President Trump is preparing to sign several executive orders this week on China, immigration, prescription drug prices and manufacturing, White House officials said Monday, as well as possible action to rescind the DACA program that shields immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children from deportation.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany raised the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program Monday as a likely target for action without being specifically asked about it.
“I would just note that with regards to the DACA decision, the Supreme Court has suggested he has pretty wide discretion,” Ms. McEnany said. “He will use the powers in his executive tool kit to further the agenda of the American people.”
The Supreme Court last month overturned the administration’s previous attempt to end DACA on a procedural issue. Mr. Trump said after the ruling that he intended to refile paperwork ending the program soon.
“Why is Trump obsessed with eliminating DACA? Many of these Dreamers are on the front lines helping fight coronavirus while the president tweets about conspiracy theories from the White House,” tweeted Rep. David Cicilline, Rhode Island Democrat.
In what’s promising to be a busy week, Mr. Trump is scheduled to host Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Wednesday. Their meeting ostensibly is to celebrate the start of the U.S.-Canada-Mexico trade agreement, which took effect on July 1. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau turned down a White House invitation to join them.
Referring to a flurry of pending executive orders, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said “this president will do more in the next four weeks than [former Vice President] Joe Biden and his team did in the last 40 years.”
Mr. Meadows told reporters that the executive actions are needed because Congress is failing to address the nation’s priorities.
“They’re disappearing for almost three weeks,” he said of lawmakers’ upcoming recess. “I don’t know that in this particular environment that you can just stand by and say we can just take a three-week vacation. Most Americans don’t get that.”
Mr. Trump, who criticized predecessor President Obama for relying on executive action, has increasingly turned to presidential orders in recent weeks. Some in the Trump camp, including former White House adviser Steve Bannon, have been urging the president to issue more orders as a central campaign strategy to show him as a man of action.
In a little over a month, Mr. Trump has signed 10 executive orders, including calling for tough prosecution of people who vandalize monuments, building a national park with statues of American “heroes,” and directing federal agencies to replace degree-based hiring with an emphasis on skills.
In the previous five months, the president had signed 24 orders.
Mr. Meadows said the pending orders will cover “some of the manufacturing and jobs issues that are before us, and ultimately dealing with China and what we need to do there in terms of resetting that balance.”
The president tweeted on Monday that China “has caused great damage to the United States and the rest of the World” by allowing the coronavirus to spread. The virus first began infecting people in Wuhan last December.
Mr. Meadows indicated that manufacturing incentives are a priority for the president in negotiations with Congress over the next package of coronavirus aid, which lawmakers aim to complete by the end of this month. He told reporters that the president wants to “provide incentives for American manufacturing to be brought back from abroad.”
The president is expected to sign a “Buy American” executive order that encourages companies to move manufacturing operations from China to the U.S., particularly those involved with medical supplies.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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