President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday directing Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to revise the Pentagon’s policy on transgender troops, likely setting in motion a future ban on their military service.
He also ordered troops to be reinstated who had left voluntarily or been booted for refusing Covid-19 vaccines, outlined new rollbacks in diversity programmes and provided for the deployment of a space-based missile defence shield for the US — all on Hegseth’s first day.
Trump and Hegseth had described parts of the anticipated orders throughout the day, but the exact language did not drop until late on Monday.