that that nation represents the most significant challenge for the United States.
- Can the relationship between China and the United States recover after four years of Donald Trump?
The new Secretary of State also said which coincided with the opinion of his predecessor, Mike Pompeo, who pointed out that China is committing genocide against Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region.
Regarding the trade war, Biden has said that he will rush on issues such as lifting tariffs and that he would apply policies against China’s “abusive practices” such as “theft of intellectual property, illegal subsidies to companies” or Forced technology transfers to which US companies are required to operate in China.
As it is, experts anticipate that the main difference between Trump’s policy and of Biden before China will reside in the methods and forms : while the ex-president chose to act unilaterally, it is expected that Biden will seek allies on the international scene to deal with Beijing.
3 . Financial aid of $ 2, 000 dollars
When in mid-December, Congress The United States reached an agreement for a second package of economic aid in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, which included checks for $ 650 dollars for each citizen, Trump threatened to veto the agreement if that amount was not increased to $ 2, 000 Dollars.
The then president said that the approved amount was “ridiculously low.”
That position was fully shared with Biden, who then qualified help approve given as “an initial payment” and stated that much more money would be needed.
After his arrival at the White House, the new president has maintained that position to the point that in his new plan to stimulate the economy calls for a check for $ 1, 400 dollars for each American, which will serve to complete the amount set by Trump in December of $ 2, 13.
4. The immigration agreements with Mexico and Central America?
Reversing Trump’s immigration policies is probably what Biden has worked most actively on.
Since the electoral campaign, it was clear that one of his objectives was to “restore” the asylum and refugee system in the United States.
The new president accuses Trump of having acted to the detriment of the American tradition of welcoming the persecuted from different parts of the world, imposing numerous limitations on their entry and stay in the country.
These measures include the Protocol for the Protection of Migrants (PPM), which establishes that applicants to request asylum in the United States who arrive first in Mexico must wait there country until they receive a response to their request.
The Trump government also signed with Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador the so-called “safe third country” agreements, which allow them to countries welcome in their territories people seeking asylum in the United States.
During the presidential campaign, Biden stated that the PPM would be eliminated on his first day in office.
However, once elected, during a press conference in December, Biden qualified his promise.
“This is going to be done and is going to do soon but it will not be possible to do it the first day “, he said, warning that he could not lift all the existing restrictions suddenly because he would risk ending up with an additional crisis that would complicate the efforts of his
After nearly two weeks in the White House, this Tuesday Biden finally addressed the PPM issue by signing an executive order in the which, however, still does not eliminate this mechanism instead, he orders his government officials to review this program that has forced thousands of Central Americans to wait for their asylum in some camps on the Mexican side of the border.
During the first call phone call between Biden and the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, both spoke about reversing the “draconian measures” on immigration imposed by the Trump administration.
However, also referred to “increasing resettlement capacity” , according to the summary of the call released by the White House.
This raises doubts as to whether the new The government plans to eliminate this program completely or if it aims to seek a different formula but that also considers the possibility of Mexico continuing to host Central Americans seeking asylum or refuge in the United States.
The idea of relocating asylum seekers, is also present among the proposals that Biden handled as cand Idato on the migration issue.
As read on the website of his campaign, to address this issue the new president plans to convene a regional summit that includes the leaders of El Salvador, Guatemala , Honduras, Mexico and Canada “to address the factors that drive migration and propose a regional resettlement solution.”
It remains to be seen, how different this “resettlement solution” will be from the current agreements with Mexico and Central America.
5 . Venezuela, Guaidó and Maduro
The Trump administration was the first in the world to recognize the opposition Juan Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela in January 2019, after the president of that country, Nicolás Maduro, was re-elected to office in an election that a large part of the international community considered fraudulent.
From there, Trump imposed a series of strong sanctions not only on members of the government of Maduro but also to the oil industry of Venezuela, the main source of foreign currency of that country.
Last January, the countries of the European Union decided to stop recognizing Guaidó as interim president, because The constitutional period for which the National Assembly over which he presided had been elected expired.
However, Trump chose to maintain that recognition and the new US government announced that it will do the same.
Although Biden has criticized some of Trump’s policies on Venezuela – such as his evenings love Born with the use of force to force a regime change in the country, the new president agrees with his predecessor in describing Maduro as a “tyrant” and is in favor of increasing sanctions on the government and its allies.
Biden has also called for other countries to recognize Guaidó as the legitimate leader of the country and advocates for the release of political prisoners and for the holding of new elections in Venezuela.
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