Monday, January 23rd was our new president's first full day in office, and he got busy. Here is a summary of the presidential memorandums that he signed on his first full day in office as President of the United States of America.
Formally withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a trade deal, signed by the Obama administration, that involved 12 nations, including 11 of the Pacific Rim countries, yet still excluding China. Though Obama signed the agreement, the Senate never ratified it due to the continued unease on both sides regarding it.
When President Trump was handed the documents to sign the memorandum he said, "We have been talking about this for a long time. A great thing for the American worker, what we just did." And after meeting with many large union leaders later that day, President Trump said that it (the memorandum), "was a very powerful document," before making a promise to put an end to multi-nation trade pacts. He went on to say that, "We're going to have trade but we're going to have it one-on-one, and if somebody misbehaves, we're going to send them a letter of termination, 30 days, and they'll either straighten it out or we're gone." Then further adding, "Not one of these where we can't get out of them. It's a disaster." In addition to all this, he is also in the process of renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). He has already had communications with leaders of both Canada and Mexico. The future for this looks bright at the moment, and we will probably see this within the next year at the longest.
Monday morning, the White House released a statement saying that retaining and attracting American jobs are their top priority. This new administration clearly has big plans for our country's trade relationships. President Trump talked all through his campaign about bringing American jobs home and restoring our economy. He is obviously planning on following through on his promises.
Reinstated the Mexico City Policy
First enacted by the Reagan administration, the Mexico City Policy says that under this policy, all foreign non-governmental organizations (NOGs) which receive federal funding (U.S. taxpayers money) to keep from performing abortions as well as promoting abortions as a form of family planning. The policy was done away with by the Clinton administration and then reinstated by the Bush administration, before being done away with again by the Obama administration. This policy has a long-standing reputation of being a first-day-in-office thing for each president. The Democrats repeal it, and then the Republicans reinstate it. So this should not come as any surprise.
Though President Trump has come out as saying that he is pro-life, reinstating this policy has just as much to do with his tax reform as it does his views on abortion. On Monday at the White House press interview, it was said that President Trump has major plans on various scales to increase respect for the taxpayer's money.
Imposing a hiring freeze on all United States government agencies
This one goes hand in hand with his views on the overspending of taxpayer's money. President Trump aims to severely decrease taxes, and this is one of his first steps in that process. In a statement released by the White House on Monday, one of the ways that he will be going about the tax issues is to get rid of unnecessary and frivolous uses of government funds (taxpayer's hard- earned money).
