Busy Biden’s flurry of executive orders shows his priorities for America’s economy

Name: Hong Kong government suffocating sport and fitness industry to death
Uploaded: 2021-01-28T20:30:12.000Z
Duration: 5 min 27 s
Description: Hong Kong government suffocating sport and fitness industry to death

Biden has signed 33 orders in six days, placing a spotlight on climate change, immigration, US industry and human rights

Don’t expect any quick relief on trade restrictions with China, but relations with Xi Jinping will be warmer

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President Joe Biden answers questions from reporters in Washington on January 25. Photo: AP

Richard Harris

Published: 4:30am, 29 Jan 2021Updated: 11:25am, 18 Feb 2021

It is plain to see the white-hot fury that has built up in the US Democratic Party as they helplessly watched president Donald Trump’s anachronisms from the sidelines. “When we get into power”, they would have promised themselves, “we’re going to reverse that immediately”.

This pent-up anger has hopefully been cooled by the 33 executive actions President Joe Biden signed in his first six days in office – smashing Trump’s record of eight orders in his first two weeks. More importantly, the orders are like a window; shining a bright light into the mind of the new administration – and what it cares about.

It is not unusual for a new president to have to deal with a crisis. George. W. Bush had September 11, Barack Obama, the 2008 global financial crisis. Biden’s burden is the coronavirus pandemic, intensified by America’s independent spirit, older demographic, excitable free-speaking news media and slow containment measures.

The US is also keenly aware of the need not to go straight from a pandemic into a full-blown economic crisis. Compared to others, it is perhaps more reluctant to crush its economy to eradicate a virus that will eventually die out of its own accord.

For instance, in Hong Kong, illogical containment measures are exacerbating the economic crisis. Extreme measures have exterminated the restaurants, bars, sports and fitness businesses unable to get the handouts claimed by bigger voices, such as Ocean Park.

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Hong Kong government suffocating sport and fitness industry to death

Knee-jerk reactions accompanied by a lack of forethought have led to government plans for a quarantine for aircrew, which Cathay Pacific expects to reduce cargo capacity by 25 per cent. Expect further delays to the arrival of vaccines in Hong Kong.