New officials, new policies

(Baonghean) - The event that attracted the most attention from the world last week was the inauguration of the new US President Donald Trump. Along with the discussion about his first moves, Mr. Obama's departure from the White House also made many people regret.

Mr. Donald Trump signs his own nomination decision at the Capitol, Washington on January 20, 2017. Photo: AFP

Will the US withdraw from the TPP?

On Friday, January 20, Donald Trump was officially inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States. Immediately after the inauguration ceremony, Trump made the first moves to "remove" the legacy of his predecessor Barack Obama.

As expected, the first executive order targets the health insurance law, also known as Obamacare. Repealing this law was a promise of Mr. Trump during his campaign. Although it cannot immediately abolish Obamacare, the executive order that Mr. Trump just signed requires federal agencies to “lighten the weight” of this law while waiting for a replacement law to be passed.

Obamacare has been in effect since 2010 and has also faced much opposition from the Republican Party because of its cost. Now we just need to wait for the US Congress - the majority of seats are held by the Republican Party - to vote to abolish Obamacare.

In addition to Obamacare, President Donald Trump also “targeted” two other issues just hours after his inauguration: LGBT rights and climate change. A major change was noted on the White House website since Mr. Trump took office.

The sub-categories on LGBT rights and climate change have been removed from the website. Although these two issues do not attract as much attention as Obamacare in American politics, they will certainly create a lot of public opinion and attract the attention of the international community. Donald Trump is likely to cancel the “Climate Action” program passed during Obama’s second term.

The 45th President of the United States has vowed to “remove unnecessary and even harmful policies like the Climate Action Plan and the Water Action Plan.” The White House’s argument for this is that “removing these sanctions would increase American workers’ wages by $30 billion over the next seven years.” However, the White House has not mentioned the Paris Agreement.

Trump’s latest move was to release a video in which he stated that he would withdraw the US from the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement). Although the US signed the agreement in February 2016 with 11 Asia-Pacific countries, the TPP still needs to be approved by Congress to come into effect. However, with the transition of power from Obama to Trump, the future of the TPP does not seem very bright.

Edward Snowden's stay in Russia extended

On Wednesday, January 18, a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry announced on Facebook that Edward Snowden's residence permit had been extended by two years.

Edward Snowden. Photo: BBC

Edward Snowden is a former employee of the US National Security Agency (NSA) and caused a huge information scandal in 2013 when he revealed the US's worldwide telecommunications and Internet surveillance system. This shocking revelation caused the US to be in turmoil with its allied relations and Edward Snowden became a "criminal" who was hunted down and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Also in that year, Snowden went to Russia for asylum and was granted a residence permit for 3 years. At that time, the extremely tense Russia-US relationship was like "adding fuel to the fire".

The announcement of Snowden’s extension came hours after Obama pardoned another “criminal” – Chelsea Manning. She was sentenced to 35 years in prison and has already served seven years for leaking 700,000 classified documents to WikiLeaks. Thanks to Obama’s pre-departure pardon, Manning will be released in five months. The move was welcomed by both WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden. However, newly inaugurated President Donald Trump does not appear to be going easy on Snowden.

Mr. Trump once called Snowden a “disgraceful traitor” and would likely pursue Snowden more aggressively than Mr. Obama. Many non-governmental organizations and celebrities have asked Mr. Obama to take humanitarian action in Snowden’s case. However, this has encountered many legal problems because Snowden is only under arrest and has not been formally convicted. Meanwhile, the President’s pardons are only applicable to those convicted by federal courts.

However, what will newly inaugurated President Donald Trump, who is always considered to be quite sympathetic to Russia, think about Russia extending Edward Snowden's stay? Will this affect Trump's foreign policy? It is difficult to predict the intentions of this unpredictable President, but perhaps Edward Snowden will not bother him too much when there are still many important legacies of Mr. Obama that the new President wants to erase.

Hai Trieu

(According to Le Monde)