Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States along with first African-American, Asian-American women Vice President –Kamila Harris. The congressional representative, senators, military leadership, and diplomatic community at Capitol Hill attended the ceremony. Ambassador Asad M. Khan and Mrs Zunaira Asad representing Pakistan also attended the inauguration ceremony of President Joe Biden and VP Harris. In his inaugural speech, Biden said, “At this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed.” His predecessor, Donald Trump did not attend the ceremony and remarked that “We will be back in some form.” Moreover, the performances of famous rock star Lady Gaga and singer Jennifer Lopez adorned the ceremony.
Biden is expected to sign a blizzard of executive orders that will lay out his coronavirus, immigration and climate policies. An interesting fact is that Biden took the oath by placing his hand on a Bible that has been in his family for 127 years, while Harris used a Bible that once belonged to civil rights icon Rosa Parks. One of Trump’s first actions as president in 2017 was to suspend entry to the United States of travellers from seven majority Muslim nations: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, for 90 days. Whereas the Klain, Biden’s chief of staff, wrote that, “in his first 10 days in office, President-elect Biden will take decisive action to address these crises.” Foreign Minister Qureshi expressed confidence that president-elect Joe Biden as an “old friend to Pakistan” would work towards strengthening ties between the two countries and informed that the exchange of messages had taken place between Prime Minister Imran Khan and the U.S. president-elect, who expressed interest of working with Pakistan on issues of common interests. He added that Pakistan and U.S. have convergences in many areas and also differences, which can be ironed out with better understanding