Thread: Trump Issues Executive Orders Freezing Federal Hiring, Targeting Trade

Trump Issues Executive Orders Freezing Federal Hiring, Targeting Trade

by Carrie Dann
Jan 23, 2017 12:32 pm

President Donald Trump announced a series of executive actions Monday focusing on trade, making good on a core campaign promise.

The actions, signed Monday at the White House, implement a federal employee hiring freeze, formally withdraws the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and reinstate a GOP-backed policy regarding foreign aid and abortion funding.

Trump noted that his long-promised action to shrink the federal government would not apply to the American military.

Trump's action to nix the TPP trade deal also fulfilled one of his most core campaign promises. The trade agreement, backed by the Obama administration, earned criticism from both Trump and his Democratic foe, Hillary Clinton, during their protracted general election fight. But pro-business groups and many of Trump's Republican allies have voiced support for the deal.

Trump also acted Monday to reinstate the so-named "Mexico City policy" first instituted by Ronald Reagan. That directive essentially barred recipients of U.S. foreign aid from promoting abortion as a method of family planning. In the early days of his presidency, Bill Clinton reversed the Reagan-backed policy; President George W. Bush reinstated it shortly after his election; and President Barack Obama revoked it - each in their first few days as president.

Trump's team has also indicated that he will take executive action soon to jump start his promised renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

NAFTA — a trade agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico that was first enacted in 1994 — was one of Trump's top targets during his presidential campaign.

Earlier on Monday, Trump suggested that companies that move outside of the United States should expect to face "a substantial border tax."

"We want to start making our products again," he said. "We don't want to bring them in, we want to make them here and that doesn't mean we don't trade, because we do trade, but we want to make our products here."

On Friday, Trump announced his first executive order, which pledged to "minimize the economic burden" of Obamacare pending the law's eventual repeal.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/whit...-trade-n710886

We should not strangle women's rights with foreign aid. We should simply stop foreign aid, not blackmail countries into policies that are against their best interest and ours, as conditions for foreign aid. The result of this is funneling money into countries with massive overpopulation due to excessive breeding. What is the point of that??!!

Who was behind this? I know it wasn't Trump. I want to know who was behind reinstating the "Mexico City Policy" on foreign aid??!! Paul Ryan? Reince Priebus? Who? I don't think it was the evangelicals, I don't think it was pastors, so who was it?

I agree with all the other Executive Orders but vehemently oppose that one.

I am all for free or low cost vasectomies and tubal ligations. Make it easily accessible and get a campaign going to make it happen. This means the men too, you are not excused from this.

End the breed and feed programs. These people have made a career of it, it needs to end. The children suffer living in poverty and it leads to an inevitable life of gangs, drugs and crime. No child wants to be born into this environment by IRRESPONSIBLE parents.

Go get fixed if you know you do not want children, do not want to pay for them or be in their lives. What a selfish, disgusting thing to do to a child and EXPECT to live off the back of others.

We do NOT want to pay for your sex anymore. And we certainly do not want to pay for people in 3rd world countries to continue to breed in the dirt and filth. This has gone on for too long. Call it what it is...DISGUSTING!

The "born to die" needs to end around the world and this requires birth control, pregnancy termination procedures, and yes voluntary sterilization. Giving aid to foreign countries but not allowing the money to be used to control overpopulation is just nonsensical, irresponsible, cruel and counter-productive. I realize that most people think they're saving a baby with these policies, but they aren't. They're hurting a woman, they're hurting the men involved, they're hurting other siblings, they're hurting their extended families, and they're hurting their home countries, putting population stress on nations that can't support it is evil. It leads to strife, discontent, suffering and war.

It's wrong, wrong, wrong.

Judy wrote (excerpt):

Who was behind this? I know it wasn't Trump. I want to know who was behind reinstating the "Mexico City Policy" on foreign aid??!! Paul Ryan? Reince Priebus? Who? I don't think it was the evangelicals, I don't think it was pastors, so who was it?

You most certainly know no such thing. The signature line has Donald Trump's name on it. He signs it, he's responsible for it.

Whatever, it was absolutely the right thing to do. American tax dollars should not be going to pay for abortions and they certainly shouldn't be going to foreign countries for abortions! Even the thought of such a thing is ludicrous.

I completely disagree. If you had said no American tax dollars should be going to foreign countries in any type of aid, I would agree with you, but to siphon out a portion that benefits desperate women in terrible circumstances in these starving countries because you don't support a woman's right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is just wrong, wrong, wrong. No good comes from such an act, only more suffering and death. It's cruel, stupid and un-Christian. In my opinion.