What are executive orders?

Executive orders are a key tool for any US president wanting to make their mark on government policy - and it appears that Donald Trump will waste no time on his return to the White House.

He is expected to sign more than 200 executive actions on Monday. This will include executive orders, which are legally-binding, and other presidential directives like proclamations, which are usually not.

Trump has promised orders that will ramp up artificial intelligence programmes, form the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), make records available related to the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963, direct the military to create an Iron Dome missile defence shield and eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies from the military.

During his previous term, he signed 220 executive orders, some of which were challenged in the courts.

It is a written order issued by the president to the federal government which does not require congressional approval.

Orders range from dramatic reverses of policy, like Trump's approval for the construction of two bitterly contested oil pipelines in 2017, to ordinary business, such as Barack Obama's instructions on half-day closing for government departments, external on Christmas Eve 2015.

Authority for issuing the orders is rooted in Article II of the US constitution, external, which states: "The executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America."

Sometimes the orders are made during wartime or to avert a domestic crisis. In February 1942, President Franklin D Roosevelt signed an executive order that led to the creation of detention centres for about 120,000 Japanese Americans.

In 1952 President Harry Truman issued an order that put the steel industry under the control of the government in an attempt to avoid a strike.

On his first day in office on 20 January, 2021, Biden signed an order beginning the process of re-joining the 2015 Paris climate agreement, from which his predecessor Trump formally withdrew. Biden's Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said it was "to help us all avoid catastrophic planetary warming".

An executive order has to work within the confines of the law, with, in theory, each one "reviewed by the Office of Legal Counsel for form and legality". This does not always happen.

If an order is deemed to stray outside the boundaries of what is acceptable, it can be subject to a legal review.

Congress can also pass a law to override the executive order, but a president still has a veto over that law, the Constitution Center explained, external.

Executive orders are controversial because they bypass approval from Congress, allowing the president to act on his own.

Republicans successfully sued Obama over part of his 2010 healthcare changes, arguing that he had exceeded his constitutional authority when he unilaterally delayed an insurance coverage deadline.

Trump's travel ban on some majority-Muslim countries was highly controversial, and Biden ended it upon entering the White House.

A president may also issue an order when members of Congress act too slowly or when the president feels he needs to flesh out details of a new law.

Trump signed 220 executive orders in his first term.

In comparison, Joe Biden issued 160 executive orders, and Barack Obama and George W Bush, who both served two consecutive terms, issued 277 and 291 respectively.

In recent times, presidents have increasingly used their executive orders to undo the work of their predecessor.

In 2017, Trump began with an executive order targeting Obamacare., external

Biden revoked the Trump administration's emergency declaration that helped fund the building of a wall along the Mexican border and also ended a travel ban on some majority-Muslim countries.

He also returned the US to the Paris climate agreement.

Now with Trump returning for a second term, he has vowed to sign a flurry of executive orders within moments of being inaugurated, covering issues ranging from immigration and deportations to the environment and transgender rights.