WASHINGTON, D.C. — As Indian Country celebrated the release of Leonard Peltier in one of Joe Biden’s final actions as president, the new occupant of the Oval Office began taking aim at some of the bedrock principles of the trust and treaty relationship.

Just hours after being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, Donald Trump signed a slew of executive orders that he said would restore “common sense” to federal government. In particular, he rescinded nearly 80 policy directives that Biden had issued over four years in the White House.

“With these actions, we will begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense,” President Trump said in his inaugural address at the U.S. Capitol on Monday. “It’s all about common sense.”

But in targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in federal policy, Trump also swept up the first Americans and their long-standing relationship with the U.S. As confirmed by numerous laws and court decisions, the nation-to-nation relationship is based on the recognition of tribal governments as sovereign entities — it’s not rooted in race or racial status.

“That sovereignty recognizes ours,” John Tahsuda, an attorney and citizen of the Kiowa Tribe who served in the first Trump administration, said at a tribal reception in the nation’s capital on Sunday.

“So our Native sovereignty exists hand-in-hand with that sovereignty,” Tahsuda said at the Navajo Nation Washington Office in Washington, D.C.

Trump’s actions and words on January 20, however, do not explain why the trust and treaty obligations of the federal government have been targeted by his anti-DEI efforts. Buried in the lengthy list of his “initial rescissions of harmful executive orders and actions” is a Biden-era executive order that merely promoted Indian education — from public schools to tribal colleges and universities.

The executive order, titled White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Native Americans and Strengthening Tribal Colleges and Universities, in fact uplifted the role of the long-standing National Advisory Council on Indian Education, also known as NACIE. Just last month, Republicans took the lead in reaffirming the need for the council, which advises the Department of Education.

“As many of my colleagues know, the federal government holds a unique trust responsibility to the Native and tribal communities, a responsibility that is not just a legal obligation, but a moral one,” Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina), the former chair of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, said in passing the bill known as the National Advisory Council on Indian Education Improvement Act. [S.5355]

“This trust is rooted in both the U.S. Constitution and centuries of commitments to Native communities,” added Foxx, who now chairs the powerful House Committee on Rules, a position that is key to advancing legislation in the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives.

It’s not clear why Trump in particular rescinded Executive Order 14049, which Biden signed on October 11, 2021, to little fanfare. But the name itself — “Equity” is in the title — along with words and phrases like “diverse” and “justice” and “gender based violence” in the text make it an easy target amid the strong anti-DEI current within the Republican party.

“What President Trump did is he got away from DEI and gave everybody — once again, regardless of your race or identity — they gave you an opportunity to succeed on merit base,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma), a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and the only Native American in the U.S. Senate, said on Fox News Radio on Wednesday.

“Wow. That’s America for us,” Mullin said on Fox Across America With Jimmy Failla, during which he brought up the Trail of Tears, the forced removal of the Cherokee people and other Native peoples from their homelands by the U.S. government.

Another easy target for Trump was Biden’s executive order titled Advancing Equity, Justice, and Opportunity for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. As with American Indians and Alaska Natives, the U.S. Congress has exercised authority countless times to address the needs of Native Hawaiians.

The White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, which was established by Executive Order 14031, in fact released its final report on January 8. The document is no longer available on whitehouse.gov now that Trump has taken office, though a copy is available on the official Biden archive.

“Nothing Trump did on his first day in office will lower costs for people,” observed Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), the vice chair and former chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.

“Instead, his actions will threaten people’s constitutional citizenship rights, separate families, and reverse hard-fought progress to save our planet,” said Schatz, who has used his leadership positions to advocate for Native Hawaiians. “One thing is clear: it was never about the price of eggs for them.”

Education has long been a component of the federal-tribal relationship — though not always in a positive way. The Navajo Treaty of 1868, for example, compelled all tribal children to attend school in order to bring “civilization” to the Navajo Nation.

A decade later, the U.S. government established the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. The founder of the institution operated it under a motto of “Kill the Indian [to] save the man” — and more than 10,000 children were sent there between 1879 and 1918, according to the National Park Service.

“You know, it’s a little heartbreaking, quite frankly, to think about the children, the many children, the thousands of children who traveled there, who went through those gates and whose lives were changed forever,” former Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, who was the first Native person to serve in a presidential cabinet, told Indianz.Com last month.

Today, the Bureau of Indian Education, which is part of the Department of the Interior, provides funding to 183 schools and residential facilities across the nation. In the era of self-determination, tribes operate the vast majority of them — 128, according to the BIE.

The BIE also operates two postsecondary institutions: Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas and the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in New Mexico. Additionally, tribes run 35 of their own colleges and institutions, according to the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC).

“Native voices deserve to be heard in decisions that directly impact their communities, and too often tribal colleges and universities are excluded from the federal funding decision-making process,” Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Nebraska) said when the National Advisory Council on Indian Education Improvement Act made it over the finish line in the 118th Congress. Biden signed the bill into law on December 23, 2024.

In 1978, Congress enacted the Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities Assistance Act. The law requires the federal government to fund tribal colleges and universities based on an inflation adjusted amount of $8,000 per Indian student, per year.

But it took more than four decades to reach that basic funding level, according to AIHEC. Tribal colleges and universities also need at least $3.2 billion to address facilities and infrastructure needs, the organization has told Congress.