The following is a timeline of the presidency of George W. Bush, from January 1, 2002 to December 31, 2002.
January January 8 – President Bush signs the No Child Left Behind Act into law. January 11 – President Bush signs the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act into law, Guantanamo Bay detention camp is established. January 13 – President Bush chokes on a pretzel and faints. January 22 – President Bush promotes his proposed Economic Security Package during a speech in Charleston, West Virginia. January 29 – President Bush delivers his annual State of the Union Address before a joint session of Congress. During the address, the president pointedly accuses three countries—Iran, Iraq, and North Korea—of sponsoring terrorism and attempting to amass weapons of mass destruction, activities that threaten the peace of the world, and declares that nations like these three constitute an axis of evil. January 31 – President Bush travels to Daytona Beach, Florida, where he promotes the federal government's Senior Corps program.
February February 4 – President Bush presents Congress with a wartime budget of $2.1 trillion, which sees a return to deficit spending by the federal government. February 7 – President Bush signs the "Humane Treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda Detainees" memorandum, reversing American's commitments to parts of the Geneva Convention. February 8 - President Bush declared open the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. February 13 – President Bush meets with President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf. February 14 – President Bush reveals tax credits among a number of other incentives designed to encourage business and farmers to decrease harmful emissions. February 15 – President Bush endorses the Department of Energy's recommendation that an underground facility be constructed at Yucca Mountain in Nevada for use as a repository for up to 77,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel and other high level radioactive waste. February 16–22 – President Bush makes the sixth international trip of his presidency. February 16–19 – In Tokyo, Japan, the president meets with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Emperor Akihito. He also addresses the Japanese Diet. February 19–21 – In Seoul, South Korea, the president meets with President Kim Dae-jung. He also visits Dorasan, near the Korean Demilitarized Zone, and addresses U.S. military personnel at Osan Air Base. February 21–22 – In Beijing, China, the president meets with President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji.
March March 4 – During an appearance in Minnesota, the president offers condolences to the families of the eight soldiers killed during Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan, and vows that the U.S. will continue to pursue Al Qaeda. March 5 – President Bush announces that tariffs of 8% to 30% will be placed on several types of imported steel in an effort to support the faltering U.S. steel industry. March 9 – President Bush signs the Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act of 2002 into law. March 11 – In marking the six month anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the president pledges that America would not forget the lives lost nor the justice needed in response. March 13 – President Bush in a press conference at the White House, when asked about Osama bin Laden, Bush replied "I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him, when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban". and "Terror is bigger than one person. And he's a person who's now been marginalized. His network, his host government has been destroyed. He's the ultimate parasite who found weakness, exploited it, and met his match. He is as I mentioned in my speech, I do mention the fact that this is a fellow who is willing to commit youngsters to their death and he, himself, tries to hide if, in fact, he's hiding at all". March 20 – White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer announces that the Bush administration will not certify North Korea's compliance with a 1994 deal that froze its nuclear weapons program. March 22 – The Bush administration announces that tariffs averaging 29% will be placed on Canadian softwood lumber imports in an effort to protect U.S. lumber jobs from subsidized Canadian imports. March 21–24 – President Bush makes the seventh international trip of his presidency. During his weekly radio address, the president states that he is visiting Mexico, Peru and El Salvador to validate "the central importance" he places on America's relationships with the various nations in hemisphere. March 21–22 – President Bush attends the U.N. International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico. He also meets with Mexican President Vicente Fox to discuss mutual security concerns regarding traffic on cross-border rail lines and at major ports of entry along the Mexico–United States border. March 23–24 – In Lima, Peru, the president meets with the presidents of Peru, Colombia, and Bolivia, and with the vice president of Ecuador. March 24 – President Bush attends a summit meeting of presidents of the several Central American Integration System countries to discuss the creation of a free trade area similar to NAFTA. March 26 – President Bush announces Elias Zerhouni and Richard Carmona as his choices for National Institute of Health Director and U.S. Surgeon General in an East Room ceremony. March 27 – President Bush signs the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act into law. March 28 – During an appearance at a campaign fundraiser for John Cornyn, President Bush says he is working to eliminate the chance of terrorist organizations aligning with "some of the world's worst leaders who harbor and develop some of the world's worst weapons." March 30 – President Bush addresses the crisis in the Middle East from his ranch as Israeli troops advance toward the compound of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and after a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. March 30 – President Bush issues a brief statement of condolence following the death of Britain's Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.
April April 10 – Declaring that "advances in biomedical technology must never come at the expense of human conscience," the president urges the Senate to concur with a House bill prohibiting human cloning for either research or reproduction, while delivering remarks in the East Room. April 17 – Speaking before cadets at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia, the president vows the keep the U.S. engaged in Afghanistan "until the mission is done," calling for a plan he equated to the plan devised by General George C. Marshall for Europe at the close of World War II. April 19 – While talking to reporters in the Oval Office, President Bush touts Secretary of State Colin Powell's diplomacy in the Middle East as having forged a "path to achieve peace". April 20–25 – President Bush holds a bilateral meeting with the Prime Minister of Bulgaria Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. April 20 – President Bush requests Arab nations combat their own forms of terrorism within their respective regions in his weekly radio address. April 22 – President Bush gives an Earth Day speech in the Adirondack Mountains in New York, noting his "Clear Skies Initiative". April 23 – White House Counselor Karen Hughes announces her plans to resign during the summer; she has worked for George W. Bush since 1994. April 24 – President Bush attends the Lake Area Corn Processors ethanol plant grand opening near Wentworth, South Dakota. April 25 – President Bush meets with Saudi Arabian prince Abdullah at his Texas ranch for a two-hour talk, during which Abdullah warns Bush against losing stability within the Middle East by not doing more in an attempt to stop Ariel Sharon's strategy against the Palestinians.
May May 10 – President Bush requests both parties come together in Congress to help reauthorize a welfare reform bill first passed in 1996. May 13 – President Bush signs the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002, a 10-year, $190 billion farm bill increasing the federal subsidy paid to farmers by at least $83 billion over the next decade. May 16 – Congress presses the Bush White House for additional information on the various intelligence warnings that al-Qaeda was planning a major attack somewhere on U.S. territory. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice tells reporters, "I don’t think that anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon." She insists that there was no lapse in intelligence. May 18 – President Bush requests a reform in the Medicare program during his weekly Saturday radio address, citing the costs being too high and the choices seniors need not being provided.
May 22–28 – President Bush makes the eighth international trip of his presidency. Speaking from the White House lawn before his departure, the president says the U.S. and European allies must continue battling terror and be strong. May 22–23 – In Berlin, Germany, the president meets with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and addresses the Bundestag. May 23–26 – The president travels to Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia for a summit meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two leaders sign the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, an agreement to reduce the nuclear arsenal of each country to a warhead count of between 1,700 and 2,200. May 26–27, 2002 – The president travels to Paris, France, where he meets with French President Jacques Chirac. He also visits Sainte-Mère-Église, and Colleville, where he delivers a Memorial Day address at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial. May 27–28 – In Rome, Italy, the president meets with Italy's President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, attends the NATO Summit Meeting and inaugurates the NATO-Russia Council. May 28 – The president travels to the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City for an audience with Pope John Paul II, during which they discuss the sex-abuse scandal in the American Roman Catholic priesthood, among other issues.
June June 1 – President Bush delivers an address at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. June 3 – During an appearance in Little Rock, Arkansas, the president acknowledges the criticism of the nation's top law enforcement and intelligence agencies for failing to prevent the September 11 attacks, saying the FBI is "doing a better job" and is sharing intelligence information with the CIA. June 4 – While speaking to reporters during a tour of the National Security Agency, the president says there is no evidence of the U.S. government being able to prevent the 9/11 strikes. June 6 – President Bush calls on Congress to make broad changes to security departments in charge of protecting the nation from terrorism, by creating a single Cabinet-level homeland defense agency to coordinate a wide range of functions and oversee more than 100 organizations. June 8 – President Bush equates the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security to the creation of the Defense Department and National Security Council under President Harry Truman during the Cold War. June 9 – President Bush designates José Padilla as an enemy combatant, ending Padilla's tenure as a material witness. June 17 – President Bush announces his "aggressive housing agenda" while speaking at St. Paul AME Church in Atlanta, Georgia. His goal is to boost minority home ownership to 5.5 million prior to the end of the decade by dismantling the barriers to homeownership. The president also challenged the real estate and mortgage finance industries to join in his effort. June 19 – President Bush pledges $500 million in U.S. support over the next few years for worldwide efforts to combat the AIDS virus during a Rose Garden appearance.