Donald Trump has started implementing executive orders on his third day in office. One notable change is the inclusion of the “Gulf of America” in official documents.
As part of his efforts, offices supporting diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) at the federal level are being shut down following Trump’s opposition to these initiatives.
Within hours of being sworn in on Monday Trump, 78, signed a slew of executive orders and pardons in what was dubbed a “shock and awe” effort.
Some of them targeted diversity initiatives aimed at hiring practices that Trump described as “dangerous, demeaning and immoral”.
Trump has also revoked orders that aimed to promote equality for LGBTQ+ individuals and DEI programs in healthcare. Additionally, he has introduced a new order asserting the existence of only two genders.
Meanwhile Florida became the first US state to describe the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” in a weather alert this week.
It read: “An area of low pressure moving across the Gulf of America, interacting with Arctic air, will bring widespread impactful winter weather to North Florida…”
And the US Coast Guard did the same in an official press release that read “The maritime border between Texas and Mexico in the Gulf of America… “
Trump signed an order on Monday decreeing that the ocean basin would be renamed.
Bordered by the US Gulf coast, Mexico’s eastern states and Cuba – the Gulf is a key point for fishing, transport, oil and gas production.
Earlier this month he claimed the name change would be acceptable “because we do most of the work there, and it’s ours”.
Without a formal international precedent for this situation it’s unclear whether or not he’ll be able to do so.
From Wednesday evening US federal employees working in diversity offices will be put on paid leave – with the offices fully closed under Trump.
An official internal White House memo read: “Send a notification to all employees of DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility) offices that they are being placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately as the agency takes steps to close/end all DEIA initiatives, offices and programs.”
Trump said during his campaign that DEI measures discriminated against white people, and men, in particular.
One of his executive orders read: “The Biden administration forced illegal and immoral discrimination programs, going by the name ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ (DEI), into virtually all aspects of the federal government, in areas ranging from airline safety to the military.”
He has also pledge to prevent transgender women from competing in men’s sports after being a long-standing public opponent of their inclusion.
OTHER EXECUTIVE ORDERS
One of Trump’s first acts after settling back into the Oval Office was to pardon over 1,500 Americans who were convicted in connection with the deadly riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
He also gave orders for around 450 pending cases against January 6 defendants to be dismissed.
His supporters stormed the Capitol after Biden won the 2020 Presidential Election – falsely claiming the vote had been rigged.
Roughly 140 police officers were assaulted during the attack, with some sprayed with chemical irritants and others struck with pipes, poles and other weapons.
Four people died during the chaos, including a Trump supporter who was shot dead by police.
Jacob Chansley, far-right conspiracy theorist and Capitol rioter also known as the “QAnon Shaman”, was among those pardoned.
He also declared an official national emergency at the US-Mexico border on Monday – meaning he can use federal funding to build a wall along the boundary without the permission of Congress.
While signing the order, he said: “That’s a big one. People have wanted to do this for years.”
And he signed a directive to try and end birthright citizenship – when a person born on US soil is given American citizenship.
Trump also signed an order to designate Mexican drug cartels and certain gangs from El Salvador or Venezuela as foreign terrorist organisations.
This could give his government more powers to go after the criminal organisations with military strikes or to forcefully remove their members from the US.
He also withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement and the WHO – meaning the organisation will be millions of dollars worse off – and certain global vaccination directives will no longer apply to the US.
Social media site TikTok recently came under fire in the US because of its Chinese parent company – ByteDance.
It went offline during a brief ban in America on Sunday – but was back again with a notification thanking “President Trump” for his efforts.
After officially taking office on Monday he signed an executive order to block the ban from taking effect for a further 90 days.
It gives ByteDance a month and a half to divest from TikTok – therefore salvaging the app for Americans.
“I guess I have a warm spot for TikTok,” he said.
