Alwaght- Barely ten days after being sworn in, United States president Donald Trump has courted controversy at home and abroad due to his abrasive executive orders.
The most contentious executive order by Trump was the one he signed on Friday that severely restricts immigration from seven Muslim countries, suspends all refugee admission for 120 days, and bars all Syrian refugees indefinitely. The order prohibits the citizens of seven Muslim countries—Iraq, Iran, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, and Yemen—from entering the US on any visa category. Activists say Trump’s order amounts to a ban on Muslims entering the US. This order has attracted condemnation even from close US allies such as Britain whose prime Minister Theresa May who initially failed to condemn the order, released a statement late on Saturday night saying that she "did not agree" with the policy. A spokesman for Angela Merkel said the German chancellor regretted Trump’s decision to ban citizens of certain countries from entering the US, adding that she had “explained” the obligations of the Geneva refugee convention to the new president in a phone call on Saturday. French President Francois Hollande has called on European leaders to give a “firm” response to Trump, whose first steps as the US president have raised concerns among some of America’s allies in Europe. Countries affected by Trump’s ban including Iran, Iraq and Yemen have responded firmly by condemning the ban and calling for reciprocal action. In the US, Senate Democrats almost unilaterally condemned the order, calling it a “moral abomination” among other things. Senior Republican Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina issued a joint statement Sunday decrying Trump’s actions as “a self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism.”
Mexican wall condemned
Last Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order calling for a wall on the US border with Mexico. However, Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto released a video saying Mexico would not pay for any wall as demanded by Trump. He also cancelled a scheduled visit to the US following Trump’s order.
Latin America American leaders have also condemned Trump's Mexico wall at CELAC summit at Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Elsewhere, Mexico's government rebuked the Israeli regime on Saturday for a tweet by the regime’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump’s plan to build a border wall with Mexico to keep out illegal immigrants. The Israeli regime has already built an illegal apartheid wall in the West Bank contrary to international laws.
Last Monday, Trump also formally abandoned the ambitious, 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership brokered by his predecessor drawing regional condemnation.
Trump also signed an executive order to revive the controversial Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil pipelines inside the US. Environmentalists have vowed to continue to fight the two pipelines. Greenpeace Executive Director Annie Leonard noted in a statement that a broad coalition of opponents — “indigenous communities, ranchers, farmers, and climate activists” — managed to block the projects in the past and would not give up now.
Blue print for world war
The US president on Friday also signed an executive order to launch what he called a “great rebuilding of the Armed Forces” that is expected to include new ships, planes and weapons and the modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. This order is an apparent plan for a world war.
In the first full seven days of his administration, Trump signed 17 executive orders with wide-ranging implications nationally and internationally. Trump’s orders will affect policy issues relating to healthcare, immigration, oil exploration, abortion, federal hiring and trade.