Assessing One Year of Trump's Second Term: Key Policies and Outcomes

We have reached the first anniversary of the second Trump administration, and it is time to assess the results of its first year. Internal Affairs: Immigration The poster child of his second term has been immigration policy and border control. This theme worked well in his first term, which was marked by the construction of a border wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for. In his second term, he played the same card, promising “mass deportations.” The idea of bringing order to the immigration process has long been overdue and found resonance with many American voters. As a sovereign nation, the United States has the right to manage the influx of people into the country and decide who is eligible to live and work here. President Trump deployed and reinforced additional Border Patrol agents, and illegal border crossings have fallen sharply to historically low levels. In fiscal year 2025, unauthorized migrant encounters at the U.S.–Mexico border dropped to about 444,000, down from roughly 2.1 million the previous year, a decline driven largely by stricter border controls and asylum restrictions. The formation of migrant caravans has completely ceased. The second promise—mass deportation—was problematic on both theoretical and practical levels and functioned largely as a rally slogan. Not all illegal immigrants are subject to immediate deportation. Some exploited the system by requesting asylum as soon as they stepped on American soil. After making such a request, they became subjects of a special judicial process, and ICE was required to wait for court decisions, even though immigration courts operate under the Department of Justice, which is part of the executive branch. As of early 2026, the immigration court backlog stood at approximately 3.7 million cases. Individuals awaiting due process cannot be subjected to forcible removal. Nevertheless, the Trump Administration attempted to accelerate the removal of people whose cases were still under consideration, and it immediately faced legal challenges. Instead of acknowledging errors and adjusting course, it insisted on its authority until it suffered losses at multiple judicial levels, including the Supreme Court. The administration’s focus on interior enforcement initially emphasized targeting criminal gangs and serious offenders. This was a sound idea, as such ethnic criminal groups terrorize neighborhoods composed of both illegal and legal immigrants. Success in dismantling these organizations would have increased security and living standards for everyone and delivered a major political benefit to the administration. However, ICE quickly shifted toward targeting individuals near Home Depot, Target, and other informal labor markets where illegal immigrants seek employment. People attempting to find work are not commonly perceived as criminals. This was a poor tactical decision that created troubling optics. ICE raids and arrests have swept up many individuals without criminal records, raising concerns among immigrant communities. Public opinion reflects growing polarization. Surveys show that a majority of Americans say the administration is doing “too much” to deport immigrants who are in the United States illegally, and nearly half of Hispanic Republicans express discomfort with the current enforcement intensity. At the end of the day, what are the results? The Trump Administration has significantly tightened immigration enforcement and reduced illegal border crossings. However, according to post-shutdown data from TRAC Immigration, the administration removed only about 7 percent more individuals than were removed in FY 2024, the final full year of the Biden Administration. And this has been achieved despite a significant increase in resources and personnel devoted to immigration enforcement. The political price Republicans will be paying far outweighs the results achieved. The outcome is mediocre, and at the same time, politically damaging. Thus, the immigration policy deserves two marks – an A for border control and a C- for the deportation effort. Internal Affairs: The DOGE As soon as I heard the phrase “E-mail five items you have accomplished today,” I realized that DOGE would likely be a bust. My suspicions only deepened when reports emerged that young technocrats had discovered erroneous dates in databases and interpreted them as evidence that people over 120 years old were still receiving Social Security checks. In reality, such incorrect dates are a well-known issue arising from decades in which dates were stored in alphanumeric fields using inconsistent presentations, and were later converted into stricter database date formats. Welcome to the real world, kids! On a more serious note, DOGE did force, or at least accelerate, personnel reorganization across parts of the federal bureaucracy. The question, however, is whether that acceleration delivered any meaningful results. A leaner government should be reflected not only in headcounts but also in spending. Yet federal expenditures during the first three quarters of the second Trump Administration continued to rise steadily, despite DOGE’s stated mission to curb waste. If spending discipline was not achieved, one must ask whether it was ever truly the goal. In terms of personnel management, DOGE introduced chaos rather than efficiency. Workforce reductions and reorganizations could have been carried out in a more orderly, transparent, and politically sustainable manner. Instead, DOGE’s approach generated institutional disruption and legal friction, undermining public support for the broader objective of government reform. Even Elon Musk later admitted that he would not undertake such an effort again. DOGE initially promised to save between $1 and $2 trillion in wasteful government spending. Those claims ultimately fell far short. The savings figures that were publicly cited were frequently unverifiable, inconsistently defined, and widely criticized as exaggerated. Rather than being disbanded because it had fulfilled its mission, DOGE was dissolved months ahead of schedule, a strong indication that it failed to deliver the results it had promised. In the end, DOGE proved to be an overhyped initiative that generated substantial noise but limited substantive reform. Its ambitions were large, its execution erratic, and its results modest at best. DOGE deserves a D. Foreign Policy Do we have one? Do we have a coherent foreign policy? I tried to identify a logical pattern and failed. During his campaign, President Trump declared an America First policy, which many MAGA supporters interpreted as a revival of isolationism. Under this interpretation, the United States would refrain from interfering in the affairs of other countries, avoid participation in wars, and certainly not start new ones or spend taxpayers’ money for the benefit of foreign nations. At the same time, President Trump promised to stop wars, most notably Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, claiming he could do so within 24 hours due to his personal relationship with Putin. (He claimed to have already stopped eight wars, but his efforts were recognized only with the FIFA Peace Prize.) These two goals are difficult to reconcile. Ending wars often requires active diplomatic, economic, or even military involvement in international affairs, which contradicts an isolationist posture. The policy toward Ukraine swings from accusing Zelenskyy of dictatorship, corruption, ingratitude, and even violations of dress code, to halting weapons supplies and intelligence sharing, and then back to proposals involving rare-mineral deals and multi-point peace plans that Ukraine has mostly accepted but Putin has been evading. Nevertheless, President Trump has stated that, in his view, Russia desires peace and wants Ukraine to succeed, even though Russia, the initial aggressor that invaded Ukraine in 2022, has intensified the bombing of the civilian population. This is mind-boggling and reveals a profound ignorance of the conflict’s history, along with a fundamental confusion between right and wrong, good and evil. From the get-go, Americans were told that Canada and Mexico were treating the United States unfairly; NATO was described as close to obsolete; and Vice President J.D. Vance accused Europeans of lacking freedom of speech. Canada was publicly encouraged to become the 51st state to avoid tariffs, and Greenland was declared essential to U.S. national interests and therefore should belong to the United States. In recent weeks, the rhetoric about the Greenland acquisition has greatly intensified. Trump has revived an expansionist rhetoric reminiscent of the Third Reich’s Lebensraum and Wehrraum, seemingly mixed with personal grievance—most notably his repeated fixation on not receiving a Nobel Peace Prize. The result is a destabilizing signal that undermines the post–World War II Western alliance system. At the same time, Trump is in the process of creating the Peace Board that would invite a wide range of states, including rogue regimes and even outright aggressors such as Russia. These moves are difficult to square with one another. On international trade, President Trump launched a global tariff campaign, which was described as “Liberation Day”, that targeted not only major trading partners but even remote territories with no meaningful trade footprint. At no point was it clear which countries or products were affected, at what rates, and for how long. One thing, however, was certain: the country most affected by the tariffs was the United States itself. President Trump has repeatedly presented himself as a strong supporter of Israel. Yet this support proved conditional and stopped short of allowing Israel to complete its objectives. In the name of a peacekeeping mission, Israel was pressured to accept a ceasefire framework while Hamas showed no intention of disarming. The Israel Defense Forces were within striking distance of eliminating Hamas’s remaining infrastructure, but were halted. Trump recently issued warnings to Hamas, but the implied “or else” would result in Israel re-entering territory it had already controlled. The war was paused prematurely, and Israel failed to achieve its strategic objectives. A similar pattern emerged with Iran. Initially, the United States insisted that Israel had acted independently in a preventive attack. Following the dismantling of Iran’s air defense systems by Israel, the U.S. Air Force conducted strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. However, President Trump abruptly declared the conflict over, branding it the “12-Day War” and ordering Israeli aircraft to return to base. Once again, the operation ended prematurely. Iran sustained damage but quickly restored significant missile capabilities. The threat was weakened but not eliminated. It appears that a resumption of conflict is brewing again. The United States is stepping up planning to strike Iran again if the regime continues to kill protesters. At the same time, Iran has threatened to target American bases in the Middle East and Israel by launching hundreds of missiles. From a strategic standpoint, it would be more advantageous for both the United States and Israel if a previous conflict with Iran were not ended arbitrarily, but instead pursued until Iran’s missile capabilities were eliminated. I want to emphasize that I am not advocating for war; however, once a defensive or preventive war is undertaken, it is paramount to achieve its principal objectives, provided that clear goals exist. Engaging in conflict should always be a last resort, but once that line is crossed, it is imperative to pursue a clear and effective plan to promote peace. Recently, Trump urged Iranians to continue protesting and promised that “help is on the way,” but ultimately paused any immediate military strike, and has also explicitly suggested that Iran is in need of new leadership. Quite unexpectedly, references to the Monroe Doctrine began to surface. The administration appeared eager to revive it, seeking to reassert American dominance in the Western Hemisphere while discouraging outside powers from operating there. Yet this framework fails to explain the deteriorating relationships with Canada and Mexico, America’s closest neighbors. It is also anachronistic: in today’s interconnected world, geography no longer limits influence as it once did. Moreover, the doctrine does not justify abandoning American interests elsewhere. For decades, the United States actively expanded its global reach—why relinquish those gains now? Nevertheless, Venezuela became a target. President Nicolás Maduro was apprehended in a well-executed military operation. Yet the strategic follow-up remains unclear. Trump declared that the United States would “run the country,” but how this would be accomplished was never explained. The regime itself remains intact, while the opposition leader, who had received international recognition, was sidelined. Venezuelans who celebrated in Florida likely now feel disappointed, unable to reclaim property or return home. The United States pressured Caracas to redirect oil exports to the U.S. and expel Russian, Chinese, Cuban, and Iranian influence. He established an oil blockade of Cuba and pressured American oil companies to invest in Venezuela again, even though the CEO of ExxonMobil considered the country “uninvestable” at this moment. Meanwhile, Maduro pleaded not guilty, and one can only hope that the Department of Justice possesses solid evidence to support its case. In my view, Trump’s approach reflects a governing style in which numerous initiatives are thrown into circulation simultaneously, with little coherence, to see what ultimately sticks. The policy oscillates between isolationism and intervention, between force and restraint, producing incomplete wars, strained alliances, and unclear endgames. These reversals triggered a backlash among hard-core MAGA supporters, some of whom publicly distanced themselves from Trump. Some attribute Trump’s foreign affairs to “4D chess,” or a form of chaos that only Trump can comprehend, but there is no need for such explanations when incompetence and impulsiveness suffice to explain it. Moreover, in a stunning revelation, Trump declared that international law is not a binding constraint on his actions as president, emphasizing personal judgment and morality over global norms. The grade for foreign policy is a D. Economy This is the most difficult area to grade. First, we must distinguish between Wall Street and Main Street. The stock market has broken multiple records as of this writing. However, because markets are inherently volatile, they could correct sharply and erase a significant portion of those gains. For now, Wall Street performance deserves an A+. Main Street displays greater inertia and resilience. Even the most outrageous policy decisions often manifest their effects with a delay. Several decisions of the Trump Administration have set the stage for future economic developments. It has become evident that Trump’s economic policy relied more on state intervention than on market forces. In doing so, his policies blurred historically important lines between Democrats and Republicans. He normalized statism and aggressive intervention into the economy, often citing national emergency or national security approaches that had long been taboo, at least rhetorically, for Republicans. Trump even jumped on the leftist “affordability” bandwagon, proposing to cap credit card interest rates at 10 percent. This autocratic and populist measure was previously advocated by democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It is plausible that the embrace of interventionist ideology opened a Pandora’s box that others will later exploit on a much larger scale, using similar justifications to nationalize entire industries deemed vital to national defense, food supply, or other pretexts. The Trump Administration attempted to manually steer the economy by prioritizing objectives such as onshoring manufacturing, shrinking the trade deficit, and reducing the national debt. Tariff threats became the instrument of choice, used inconsistently. On the one hand, tariffs were promoted as a source of federal revenue; on the other hand, they were lifted when companies promised to manufacture on American soil. More often than not, firms were able to avoid tariffs by issuing investment pledges. These promises, however, are not binding treaties and impose no enforceable fiscal obligations. A clear example is TSMC in Arizona. In March 2025, TSMC pledged an additional $100 billion in U.S. investment, securing tariff exemptions. Yet the company had already announced plans in April 2024 to build a third fabrication plant, bringing its total planned U.S. investment to $65 billion. That third fab is not expected to be operational until the end of the decade, while the second fab is scheduled to begin production in 2028. Any genuinely “new” investment, if it materializes at all, would occur in the mid-2030s rather than in the near term. Thus, the company effectively exchanges a promise for a favor in a setting where the state is positioned to choose winners and losers, rather than objective market performance doing so. So far, there has been no mass reversal of offshoring. The national debt continues to grow alongside government spending. The trade deficit has improved significantly, shrinking to a 16-year low of $29.4 billion; however, this is neither a reliable nor a particularly meaningful indicator of economic health. As a rule, economic performance is judged by several core metrics: GDP, employment, and inflation. January marks the beginning of the first quarter, but the most recent hard data available cover the first three quarters of 2025. Accordingly, this analysis relies on those figures, supplemented by near-term projections where available. Real GDP rebounded from negative growth in the first quarter to a solid 4.3 percent annualized rate in the third quarter. The Atlanta Fed GDPNow model estimate for real annualized and seasonally adjusted GDP growth for the fourth quarter of 2025 is a stunning 5.1%. At the same time, U.S. productivity grew by 4.9% in the third quarter, marking the biggest increase in two years. The administration is quick to point out that the economic growth is because of tariff policies. But there is another explanation: the U.S. economy is a resilient, vast, and complex system, and it is still recovering from the COVID shock while advancing in AI and healthcare, despite all the tariff-related disruptions. The tariff mechanism is understandable; if you impose taxes on imports, the price of imported goods has to increase. Similarly, if you turn on a heater, you expect to see the temperature in the room increase, eventually. If you observe that the temperature is instead decreasing, you should rewrite the laws of physics. I doubt the laws of physics or economics have to be changed to explain a phenomenon. Simply put, there are forces at play that can overwhelm policy effects. Just as open doors and windows can overwhelm a heating system by creating cold drafts, the scale and resilience of the economy can offset the negative impacts of tariffs. I am arguing that the economy grew despite tariffs, not because of them. The Supreme Court’s decision against the tariffs would be sound both legally and economically, and it could ultimately support stronger economic outcomes during the Trump presidency. Employment conditions are weakening, and the U.S. now has more unemployed workers than job openings, a notable deterioration in labor-market tightness. Moreover, every initial monthly non-farm payroll (NFP) estimate for 2025 has ultimately been revised downward. Consumer inflation (as measured by CPI) remains elevated, hovering at 2.7%, while producer inflation (PPI) showed a 3% year-over-year increase. The Consumer Confidence Index weakened for a fifth consecutive month, declining to 89.1 in December 2025. However, according to the JPMorgan Chase survey, companies’ optimism is rebounding, and expectations for growth in 2026 are strong. Weighing all these tendencies carefully, the Trump Administration’s performance on the real economy consists of two marks: philosophical approach to economics is an F; overall economic situation is a B-. These marks are utterly subjective and reflect my own worldview, but I tried to arrive at them by analyzing available objective economic data and political events.