In an executive order signed last week, President Trump directed White House senior security advisers to draw up a national resilience plan to protect critical infrastructure. The move aims to shift more responsibilities to the state and local level, helping these local government entities prepare more effectively for cyber-attacks and severe weather events.

The Order launched a National Resilience Strategy that spells out the priorities, means, and ways to advance the resilience of the nation, while simplifying federal preparedness and response policies, allowing state and local authorities to comprehend better, plan for, and meet the needs of their communities.

“Federal policy must rightly recognize that preparedness is most effectively owned and managed at the state, local, and even individual levels, supported by a competent, accessible, and efficient federal government,” the order says.

“Citizens are the immediate beneficiaries of sound local decisions and investments designed to address risks, including cyberattacks, wildfires, hurricanes, and space weather,” Trump wrote in his presidential action.

“This order empowers State, local, and individual preparedness and injects common sense into infrastructure prioritization and strategic investments through risk-informed decisions that make our infrastructure, communities, and economy resilient to global and dynamic threats and hazards,” he said.

National Resilience Strategy

The Executive Order also launched a National Resilience Strategy that articulates the priorities, means, and ways to advance the resilience of the nation. It calls for a review of all infrastructure, continuity, and preparedness policies to modernize and simplify federal approaches, aligning them with the National Resilience Strategy.

This includes shifting national critical infrastructure policy from an “all-hazards” approach to a risk-informed approach; prioritizing resilience and action over mere information sharing; overhauling national continuity policy to modernize its framework, streamline operations, and right-size the federal footprint for sustained readiness; and evaluating national preparedness policies to reformulate the process and metrics for federal responsibility.

And the order creates a National Risk Register to identify, describe, and measure risks to our national infrastructure, related systems, and their users to guide smarter spending and planning. It also streamlines federal functions so states and communities can work with Washington more easily and effectively.

Review of Biden initiatives

President Trump also called for a review of several initiatives from former President Joe Biden’s administration, saying that these policies should be evaluated and modified, if needed.

These presidential actions include:

• National Security Memorandum 16 (November 2022), focused on Strengthening the Security and Resilience of United States Food and Agriculture; 
• National Security Memorandum 22 (April 2024), covering Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience; 
• Executive Order 14017 (February 2021), referring to Securing America’s Supply Chains; and
• Executive Order 14123 (June 2024), entitled White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience.

Timing

Trump said that within 90 days of the date of this order, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA), in coordination with the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and the heads of relevant executive departments and agencies, must publish a National Resilience Strategy that articulates the priorities, means, and ways to advance the resilience of the nation.

The National Resilience Strategy will be reviewed and revised at least every four years, or as appropriate, he said.

He also said that within 180 days of the date of this order, the APNSA, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the heads of all relevant agencies, will review all critical infrastructure policies and recommend to him the “revisions, recissions, and replacements necessary to achieve a more resilient posture; shift from an all-hazards approach to a risk-informed approach; move beyond information sharing to action; and implement the National Resilience Strategy.”