The six issues at the top of Donald Trump's agenda
Donald Trump's agenda would scale back federal government efforts on civil rights and expand presidential powers. Photo: AP/Lynne Sladky
Donald Trump has promised sweeping action in a second administration.
The former president and now president-elect often skipped over details but through more than a year of policy pronouncements and written statements outlined a wide-ranging agenda that blends traditional conservative approaches to taxes, regulation and cultural issues with a more populist bent on trade and a shift in America’s international role.
Trump’s agenda also would scale back federal government efforts on civil rights and expand presidential powers.
A look at what Trump has proposed:
“Build the wall!” from his 2016 campaign has become creating “the largest mass deportation program in history.” Trump has called for using the National Guard and empowering domestic police forces in the effort.
Still, Trump has been scant on details of what the program would look like and how he would ensure that it targeted only people in the US illegally.
He’s pitched “ideological screening” for would-be entrants, ending birth-right citizenship (which almost certainly would require a constitutional change), and said he would re-institute first-term policies such as “Remain in Mexico,” limiting migrants on public health grounds and severely limiting or banning entrants from certain majority-Muslim nations.
Altogether, the approach would not just crack down on illegal migration, but curtail immigration overall.
Trump played down abortion as a second-term priority, even as he took credit for the Supreme Court ending a woman’s federal right to terminate a pregnancy and returning abortion regulation to state governments. At Trump’s insistence, the GOP platform, for the first time in decades, did not call for a national ban on abortion.
Trump maintains that overturning Roe v. Wade is enough on the federal level. Trump said last month on his social media platform Truth Social that he would veto a federal abortion ban if legislation reached his desk — a statement he made only after avoiding a firm position in his September debate against Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
Trump’s posture on international trade is to distrust world markets as harmful to American interests. He proposes tariffs of 10% to 20% on foreign goods — and in some speeches has mentioned even higher percentages.
He promises to re-institute an August 2020 executive order requiring that the federal government buy “essential” medications only from US companies. He pledges to block purchases of “any vital infrastructure” in the US by Chinese buyers.
Trump has called for rolling back societal emphasis on diversity and for legal protections for LGBTQ citizens. Trump has called for ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs in government institutions, using federal funding as leverage.
On transgender rights, Trump promises generally to end “boys in girls’ sports,” a practice he insists, without evidence, is widespread. But his policies go well beyond standard applause lines from his rally speeches.
Among other ideas, Trump would roll back the Biden administration’s policy of extending Title IX civil rights protections to transgender students, and he would ask Congress to require that only two genders can be recognized at birth.
Trump, who claims falsely that climate change is a “hoax”, blasts Biden-era spending on cleaner energy designed to reduce US reliance on fossil fuels. He proposes an energy policy — and transportation infrastructure spending — anchored to fossil fuels: roads, bridges and combustion-engine vehicles.
“Drill, baby, drill!” was a regular chant at Trump rallies. Trump says he does not oppose electric vehicles but promises to end all Biden incentives to encourage EV market development. Trump also pledges to roll back Biden-era fuel efficiency standards.
Trump’s rhetoric and policy approach in world affairs is more isolationist diplomatically, non-interventionist militarily and protectionist economically than the US has been since the Second World War. But the details are more complicated.
He pledges expansion of the military, promises to protect Pentagon spending from austerity efforts and proposes a new missile defence shield — an old idea from the Reagan era during the Cold War.
Trump insists he can end Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war, without explaining how. Trump summarizes his approach through another Reagan phrase: “peace through strength".
But he remains critical of NATO and top US military brass. “I don’t consider them leaders,” Trump said of Pentagon officials that Americans “see on television". He repeatedly praised authoritarians like Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
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