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

Sometimes orders are given during times of war or to avoid an internal crisis. In February 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order that led to the creation of detention centers for about 120,000 Japanese Americans.

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

On his first day in office, January 20, 2021, Biden signed an order beginning the process of rejoining 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.”