The drafting of laws is typically the realm of the Legislative Branch of the United State government. They are the only branch with law-making power in that they can propose a bill to the floor of Congress. The executive branch can only approve or deny the bill once it reaches his office. Therefore, he acts as a check on the law-making branch and nothing more.
However, this does not run true. The President's power to veto a bill (in which he rejects and kills it unless Congress can provide an overriding opinion of at least 2/3rd) often shapes a bill, in that lawmakers make concessions to prevent a veto from ever happening. In this sense, the President can pre-emptively influence laws before they reach his desk.
It is, in fact, very difficult to override a veto once one happens. Congress must have a majority in favor of the bill (2/3rd) which is extremely difficult to attain; in over 200 years, 2,500 presidential vetoes have occurred and only about a hundred were successfully overridden. Therefore, a veto is essentially an outright rejection in most cases.
There are different forms of veto. A regular veto occurs when the President simply denies a bill that arrives at his desk. A pocket veto occurs when a President refuses to respond to a bill after 10 days while Congress is in recess (if Congress is active then the bill becomes law). Many Presidents use the pocket veto to subtlely declare his disapproval without outright rejecting it.
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