Biden plans to play ‘Trump’ card to reverse ‘Muslim ban’ policy

President-elect's administration will be guided by radically different priorities, according to leading American daily

President-elect Joe Biden is planning to quickly sign a series of executive orders after being sworn into office on January 20 to reverse the policies of his predecessor Donald Trump.

A report published in The Washington Post said a move indicating that the country’s politics have shifted and that Biden’s presidency will be guided by radically different priorities.

The leading US newspaper said Biden will also repeal the ban on almost all travel from some Muslim-majority countries which was placed by Trump in January 2017, shortly after he took office.

The president had argued that the travel ban was for national security purposes.

In July this year, Biden had pledged that he would overturn Trump’s travel ban targeting several predominantly Muslim countries on his first day in office if elected president in the November elections.

“That fight was the opening barrage in what has been nearly four years of constant pressure and insults, and attacks against Muslim American communities,” Biden had told the ‘Emgage Action’, the largest Muslim political group in the United States.

“Donald Trump has fanned the flames of hate in this country across the board through his words, his policies, his appointments, his deeds, and he continues to fan those flames,” Biden said. “Under this administration, we’ve seen an unconscionable rise in Islamophobia.”

The report said Biden will rejoin the Paris climate accords, according to those close to his campaign and commitments he has made in recent months, and he will reverse President Trump’s withdrawal from the World Health Organisation.

Although transitions of power can always include abrupt changes, the shift from Trump to Biden — from one president who sought to undermine established norms and institutions to another who has vowed to restore the established order — will be among the most startling in American history.

Biden’s top advisers have spent months quietly working on how best to implement his agenda, with hundreds of transition officials preparing to get to work inside various federal agencies. They have assembled a book filled with his campaign commitments to help guide their early decisions.

(With input from News Desk).