Joe Biden likely to reverse Trump policies on climate, immigration

US President-elect Joe Biden is planning to reverse several of Donald Trump’s policies when he assumes office on January 20, according to a report.

A Washington Post report said Biden will rejoin the Paris climate accords, reverse withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO). He will repeal the ban on immigration from many Muslim-majority countries, and he will reinstate the programme allowing “dreamers,” who were brought to the United States illegally as children, to remain in the country.

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“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,” the report said.

“The policy team, the transition policy teams, are focusing now very much on executive power. I expect that to be freely used in a Biden administration at this point, if the Senate becomes a roadblock,” a Biden ally, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, was quoted as saying in the report.

“Just by virtue of the calendar and how many positions are filled, that’s always a possibility. Because the Senate moves so slowly now, so much more slowly than it used to,” the ally added.

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Earlier, Biden assured Americans that his first task is to get the coronavirus pandemic under control with a definite plan that will be “built on bedrock science”.

The COVID-19 pandemic has killed more than 237,000 Americans and infected over 9 million others. The pandemic was a major topic of debate during the presidential campaign. Biden has repeatedly attacked Trump’s response to the pandemic.

“On Monday, I will name a group of leading scientists and experts as transition advisers to help take the Biden-Harris Covid plan and convert it into an action blueprint that will start on January 20, 2021,” Biden, 77, said. “That plan will be built on bedrock science…I will spare no effort” to turn the COVID-19 pandemic around.”

In his victory speech on Saturday night, Biden said, “I pledge to be a president who seeks not to divide, but to unify; who doesn’t see red states and blue states, only sees the United States.”

Biden, who has succeeded in his third bid to the White House, thanked his supporters, saying he had earned votes from the “broadest and most diverse coalition in American history.”

“I am humbled by the trust and confidence you’ve placed in me,” who will be the oldest US president when he would be sworn-in on January 20, 2021, said amid applause and cheers from the audience, in his hometown, Wilmington, Delaware.

(With inputs from PTI)