The other side of the ‘Trump effect’

Beyond the daily drama and Twitter battles, the president has begun to alter American life.

EVEN without delivering on his biggest campaign promises, President Donald Trump has begun to reshape American life in ways big and small.

Over his first nine months, Trump has used an aggressive series of changes in enforcement guidelines to rewrite the rules for industries from energy to airlines, and on issues from campus sexual assault to anti-discrimination protections for transgender students.

While his administration has been chaotic, and his decision-making impulsive, Trump has made changes that could have far-reaching consequences for society and the economy. Some have grabbed headlines but many no less consequential have gone largely unnoticed amid the daily controversies that have marked Trump’s early months in office.

Under Trump, oil is flowing through the Dakota Access Pipeline. Arrests of immigrants living illegally in the United States are up. More federal lands are open for coal mining.

The administration has left its mark in smaller ways, as well.

Trump has rolled back Obamaera regulations that protected retirement savings from unscrupulous financial advisers, made it harder for companies that violated labour laws to land federal contracts and restricted what Internet service providers could do with customers’ personal data.

Those kinds of low-profile policy shifts are far from the dramatic change promised by Trump, But the effects can be just as real.

“Trump is doing an awful lot to shape policy and blow up policy,” said Norm Ornstein, a political analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

Stymied by his failure to win congressional approval for his big-ticket promises like a repeal of President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare reform, known as Obamacare, and a border wall with Mexico, Trump has turned to administrative action.

He rolled back hundreds of regulations, signed 47 executive orders and used a previously obscure legislative tool, the Congressional Review Act, 14 times to undo regulations passed in the final months of Obama’s presidency.

The Trump administration has also withdrawn or delayed more than 800 Obama-era regulatory actions in its first six months.

He also limited new federal regulations by having agencies cut two rules for every new one created.

“By far, this is the most significant regulatory roll-back since Ronald Reagan,” said Wayne Crews, vice-president for policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Many business leaders have applauded the moves, aimed at fulfilling Trump’s campaign promise to end policies he says are strangling the economy.

But critics say his reductions in environmental and worker protections put corporate profits before public health and safety – in direct contradiction to the populist campaign rhetoric that helped Trump win blue-collar votes.

“Where Trump has had success, it has been used against the very people who helped elect him,” said Ben Olinsky, vice-president for policy and strategy at the liberal Center for American Progress.

Trump has also redefined presidential behaviour with his sometimes confrontational use of Twitter, his refusal to step away from his businesses and his reliance on family as top advisers.

He has rattled long-time foreign allies with bellicose statements and stoked social and political divisions at home, most recently with his attacks on mostly black professional football players who kneel in protest against racial injustice during the national anthem.

Many of Trump’s biggest policy proposals, including a ban on transgender people serving in the military, withdrawal from the Paris climate change accord and an end to the Obama-era programme protecting from deportation young adults brought to the United States illegally as children, remain in limbo or under review.

But Trump has found ways to make headway on some other stalled initiatives. While a repeal of Obamacare has faltered in Congress, his threats to cut the subsidies that help cover expenses for low-income consumers have created enough uncertainty that major insurers have pulled out of some state markets or asked much higher monthly premiums for 2018.

The administration has slashed advertising and cut grants to community groups that help people sign up, raising fears that many people will forgo coverage or forget to re-enroll in health plans.

While plans for a border wall are stalled in Congress, Trump’s rhetoric had an apparent effect on illegal border crossings, with the number of apprehensions on the southwest border falling 63% from 42,000 in January to nearly 16,000 in April. Since then, they have begun creeping up again.

The number of immigrants without criminal histories arrested has jumped by more than 200% from January to July of this year, according to data reviewed by Reuters.

“I think Trump actually has accomplished a lot. There are a lot of things for conservatives to be happy about,” said Tommy Binion, director of congressional and executive relations at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

“And I’m optimistic there will be more.” — Reuters