One of President Biden’s most significant differences from Trump was that he did not try to be the front-man or spokesperson for specific matters that clearly had more expert people to speak on them. In this sense, Biden appointed the head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci as his chief medical adviser and held frequent briefings with other professionals such as the CDC Director and heads of the White House Covid-19 task force.

Healthcare

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Aside from the pandemic recovery, the Biden administration has acted rapidly to preserve and strengthen the position of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), one of his prominent campaign promises. In pursuit of this, the administration opened the ACA exchange in February, which enabled designated Americans to sign up for 2021 coverage until mid-August. In addition, those with annual income over 400% of the federal poverty level are now able to purchase insurance on the exchange for the first time.

As part of the $1.9 trillion relief package mentioned before, laid-off employees who still wanted to benefit from their work-based health insurance coverage were also enabled to get subsidies that paid their full costs for 5 months. (5)

Even though the Biden administration took these steps to amplify the positive effects of the Affordable Care Act, the actual battle for the ACA is still being fought in the Supreme Court of the United States. To cancel the aims of the Trump administration, this administration asked the court to sustain the ACA. (6) However, the court has not decided yet and it is unclear what action the administration is planning to take if the court rules against them.

Economy

Referred to as the American Rescue Plan, President Biden proposed a large economic relief plan only days before his inauguration, asking Congress to authorize $1.9 trillion in financing to assist Americans with another round of stimulus checks, unemployment aid, small business support, and money to help schools reopen safely; which it passed with minor alterations as of March. (7)  With this plan in action, over 160 million stimulus checks were sent, worth $1,400 per individual, provided states with $39 billion to assist child care-givers in reopening and/or staying in business and disbursed more than $80 billion (8) in funds to states’ education boards. (9)

Apart from the relief package, Joe Biden has not been the most progressive in terms of economic recovery. For example, any separate program or package for struggling restaurants, theaters, music venues or local businesses has still not been launched. However, compared to his four predecessors, the Biden administration has dealt with unemployment better and created more jobs in his first three months in office.  (10)

Immigration and Borders

The days when Trump’s “Mexico Wall”, the Muslim ban and ICE cages for children were agenda items of the United States government were not so long ago, and Joe Biden has signed several executive orders that reverse these extensive measures taken by his predecessor, including launching multiple task forces regarding legal immigrants, uniting separated families at the border and urging appropriate authorities to guarantee that LGBTQI+ refugees and asylum seekers get equal protection; to ease Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy. (11)

Even though the Biden administration has taken comprehensive and intense actions to swiftly reverse Trump practices, they have tripped on some stones on the road. They could not properly deal with and find sites to accommodate the influx of unaccompanied minor migrants at the southern border. (12) Also, the administration has lagged to keep some of their promises such as abandoning the plan to launch a policing commission in their first 100 days. (13)

Foreign Affairs

Despite the US-China relationship (14) always being on the agenda for the government, there were 3 specific relationships that Biden focused on since his inauguration: Russia, Afghanistan, and Iran.

Especially on the issue of Afghanistan, Biden took a step that was unusual for the United States in the Middle East by starting the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. The withdrawal officially started on May 1, and does not include the troops who will stay there to protect American diplomats. This was a big action in terms of convincing the world that the US only wants peace for the region and shows humanitarian and diplomatic efforts in pursuit of it. (15)

                                               Number of Troops in Afghanistan by year and President (16)