President Donald Trump took action on Monday to slash regulations.

White House officials are calling the directive a 'one in, two out' plan. It requires government agencies requesting a new regulation to identify two regulations they will cut from their own departments.

'The American Dream is back. We're going to create an environment for small business like we haven't had in many, many decades,' Trump declared this morning at a meeting with small business leaders before he signed an executive order authorizing the policy shift.

President Donald Trump signed an executive action Monday aimed at significantly cutting regulations. White House officials are calling the directive a 'one in, two out' plan

Trump said the order he signed today is a 'big one' as he put pen to paper this morning in the Oval Office

Like many of the orders Trump has signed since taking office earlier this month, today's directive makes good on one of his campaign promises. Trump said he'd mandate a two-for-one policy within his first 100 days in office.

Trump said this morning that he'd like to see 'up to 75 percent' of all regulations tossed in the waste bin.

The president is ordering a zero-dollar budget for new regulations through the rest of fiscal year 2017. The White House and agencies will work on a budget for regulations in upcoming years.

There are some exceptions in the executive action for emergencies and national security.

A senior White House official could not say on Monday whether the regulations getting the ax have to be approved for removal before the proposed regulation can go forward to achieve a 'net-zero' package. 'The timing has to be worked out.'

Trump said the order he signed today is a 'big one' as he put pen to paper this morning in the Oval Office.

'This isn't a knock on President Obama,' Trump said during remarks that were open to the press during his morning meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. 'This is a knock on many presidents preceding me - this is a knock on everybody.'

He added, 'It got particularly bad in the last eight years, but it's not a knock on anybody. It's a knock on many.'

A senior White House official targeted the previous administration, directly, however, saying the Obama administration was responsible for an 'extreme regulatory burden.'

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Monday the president is 'delivering on his promise to slash bureaucratic red tape that is choking our nation's small businesses.'

'Under the president's leadership, the federal government will no longer punish Americans for working and doing business in the United States,' he said.

President Donald Trump (2nd R) delivers remarks at the beginning of a meeting with (L-R) Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Jennifer Korn, Taylor Gourment co-owner Casey Patten, El Sombrero Mexican Bistro owner Irma Aguirre, Joy Weatherup-Anthis of JWA Construction Managment and other small business people in the Roosevelt Room at the White House

Spicer said the order is 'perhaps, the most significant administrative action in the world of regulatory reform' since Ronald Reagan, a Republican, like Trump, created the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

As the sitting president signed the order mandating the one in, two out policy today in the Oval Office, an attendee of the earlier business meeting thanked him for issuing the directive after Trump offered participants an opportunity to comment.

Land developer Dennis Bradford said small business owners have been 'buried in a tidal wave of red tape.'

Bradford was one of nine small business leaders the president huddled with this morning at the White House.

Also attending were Casey Patten of Taylor Gourmet, Irma Aquirre, of Mexican Bistro Café in Las Vegas, JoyWeatherup-Anthis of JWA Construction Management and Roger Campos of the Minority Busienss Roundtable.

Trump, a former real estate tycoon, held meetings last week with automotive industry heads and titans of business, as well as a group of union heads and laborers.

As of Monday morning, Trump had issued nearly 20 directives since his inauguration on Jan. 20, including one that calls for the construction of a border wall, one that asks for a plan to defeat ISIS and one that blocks refugees from seven countries.

Trump said he would do all of those things on the campaign trail and is rushing to implement the polices as soon as possible.

As of Monday morning, Trump had issued nearly 20 directives since his inauguration on Jan. 20. He's seen here in the Oval Office this morning, surrounded by the nine small business leaders he'd just finished meeting

Still to come is a memo ordering the renegotiation of NAFTA, an order that labels China a currency manipulator and the elimination of a whole host of regulations previously authorized by the EPA.

The order he signed today intends to make 'life easier for small businesses' and large businesses alike. 'There can’t be any discrimination.'

'Regulation has been horrible for big business, but it’s been worse for small business,' he said. 'I’ve dealt with the small businesses and the big businesses, and I love you all the same.'

A billionaire himself, Trump teasingly told Gary Cohn, the director of his National Economic Council, that he paid $200 million in federal taxes last year. Cohen replied, 'We appreciate what you’ve done… Big check you had to write.'