President Biden is set to cancel a major transaction authorized by the Trump administration.
Read on to discover what Trump wanted to sell – and why the decision to take it off the market has upset some people.
All dollar values in US dollars.
During his last few days in the White House, Donald Trump sold a spate of oil and gas leases in Alaska. According to Reuters, the Trump administration was selling up to seven leases a day in the run-up to Biden's inauguration – a controversial move that sparked protests (pictured) from environmentalists.
In total, the leases would have allowed drilling in an area approximately the size of the country of Switzerland in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a region that's a vital habitat for polar bears, caribou, and other animals.
President Biden has now revoked the oil and gas leases, a move that will preserve millions of acres of natural wilderness. He's also proposed forbidding the issuance of new leases within 10.6 million acres of Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve, the largest area of undisturbed public land in the US, measuring 23 million acres in total.
"As the climate crisis warms the Arctic more than twice as fast as the rest of the world, we have a responsibility to protect this treasured region for all ages," Biden said in a statement.
The decision was met with "gratitude" from the Arctic Village and Venetie Tribal governments, who hailed the announcement as a "significant step towards true, meaningful protection of these lands that are so vital to the survival of our people now and into the future." But some people are less than happy...
Alaskan Senator Dan Sullivan (pictured), speaking to reporters, said: "[Biden officials] love to talk about racial equity, racial justice, environmental justice, taking care of people of color, but one big exception — the Indigenous people of Alaska. They screw ‘em every time."
He's claimed the U-turn will deny economic opportunities to the people of Alaska, a state that once churned out more than two million barrels of oil a day but now produces fewer than 500,000.
Despite Trump bragging about the sales, the move by his administration was seen as a "flop" at the time, Politico reports. The lease sale garnered just $14.4 million in bids, which came exclusively from two businesses and the Alaskan state oil development company.
Earlier this year, Biden also drew the ire of environmentalists for approving the controversial Willow oil project in northern Alaska. But his policies have been far more environmentally restrictive than Trump's. With an election looming, the new proposal could make it impossible for future presidents to overturn the lease restrictions.
According to measures announced yesterday, the federal Interior Department will establish the protections so that future administrations cannot revoke them. And Biden has also revoked more than a handful of other Trump-era policies...
In August 2019, then-POTUS Donald Trump re-established the US Space Command: a branch of the US Department of Defense that oversees military operations in outer space. The Command was first established in 1985 before being disestablished in 2002. One of Trump's final presidential moves was to reinstate the organization – and a few days before leaving office, he introduced another key policy concerning the Command.
The Trump administration decided to move the Space Command headquarters from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama. Nicknamed Rocket City "for its close history with US space missions," according to Huntsville.org, the city is already home to the US Space and Rocket Center, the Army's Space and Missile Defense Command, and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.
The proposed move delighted Alabama lawmakers. But when Biden took office the decision was called into question, and after long-running arguments on both sides, the 46th has finally decided to keep the Command in Colorado.
The planned relocation was decided against mainly to avoid disruption; if the Command were moved to Huntsville, the new headquarters would reportedly not be ready until after 2030. But others believe there might be an ulterior motive for choosing Democratic Colorado over Republican Alabama. (Trump claimed he was "single-handedly" responsible for putting the Command in the Red state).
Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville (pictured) has argued that bypassing Republican states "looks like blatant patronage politics." He's previously clashed with Democrats over plans to help troops seek reproductive healthcare as abortion becomes increasingly criminalized in Alabama.
The reversal has been hailed as a win by Pentagon spokesperson Pat Ryder, however, who said: "Locating Headquarters US Space Command in Colorado Springs ultimately ensures peak readiness in the space domain for our nation during a critical period." However, with Republican lawmakers still vocally opposing the decision, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Mike Rogers has warned: "This fight is far from over."
A border wall between the US and Mexico has existed since 1853, but it really became controversial following the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Various administrations had already installed 654 miles of fences and barriers, but President Trump promised to build a wall that would reach 1,000 miles in length during his time in office as part of his stringent anti-immigration policy.
As of January 2021, the Trump administration had installed 452 miles of wall, but only 47 miles of that stretch were built from scratch – the rest was a reconstruction of previously existing barriers. The former president said the project would cost between $8 billion and $12 billion, and insisted that Mexico would foot the bill. The project was not only over budget, but the $15 billion eventually spent on construction was financed by funds taken from US counter-drug budgets and military construction funding. Mexico didn't contribute a single dollar.
President Biden didn't pick up from where the Trump administration left off, having promised not to construct "another foot" of the wall while in office – although he's said he won't deconstruct any part of the existing wall. This would make Biden the first president since George H W Bush not to add to the barrier, and will leave this controversial US megaproject incomplete for at least the rest of Biden's term.
Biden's visit to the border wall in January this year was the first he's paid to the site since taking office, something Texas' Republican governor Greg Abbott has described as "stunning and astonishing, and outrageous."
While many people have praised Biden's refusal to extend the wall, including Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who thanked Biden for not building "even one meter" at a North American Leaders Summit, others such as Abbott have rounded on his migrant policy. Since Biden entered the White House two years ago, the number of migrants crossing the border has skyrocketed, even surpassing two million for the first time in the year ending September 30, 2022.
Recent measures to limit illegal border crossings, while allowing 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela to enter the US each month, have fallen flat both with people who support immigration and those who believe it should be even stricter. In response, Biden has said: "Both extremes are wrong... it's a basic middle proposition."
The Keystone Pipeline System has transported oil from Alberta, Canada, to the US states of Illinois and Texas since 2010, but a proposed expansion, Keystone XL, has been a sticky subject for the two countries.
In 2015, the fourth phase of the pipeline, which would run from Alberta to Nebraska, was vetoed by President Obama based on its environmental impact, but the project was then granted the go-ahead by his successor Donald Trump in 2019. Protests against the expansion continued and it wasn't long before it ran aground yet again.
President Biden revoked the permit just hours after his inauguration on January 20, 2021, again on the basis of the proposed expansion’s environmental impact. In response, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said that the move would put people out of work and weaken the US-Canada relationship. The project was set to cost around $8 billion, which would have been privately funded.
In July 2021, the XL Pipeline developers TC Energy pulled the plug on the expansion altogether following a comprehensive review and talks with authorities in Alberta, Canada. The decision has been celebrated by environmentalists, who have protested against construction of the pipeline for the last decade, and it has even prompted the company to change tack – it’s now going to focus more on facilitating cleaner fuels and shipping and storing natural gas, liquid fuels and power.
The company made no reference to President Biden’s move to revoke its permit, but it likely played a big part in the decision. However, TC Energy has since sought $15 billion in damages as it claims the US government breached the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by blocking the project.
The opinions of the 45th and 46th presidents of the US don’t just differ on big infrastructure projects – President Biden has also reversed policies looking to ban a number of Chinese apps, which had been rushed through the door in Donald Trump’s final weeks in office.
New downloads of Chinese multitasking "app for everything" WeChat were slated to be banned by the US Department of Commerce on September 20, 2021, but its Shenzhen-based parent company Tencent won a reprieve after a judge in California blocked the move.
Tencent didn't actually file the retaliatory lawsuit, however. It was launched in August 2020 by a group of American WeChat users, who argued that the ban infringed on their First Amendment rights and unfairly targets Chinese-Americans, since the majority of the app's 19 million active daily users in America are Chinese speakers.
The attempted ban boiled down to US government concerns over privacy and national security, but Tencent has fiercely denied that its product could be used as an espionage tool and insists WeChat messages are private, though unlike rival apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram they lack watertight end-to-end encryption.
Just two weeks before Joe Biden was sworn in as president, Donald Trump banned the company’s digital wallet service WeChat Pay by executive order, effective from February 20, 2021. However, before the ban came into effect the new president paused it. In June 2021, President Biden officially revoked the attempt to ban the app. He replaced it with an executive order to review all apps controlled by foreign adversaries in order to assess whether or not they pose a security threat to the US.
A ban on online video platform TikTok, which has garnered a staggering 150 million active monthly users in America, was set to kick in on September 27, 2020, having been put on hold for a week. Former President Donald Trump first mooted the proposal that July and signed an executive order in August 2020 to outlaw the short-form video-sharing app "unless it is sold to an American buyer."
However, TikTok's parent company ByteDance filed a lawsuit to stop the ban and, hours before it was set to take effect, a federal judge stepped in, granting TikTok's request for an injunction.
President Trump had given his "blessing" to a deal between ByteDance and US firms Oracle and Walmart, which would have seen them allowed to operate the app in America. But in February 2021, President Biden put the deal on hold as his administration began to review America's China policy.
However, President Biden may be leaning more toward agreeing with Trump. In late 2022, the Biden administration moved to limit the perceived security risks posed by the platform with a TikTok ban on all federal government devices. Government agencies in many US states have followed suit. Then, in March 2023, a TikTok spokesperson reported the administration threatened the app with selling to an American company or facing a nationwide ban.
In 2019, the Department of Defense (DoD) awarded Microsoft a 10-year contract to build a cloud storage system for sensitive military data and technology. Over the following decade, Microsoft was set to earn up to $10 billion for its work on the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) project.
At the time, many in the industry were surprised that Microsoft was awarded the contract – particularly Amazon, which had also been a potential candidate for the contract and a company that many thought was better placed to take on the job. Amazon contested the DoD's decision and argued that it was the former president’s dislike of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post, which Bezos owns, that had fueled the administration’s rejection of their bid.
In March 2020, the DoD issued a statement saying it wanted to re-evaluate its decision to award the JEDI contract to Microsoft, and at the beginning of July 2021 the department announced plans to cancel the original contract altogether and instead award a new contract based on new bids.
"Evolving requirements, increased cloud conservancy and industry advances" were quoted as reasons for the DoD’s back-pedaling, although there's speculation as to whether it's actually a move to undo the former president’s decision, which may have been influenced by "his own personal and political ends," according to Amazon.
Back in the 1990s, Congress instated a rule on America's showerheads, limiting the flow rate to a maximum of 2.5 gallons per minute. And federal law meant each showerhead in a fixture counted towards the limit collectively.
But when Donald Trump came into the White House, he bemoaned the regulations. Speaking at a Whirlpool manufacturing plant in Ohio in August 2020 (pictured), Trump complained: "You go into a new home, you turn on the faucet; no water comes out. You turn on the shower – if you're like me, you can't wash your beautiful hair properly."
As a result, Trump pushed for the Department of Energy to amend this so that each showerhead could reach the 2.5 gallon-a-minute limit individually.
But now Joe Biden is president, the rules on waterflow have returned to what they once were. In July 2021, the Department of Energy revealed it was moving to reverse the changes made by the Trump administration.
In March 2020 Trump's administration made big changes to emissions regulations, scrapping President Obama's 5% annual mileage increase for most passenger vehicles, dropping it to 1.5% through the 2026 model year. While Obama's more aggressive policy was enforced to reduce emissions, Trump's administration stated that its lower rate would save lives as it would encourage people to buy newer, safer cars.
Trump's standard meant that cars had to average at least 40 miles per gallon by 2025, down from about 50 miles per gallon under the Obama-era rule. Trump also took away California's authority to set its own fuel standard.
But in August 2021, Biden's administration changed emissions standards yet again. The Environmental Protection Agency and Department for Transportation announced the reversal of Trump's fuel emissions standards. The new policy – which is designed to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 2.2 billion tons in the next 25 years – will increase the emissions standard for 2026 model-year vehicles from 43.3 miles per gallon to 52 miles.
The administration also gave California back the authority to set its own fuel standard. By 2030, Biden wants half of all US cars to be battery-electric, fuel-electric, or hybrid.
In 2017, Trump signed an executive order to reduce the size of two national monuments by a staggering two million acres. Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears (pictured), both in Utah, were declared monuments by former presidents Clinton and Obama respectively. Trump wanted to cut the land to remove its federal protection and allow mineral mining to occur in the area, a move that was widely supported by Republicans in Utah.
The area has long been considered sacred by the Hopi, Navajo, Ute, Ute Mountain Ute, and Zuni Tribes. Biden reversed Trump's executive order in October 2021, restoring the national monuments to their original sizes and reinstating their federal protection.
Quoted by USA Today, Arizona representative Raúl Grijalva said the reversal "shows this administration's commitment to conserving our public lands and respecting the voices of Indigenous Peoples. It's time to put Trump's cynical actions in the rear-view mirror."
In July 2020, President Trump announced that he would be making regulatory changes to the landmark National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA): a 1969 law that requires policymakers to assess the environmental impact of various construction projects. Trump claimed this was to get rid of the "mountains and mountains of red tape" that were slowing down the approval of new infrastructure. However, campaigners such as the Center for Biological Diversity protested the move, saying it would "weaken safeguards for air, water, wildlife and public lands."
In April 2022, the Biden administration said that it would bring back the three key provisions scrapped by Trump. Once the NEPA is fully restored, it will go a step further and introduce new changes to make the law more robust.
Environmentalists have welcomed the U-turn, which aims to "[patch] holes in the environmental review process," according to the chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and to ensure that new projects such as highways, mines, and pipelines bring benefits to local people.
In 2018, then-President Trump introduced a 25% tariff on foreign steel imports. Supposedly a measure to discourage companies from importing steel rather than supporting America's own steel industry, the policy proved unpopular with many experts who objected to Trump's claims that other countries were undermining US production.
In May 2022, Biden overturned the controversial policy for imports of Ukrainian steel. By suspending the 25% tariffs for at least a year, the White House hopes to enable "steel mills to continue as an economic lifeline for the people of Ukraine," according to US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
Steel typically represents around 18% of Ukraine's total exports and the industry has been threatened by the Russian invasion, with troops storming major steel mills in cities such as Mariupol. Both Republican and Democrat lawmakers urged Biden to scrap the tariffs in an attempt to lessen the blow to Ukraine's economy and "signal support" for the country.
America has long imposed sanctions on Cuba. Although Obama eased the restrictions during his presidency, Trump reintroduced a range of sanctions back in 2017 – and in May 2022, the Biden administration announced that it would be scaling them back again.
Under the latest policy, Biden removed measures that state Cuban migrants in the US can't send their families more than $1,000 every three months. He also sped up the visa application process.
Speaking to CBS News, a government official revealed that the administration aimed to make more charter and commercial flights available to and from Havana, as well as relaunch family reunification programs that were scrapped by Trump.
Cuba's foreign minister described the new policies as "a small step in the right direction," while Republican Senator Marco Rubio has claimed they're "the first steps back to the failed Obama policies on Cuba."
Back in February 2018, Dennis Muilenburg (pictured) – then the CEO of Boeing – struck a deal with Donald Trump to modify two 747 jumbo jets into official presidential planes, known as Air Force One. The fixed price contract meant that Boeing would be paid around $4 billion for the work. But an additional clause soon came back to bite the airplane manufacturer.
Under the terms of the contract, any overrunning costs would have to be absorbed by Boeing, as opposed to the federal government. This meant that, if the planes cost more than $4 billion, Boeing would have to shoulder the additional expense, though this didn't stop the company from celebrating the contract on social media...
Taking to Twitter, Boeing said it was "proud to build the next generation of Air Force One, providing American Presidents with a flying White House at outstanding value to taxpayers." It might have been outstanding value for taxpayers, but the "good deal on behalf of the American people" would land one of America's biggest businesses in a financial storm.
The first plane was originally due to be delivered in 2024, although last year it was revealed that it wouldn't be ready until 2026. Trump admitted: "I hate to say this, it's gonna be a long time. It's a very complex project. But by the time it gets built, you're gonna have many presidents, hopefully, use it and enjoy it."
But with costs spiraling out of control, President Joe Biden axed one aspect of Trump's contract in June 2022. Trump had arranged for the traditional pale blue color scheme to be changed to "red, white and blue, which I think is appropriate." Speaking to CBS, Trump said: "Boeing gave us a good deal. And we were able to take that. But I said, 'I wonder if we should use the same baby blue colors?' And we're not." Pictured is the former POTUS alongside a model of the proposed new color scheme, which he reportedly kept on his coffee table at the White House during his presidency.
The Biden administration canceled the new color scheme after an Air Force review found the paint job would cause further delays to the project. According to a report by Politico, the study concluded that the dark navy color could cause the planes to overheat, requiring an additional redesign and even higher costs. Boeing has now racked up losses of $1.9 billion on the project.
US troops first entered Somalia in 1992 and have been in and out of the country ever since. In 2020, Trump announced the withdrawal of around 750 soldiers from Somalia. However, due to reports from the Pentagon that attacks by the Somali militant group al-Shabaab increased by 17% in 2021, the Biden administration has re-established a permanent military presence in the war-torn nation.
According to the plans, Biden has authorized a "persistent" presence of up to 500 American soldiers in the East African country. The troops are supporting the Somali government in fighting off members of al-Shabaab, which is affiliated with the terrorist group al Qaeda.
Officials in the Biden administration have previously criticized Trump's withdrawal of troops, claiming it "created unnecessary and elevated risk to US forces as they moved in and out of the country." The government announced in November 2022 that it was offering rewards of $10 million for any information regarding al-Shabaab's leaders.
Towards the end of 2022, the Biden administration announced another Trump policy U-turn, confirming plans to cancel a submarine-launched nuclear cruise missile program that Trump put into motion.
As part of a recent Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the government will also be retiring a B83-1 gravity bomb from its arsenal, though it's maintaining a Trump-introduced nuclear warhead that the Democratic Party manifesto in 2020 described as "unnecessary, wasteful, and indefensible."
The move hasn't proved universally popular. Jon Wolfsthal, Obama's special assistant on arms control, wrote on Twitter: "The world is a dangerous place and our allies and we still rely on nuclear deterrence but [the NPR] ignores the role the US can play to make nukes less usable, less likely."
But the Biden administration has insisted that the "fundamental role of nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attack on the United States, our allies, and partners" and that the US could strike back against "a narrow range of other high consequence, strategic-level attacks" even without the axed cruise missile program. (Biden is pictured here with the US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III.)
Now discover the policy Biden does agree with Trump on