KEY POINTS
  • Gov. Spencer Cox expects a number of executive orders impacting Utah on "Day 1" of Donald Trump's presidency.
  • Trump has promised to issue up to 100 executive orders upon entering office.
  • Trump's executive orders would focus on immigration, energy and revoking Biden administration decisions.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox expects that President Donald Trump will issue a number of executive orders on Monday that will impact Utah, he said during his monthly PBS press conference.

Cox told reporters on Thursday that during his visit to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort last week, the incoming president had signaled he would immediately reverse several Biden administration decisions on land and energy.

“The message from President Trump was that, literally on Day 1, that his plan is to leave the dais after being sworn in and go into the Capitol and start signing orders to undo some of those things,” Cox said “I don’t know what that will look like but we’ll be prepared from day one to start working together on whatever that is.”

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Cox will attend Trump’s inauguration ceremony at the U.S. Capitol on Monday, he said. The governor’s office did not respond to inquiries about whether Cox would attend the rally, dinners or interfaith events scheduled for the 60th inauguration.

Trump has expressed an eagerness to govern as much by executive order as possible during his first hours and days in office, even joking in 2023 that he would set up a “tiny little desk” on the Capitol steps during the inauguration to sign “four or five” executive orders on the spot.

What executive orders will Trump sign first?

Trump reportedly plans to announce 100 executive orders upon entering office. Some of Trump’s promised “Day 1″ executive orders would:

  • Suspend refugee resettlement programs.
  • Increase deportations of migrants who entered the country illegally, focusing on those who commit violent crimes.
  • Terminate birthright citizenship for children of migrants who entered the country illegally.
  • Instruct federal agencies to remove inflationary regulations.
  • End electric vehicle mandates.
  • Implement blanket tariffs of 25% on all products from Canada and Mexico.
  • Ban transgender women from competing in women’s sports.
  • Sanction new oil drilling.
  • Pardon individuals involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
  • Revoke a series of President Joe Biden’s policy changes.
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Cox said the Biden administration’s parting actions in office were the topic of his discussion with Trump last week in Palm Beach, Florida.

Gov. Spencer Cox speaks during the PBS Utah Governor’s Monthly News Conference at Eccles Broadcast Center in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News

“We’re seeing orders, decisions coming out of the Biden administration that are clearly last minute, very politically driven, and just unseemly orders that are coming out,” Cox said on Thursday.

In the final days of his administration, Biden has announced a slate of orders to try to “Trump-proof” the foreign aid and environmental policies he championed, as well as ban future oil and gas drilling off the U.S. coast.

Biden’s Bureau of Land Management also took a surprise shot at Utah leaders on his way out of the White House by rejecting previous negotiations on a proposed “Northern Corridor” highway in Washington County and putting forward their own “preferred route” that earned a rebuke from Cox and a Native American tribe.

On Thursday, Cox called this another last-minute decision “that goes against everything we’ve been working collaboratively on and together on for four years.”

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Are executive orders good?

Since July, Cox has changed his tone on Trump, refraining from his previous criticism and choosing to emphasize their shared goals on giving states greater control over public lands and removing regulatory barriers to domestic energy production.

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But Cox has also messaged his desire for Congress to take lasting steps on issues like immigration and permitting instead of relying on executive orders.

“It’s hard to blame any single administration when really this problem lies at the feet of Congress,” Cox said of immigration policy in 2023.

Since 1907, presidents have issued over 14,000 executive orders, ranging from the Emancipation Proclamation to the internment of Japanese citizens. Presidents have the power to instruct executive agencies how to enforce the law in some cases.

But these policy changes often last only as long as the president’s term in office, leading to a policy whiplash between administrations and creating an unpredictable environment for American citizens, businesses and governments.

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