MINORITIES/TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDERS: “There are presently more than 20 million people of Asian American or Pacific Islander (AAPI) descent residing in the United States, which amounts to more than 6 percent of the population. The AAPI population is the most rapidly growing ethnic group in the country and is expected to increase to over 40 million individuals by 2060… Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have helped build a strong and vibrant America. Generations of AAPI individuals, families, and communities are composed of diverse and varied ethnicities, languages, and cultures, and include residents of United States Pacific Island territories and freely associated states. They play an important economic role, having started businesses and generated jobs that pay billions of dollars in wages and taxes, including founding some of our Nation’s most successful and innovative enterprises. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have made important contributions to science and technology, culture and the arts, and the professions, such as business, law, medicine, education, politics, and economics. Their shared accomplishments and legacies are an inspirational, significant, and celebrated part of the American experience.
While we celebrate the many contributions of the AAPI communities to our Nation, we also recognize that AAPI communities and enterprises encounter challenges accessing economic resources and opportunities. Many of the more than 1.9 million AAPI-owned enterprises are small sole-proprietorships that need assistance to access available resources such as business development counseling, small-business loans, and government procurement opportunities. Today’s AAPI workforce is the largest it has been in American history, and we will continue striving toward furthering AAPI advancement in employment and workforce development as well as increasing AAPI participation and representation in the upper levels of leadership in the public and private sectors.
The purpose of this order is to establish the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Each will work to broaden access by AAPI employers and communities to economic resources and opportunities, thus empowering AAPIs to improve the quality of their lives, raise the standard of living of their families and communities, and more fully participate in our economy. Additionally, each will work to advance relevant evidence-based research, data collection, and analysis for AAPI populations, subpopulations, and businesses.“
-Donald Trump, “Executive Order on Economic Empowerment of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders,” whitehouse.gov, May 13, 2019
[Note: Read the full Executive Order signed by Donald Trump.]