Throughout the entire 2024 Presidential Election campaign, Donald Trump and his team made a series of promises, ranging from economic to foreign affairs. Trump used the Biden-Harris administrations’ multiple failures as leverage to better elevate his campaign, which mainly ran on said promises. Many of his supporters were fond of these promises, including me, who wrote multiple articles in favor of Trump. However, it may be time to reconsider.
The border was the main talking point during Trump’s run for presidency. All he could talk about was the immigration crisis, and he vowed to end the madness occurring at the border.
So far, it’s not going so well.
While the President’s efforts are much more effective in some aspects than in the past administration, it is still nowhere near as efficient and effective as it could be. Joe Biden not only conducted more deportations than Trump did during his first administration, but Trump is on track to deport even fewer people. The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has been consistently posting daily deportations, which average around 400 to 1000 a day. If this continues, this amounts to about a couple hundred thousand per year.
Thankfully, ICE has mainly been focused on deporting criminals, which is most important. But it’s more than depressing to recognize that both Biden and Obama have been outperforming Trump in this area.
Trump, himself has been expressing his strong emotions on this lack of border enforcement, according to NBC. “It’s driving him nuts, they’re not deporting more people,” according to the source close to Trump.
The president also spoke strongly against the Biden administration’s issues with inflation, citing the rising grocery and gas prices over the past couple years. Many supporters of Trump hoped that his new administration would go after these problems, but it seems otherwise, due to tariffs.
A tariff is a tax on imports or exports of products, and they are a significant source of revenue for the government. Tariffs are a great way to establish trade dominance over other countries, and in many cases have been used for such, including for senators like Henry Clay. However, they can also be damaging to consumers.
According to CNBC, the consumer price index, a way of measuring the cost of goods, “accelerated a seasonally adjusted 0.5% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 3%.” Oil prices have also been increasing due to sanctions and tensions in the Middle East and Russia. In a sense, these tariffs will provide benefits for American economic dominance, but they are definitely not good if you were promising people lower grocery prices.
And as the world slowly collapses, it’s safe to say that Trump hasn’t been exactly “smart” with his current priorities. Tensions are rising, the border crisis continues, and eggs are still expensive, but now, we have the ultimate win: The Gulf of America. Despite the fact that it had been called by another name for over 400 years, the former Gulf of Mexico officially had its name changed on January 20th, and Trump even declared February 9th Gulf of America Day. Next to talks of invading Canada and acquiring Greenland, this is probably the most useless thing Trump has spent time on.
Speaking of broken promises, Trump ran on being the destroyer of the deep state, yet he has surrounded himself with the members of said deep state. Not only has Trump basically been working for Elon Musk, considering the $277 million in support he has received from him, but he has also nominated thirteen billionaires for significant roles in his administration. He has also been making connections and working with other corrupt billionaires, such as Mark Zuckerburg and Bill Gates, which is definitely not an attempt at destroying the deep state.
The current president also vowed to end the current war in Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office. Now, even if that time span was simply an exaggeration and not meant to be taken literally, Trump is not only NOT ending the war, but has decided to once again continue sending billions of dollars into Ukraine, in exchange for rare earth and critical minerals. This is far from Trump’s original proposal as being the “president of peace.”
However, it doesn’t just stop there, as Donald Trump recently announced a plan to seek U.S. ownership of the Gaza Strip, a sovereign territory with people who do not wish to be ruled by the United States. Regardless of your opinion on the conflict, occupying a Middle Eastern territory has not proven beneficial before, and it definitely won’t help our nation now.
The amount of instability the West has caused in the Middle East is drastic, from overthrowing democratically-elected government officials to bombing entire communities to smithereens. It’s clear this is not a stepping stone in the right direction for the United States or the world.
Again, so far, it’s not going so well.
While some efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency have been helpful and some progress at the border can be appreciated, Trump’s new administration has been more problematic than successful. Time will only tell, but it doesn’t seem like things are going to get better in the near future.
One can admit that in some aspects, Kamala Harris would have been much better in certain circumstances, such as the issues in Israel-Palestine and other economic factors. But I guess, we’ll never know.
