What are executive orders? A powerful tool used by US presidents

Sometimes orders are made in time of war or to avoid a domestic crisis. In February 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order that led to the creation of internment centers for approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans.

In 1952, President Harry Truman issued an order placing the steel industry under government control in order to prevent a strike.

On his first day in office on January 20, 2021, Biden signed an order to begin the process of rejoining the 2015 Paris climate accord, which his predecessor Trump formally withdrew from. Biden’s Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said it was “to help us all avoid catastrophic global warming.”