The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Where Trump’s promises stand
Of 38 pledges in 100-day ‘contract’ with voters, he’s accomplished 10.
Since Inauguration Day, President Trump has put a justice on the Supreme Court, but his border wall with Mexico has not moved forward.
Trump’s road to the White House was paved in big pledges.
Of 38 specific promises Trump made in his 100-day “contract” with voters — “This is my pledge to you” — he’s accomplished 10, mostly through executive orders that don’t require legislation, such as withdrawing the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.
He’s abandoned several and has not delivered on others, stymied at times by a divided Republican Party and resistant federal judges. Of 10 promises that require Congress to act, none has been achieved, and most have not been introduced.
“I’ve done more than any other president in the first 100 days,” the president said in a recent interview with AP, even as he criticized the marker as an “artificial barrier.”
Some of Trump’s promises were obviously hyperbole to begin with. Don’t hold your breath waiting for alleged Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl to be dropped out of an airplane without a parachute, as Trump vowed he’d do at many of his campaign rallies.
But many promises were meant to be taken seriously. Trump clearly owes his supporters a Mexico border wall.
One page of his 100-day manifesto is devoted to legislation he would fight to pass in 100 days. None of it has been achieved.
The other page lists 18 executive actions and intentions he promised to pursue — many on Day One. He has followed through on fewer than a dozen, largely through the use of executive orders, and the White House is boasting that he will have set a post-World War II record after signing more this past week. That’s a change in tune. “We need people in Washington that don’t go around signing executive orders because they can’t get people into a room and get some kind of a deal that’s negotiated,” he declared in New Hampshire in March 2015. “We need people that know how to lead, and we don’t have that. We have amateurs.”
An AP reporter who followed Trump throughout the presidential campaign collected scores of promises he made along the way, from the consequential to the fanciful. Here are some of them, and his progress so far.
ECONOMY AND TRADE:
Pass a tax overhaul. “Just think about what can be accomplished in the first 100 days of a Trump administration,” he told his supporters again and again in the final weeks of the campaign. “We are going to have the biggest tax cut since Ronald Reagan.” He promised a plan that would reduce rates dramatically both for corporations and the middle class. Nowhere close. Trump has scrapped the tax plan he campaigned on, and his administration’s new package is in its early stages, not only missing the first 100 days but likely to miss a new August deadline set by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. Some details were possible this week.
Designate China a currency manipulator, setting the stage for possible trade penalties because “we’re like the piggy bank that’s being robbed. We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country, and that’s what they’re doing.”
Abandoned. Trump says he doesn’t want to punish China when it is cooperating in a response to North Korean provocations. He also says China has stopped manipulating its currency for unfair trade advantage. But China was moving away from that behavior well before he took office. Also set aside: repeated vows to slap high tariffs on Chinese imports. Announce his intention to renegotiate or withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement. Backtracked, in essence. A draft of his administration’s plan for NAFTA proposes only a mild rewrite. But in his AP interview, he threatened anew to terminate the deal if his goals are not met in a renegotiation. Direct his commerce secretary and trade representative to identify all foreign trading abuses that unfairly hurt American workers. Done. Trump has initiated plenty of studies over the past 100 days.
Slap a 35 percent tariff on goods from companies that ship production abroad. Force companies like Apple and Nabisco to make their products in the U.S. Not complete.
Embark on a massive $1 trillion effort to rebuild the country’s infrastructure, including airports, roads and bridges. Not yet.
GOVERNMENT AND THE SWAMP:
Ask agency and department heads to identify job-killing regulations for elimination. Done.
Propose a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress. Not yet.
“Drain the swamp.” On his pledge to curb the power of special interests, Trump has so far used an executive order to prohibit political appointees from lobbying the government for five years after serving in his administration and to ban outgoing officials from representing foreign
governments. But he’s discontinuing the Obama-era practice of releasing White House visitor logs, restoring a shroud over what special interests are getting in his gates. He’s also issued at least one waiver to his lobbying ban, allowing a White House budget adviser to go advocate for a business trade group Impose a hiring freeze on federal employees, excluding military and public safety staffers. This was one of Trump’s first actions. But the freeze has since been lifted. Require that two regulations be eliminated for each new one imposed. Trump signed an order requiring agencies to identify two existing regulations for every new one imposed — though there is nothing in the order that requires the two to be eliminated.
HEALTH CARE, COURTS AND GUNS:
“My first day in office, I’m going to ask Congress to put a bill on my desk getting rid of this disastrous law and replacing it with reforms that expand choice, freedom, affordability. You’re going to have such great health care at a tiny fraction of the cost. It’s going to be so easy.” The bill to replace “Obamacare” was pulled from Congress because it lacked enough support. He will try again with a revised plan.
Begin selecting a new Supreme Court judge to fill the court’s vacancy. Done. Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch, and the Senate approved him.
Eliminate gun-free zones in schools and on military bases. Not yet.