WASHINGTON, D.C.: President Donald Trump has reversed a Biden-era executive order requiring businesses with federal contracts to pay workers a minimum wage of US$17.75 per hour.

The move effectively lowers wages for many federal contract workers, reverting some to the previous minimum of $13.30 per hour and others to the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour, depending on their contracts.

Trump's decision was part of a broader repeal of nearly 20 Biden-era executive orders and memos, announced late last week. The original mandate, introduced by former President Joe Biden in 2021, initially set the minimum wage for federal contractors at $15 an hour, with automatic increases. It rose to $17.75 in January.

Federal contractors, which include some of the country's largest employers, make up roughly 20 percent of the U.S. workforce. The rollback means that contractors who signed agreements before January 30, 2022, will return to the lower $13.30 per hour set by an Obama-era order, while others will default to the federal minimum wage unless higher state wages apply.

Trump also scrapped Biden's policies that favored businesses in federal contracting if they remained neutral in unionization efforts or took part in government-approved apprenticeship programs. He did not provide a public explanation for repealing the wage rule, but business groups and Republican lawmakers have long opposed it, arguing it created an unfair burden on small businesses and did not account for regional cost-of-living differences.

Trump's repeal follows legal battles over the order, with courts previously upholding Biden's authority to set contractor wages under a 1949 law that allows the president to regulate federal contracting to promote economic efficiency. The Supreme Court declined to hear challenges to the rule earlier this year.

While Trump did not repeal the federal contractor wage order during his first term, he had previously exempted seasonal businesses on federal land. Biden later removed that exemption, a decision upheld by an appeals court last year.