President Trump rolled back on Friday over a dozen former executive orders and directives signed by former President Biden focused on gender, labor policies and industry regulations.
Trump signed an executive order late Friday that rescinded 18 executive actions signed by Biden during his four-year term in an effort to “reverse damaging policies and restore effective government,” according to a White House official.
With Friday’s executive order signed, Trump has reversed nearly 100 executive actions in his first two months back in office as he moves to reshape the federal government.
Trump rescinded Biden’s executive action that “elevated radical gender ideology in U.S. diplomacy and foreign aid.” Since returning to office, Trump has sought to roll back transgender rights, including signing an executive order recognizing only two sexes.
The previous administration also authorized the Department of Energy to utilize the Defense Production Act (DPA), first enacted in 1950, to expand the U.S. manufacturing of clean energy technology. That was ended Friday, including “mandates” for electric heat pumps and solar panels.
Trump also revoked an executive order, signed by Biden in 2024, focused on bettering labor standards. Biden’s order directed federal agencies to prioritize various labor practices, including high wages, a pathway to joining a union and safety in the workplace.
The president reversed Biden’s 2021 executive order that raised the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15 an hour.
In September 2022, Biden penned orders to invest more government funds in the U.S. biotechnology industry, looking to bolster the making of materials necessary for clean energy generation. Trump reversed the order on Friday, stating that the prior administration forked over federal money “into radical biotech and biomanufacturing initiatives under the guise of environmental policy.”
In January, Trump also reversed a number of Biden-era executive orders.
Trump rolled back the order that banned gift-giving from lobbyists to appointees who leave federal service once returning to office. Biden’s executive order also allowed a one-year ban to be instituted to those who are “shadow lobbying.”
A Biden order also asked the Department of Health and Human Services to look into “new health care payment and delivery models that would lower drug costs and promote access to innovative drug therapies for beneficiaries enrolled in the Medicare and Medicaid programs, which got nixed on Trump’s first day in office earlier this year.
