Trump’s “Two Gender” Policy And Other Crazy Executive Orders He’s Going To Sign

He’s also giving full pardons to more than 1,600 Capitol Building rioters and pulling out of an international climate change treaty.

Just hours since Donald Trump was inaugerated as the 47th president of the United States of America and he’s already going on an executive order signing spree, many of which do not sit well with Americans and some parts of the world.

Perhaps the most talked about policy he has officially enacted now is the one involving gender and diversity.

The two gender and anti-DEI policy

Among the first batch of executive orders he had signed after being inaugerated is one that designates two genders only – male and female – which he declared cannot be changed, a BBC report said.

“As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female,” Trump said during is inaugural address on Monday.

He has also made promises about what conservatives denounce as “woke” culture, gender and diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) programmes.

According to an administration official, the executive order would “end DEI inside the federal government”, cutting funding to DEI programmes across all agencies and including a review of offices renamed because of DEI initiatives.

For those who are unsure, DEI is an organisational framework which seeks to promote fair treatment to everyone in a society.

Here’s a short rundown of what DEI is:

• Diversity

  • Embracing differences in people whether it’s their race, age, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability, or other aspects of social identity.

• Equity

  • Treating everyone fairly and providing equal opportunities.

• Inclusion

  • Respecting everyone’s opinions and creating a culture where people from all backgrounds feel encouraged to express their ideas and perspectives.

So, Trump is basically removing the diversity part of the DEI initiative by declaring only two genders exist, while equity and inclusion are being rid of with an aim to restore what his administration considers a merit-based hiring system.

Sweeping pardon for 1,600 Capitol Building rioters

On 6 January, 2020, Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. in an attempt to thwart the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory that year.

What started off as a protest turned into an all out riot as more than a thousand Americans, who were in favour of Trump, pushed past police guarding the Capitol building and broke in to disrupt Congress.

Fast forward to today, Trump granted a sweeping pardon to nearly 1,600 individuals charged in connection with the the attack on the Capitol. Just like that.

The New York Times said this move effectively erased years of efforts by federal investigators to seek accountability for the riot.

Moreover, the pardons will also wipe the slate clean of for violent offenders who attacked police during the 6 January riot with baseball bats, two-by-fours, and bear spray and are serving prison terms, some for more than a decade.

Cracking down on immigration

As part of an effort to crackdown on immigration, Trump chucks a Biden-era program that allowed migrants fleeing from four troubled nations to fly into the United States, and remain in the country temporarily.

The program, known as humanitarian parole and introduced in 2023 by the Biden Administration, allowed immigrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Venezuela to fly into the United States if they have an official sponsor and passed security checks.

Migrants who entered the program could stay for up to two years, unless they find other ways to stay long term. As of late 2024, more than 500,000 migrants had entered the country through the initiative.

Stephen Miller, the architect of much of Trump’s immigration policy said on social media in September “Here’s an idea: Don’t fly millions of illegal aliens from failed states thousands of miles away into small towns across the American Heartland”.

Remember the travel ban Trump implemented in 2017? The ban that was labelled as the “Muslim Ban” by his aides because it mostly impacted countries with predominantly Muslim populations? In September last year, Trump said he plans to reinstate the ban and expand it to bar Gaza refugees from entering the United States.

However, this has not officially happened, though we don’t know what the future might hold.

Not agreeing with the Paris Agreement

On the first day of his second presidential term, Trump signed actions to pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement, an international climate change treaty in which nearly 200 countries agreed to work together to limit global warming.

In 2015, more than 190 countries gathered at a United Nations (UN) climate summit in Paris and approved what became known as the Paris Agreement, or the Paris Climate Accord, to limit global warming to below 2 degress celsius, or 1.5 degrees preferably.

Trump announced his intent to pull out of the Paris Agreement in 2017, though it wasn’t formalised until November 4, 2020, a day after Biden won the presidential election.

On the first day of his term, Biden announced his intent to reenter the Paris Agreement. Now, on the first day of Trump’s second term in January 2025, he ordered the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement again.

Why did Trump do this? To increase the US production of fossil fuels, of course.

Trump still has a chance to reenter the US into the agreement, should he choose to at a later date during his term.

In a CNN report, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said “The door remains open to the Paris Agreement” and “We welcome constructive engagement from any and all countries.

Stiell emphasized the clean energy boom taking place around the world, valued at $2 trillion in 2024 and rising, and warned that countries that don’t embrace it will be left behind.

Punishing tariffs of up to 60%

Starting on 1 February, Trump’s administration will be imposing 25% tariffs (import taxes) on Mexico and Canada, two of the United States’ top three trade partners, a change that could make prices soar for American consumers.

The tariffs, if enacted, “would create a self-inflicted wound on America’s own economy,” said Judge Glock, director of research and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank.

However, the most punishing tariff is imposed on China: a heavy 60% levy on all goods. For the rest of the world, he is proposing a 20% tariff on imports, which is still considered high.

All this is part of the “America First” economic policy to reduce the United States’ trade deficit.

In line with the isolationist policy, Trump also signed an executive order to pull the US out of the World Health Organisation (WHO), citing “the organisation’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic” and “onerous” costs associated with being a part of the international organisation as the reasons for the withdrawal.

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