With flurry of executive orders, Biden aims to undo major accomplishments of Trump administration

President Joe Biden on Wednesday issued a major set of executive orders just hours after being sworn in as the nation's 46th president, with the measures taking aim at some of the signature executive accomplishments of the Trump administration less than a day after it came to an end.

Among the orders issued by the newly minted Biden administration was one directing the cessation of border wall construction along the southern U.S. border.

Long a major political trophy for the Trump administration – Trump himself was catapulted to political stardom for promising to build it as a deterrent to illegal immigration – the wall has also been used as a political cudgel against Trump, with critics arguing it represented a repressive, anti-immigrant political agenda. 

Much of the border remains free of any wall at the conclusion of Trump's presidency. Biden's order will halt any further construction of it for the time being. 

Biden also ordered the U.S. to rejoin the Paris Agreement, an international accord meant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an attempt to keep theoretical global warming below target levels.

Trump announced his intent to withdraw the U.S. from the accord in 2017, with the White House claiming at the time that the accord "cost the U.S. economy nearly $3 trillion in reduced output, over 6 million industrial jobs, and over 3 million manufacturing jobs."

Biden also directed the U.S. to rejoin the World Health Organization following Trump's move last summer to withdraw from the global, United Nations group. Critics argued that the WHO mismanaged the earliest stages of the global pandemic and that it was inappropriately beholden to the ruling Communist Chinese Party in its management of world health affairs. 

Additionally, the new president directed that Americans owing money on student loans can delay payments until Sept. 30. The new administration is reportedly considering a student loan forgiveness plan that might cover up to $10,000 in debt.

Biden also issued a federal mask mandate that ordered face coverings be worn on federal property and "in interstate commerce," as the president put it during the signing.