Special Edition: Trump at 100 Days (April 29, 2025)

Welcome to this special edition of Home & Away, which is timed to coincide with the 100-day point of the second Trump administration. It marks less than 10% of his four-year term, but enough has happened to make judgments. More than enough, actually.

The first thing to note is that Trump’s second term is not merely an extension of his first. Trump 2.0 is starkly different, marked by a Trump more confident now than even during his first term. He has come to the office armed with a far more sweeping agenda and a better idea for how to implement it, as those staffing the administration spent the past four years preparing for this moment. Surrounding him are amplifiers more than restrainers, enablers more than guardrails. With limited exceptions, such as the Secretary of the Treasury and a few others, the Cabinet consists mainly of unqualified loyalists, the political equivalent of the bar scene in Star Wars. The result is more court than administration. Policy tends to flow from the top down rather than bottom up, with consequences already evident here and abroad.

It is an activist, imperial presidency. To date, there have been close to 140 executive orders and more than ten times as many pardons, including 1,500 for those convicted of crimes relating to the January 6 attack on the Capitol. The president has still found the time to attempt ending the forced use of paper straws and rolling back regulations limiting how much water can flow through a showerhead. (For the record, I side with him on both.) “Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government” was how Alexander Hamilton put it in Federalist 70. And that is what we have, even if it is being carried out in a manner that would make Hamilton question his own words.

Trump also finds time to post regularly on Truth Social and to talk with the press at all hours. He seems to be everywhere, dominating public space and head space. The contrast with his predecessor could not be starker.

Borders & Tariffs, Checks & Balances

The principal policy accomplishment of the second Trump administration has been to make good on his campaign pledge to secure the southern border. Illegal entry is down to a trickle, but the means he has used to accomplish that goal—banning refugees and deporting people without due process—have been both regrettable and, at times, arguably unconstitutional.

The second issue the president campaigned on most was the economy, with promises to unleash growth and lower inflation. He has turned things around, but not in the way he intended: we are now headed for stagflation at best, and quite possibly a recession.

Tariffs—an across-the-board 10 percent baseline levy, plus additional country-specific tariffs, reaching 145 percent in China’s case—are the primary driver here. They have become the defining initiative of this presidency. Trump’s arguments for imposing them were as numerous as they were flawed. I won’t rehash it all here as I covered it in previous editions of this newsletter. What cannot be debated are the results. The IMF has already lowered its projection for U.S. economic growth this year from 2.8 to 1.8 percent. The stock market put in its worst performance in fifty years for any president’s first 100 days. A good deal of business activity is currently on hold as companies wait for the certainty necessary for long-term investments and major transactions. The United States is normally the world’s safe haven in a financial crisis; this time we are seeing continued flight from the dollar, bonds, and equities. Some of these trends will be hard to reverse, even if Trump ultimately eases up on his tariff agenda after this 90-day negotiation period, which I would point out has yet to produce a single deal.

Just to be clear, none of this had to happen. For all of his critiques of Biden, Trump inherited an economy near full employment and growing at close to three percent with inflation under control and ticking downward. Then he administered wholesale tariffs. Trump likened them to medicine that was needed to save a terminally ill patient. A more apt analogy is that of a healthy patient coming in for an annual physical, being given an experimental drug known for its severe side effects, and suffering a heart attack.

But tariffs, for all their consequences, are not the only policy departure of Trump 2.0. Not by a long shot. Rather, they are but one example of the undertakings that reflect this often-radical president’s commitment to undoing large parts of what he inherited and to leaving both the country and the world far different.

Trump often campaigned against government, which he called the “Deep State.” He saw the administrative apparatus he now controls as wasteful, woke, and hostile to him and his agenda. This led him to create DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, under the leadership of Elon Musk and his fleet of tech-savvy twenty-somethings, most of whom had never served in government. It turns out that DOGE has little to do with improving efficiency or saving the government money. Instead, it has been preoccupied with wholesale reductions in personnel and the rooting out of programs the new administration disagreed with, from those associated with foreign assistance, the IRS, and democracy promotion to climate change, public health, and education. Along the way, Musk wore out his welcome with a good many Cabinet members. They, like many Americans who depend on the federal government for critical services ranging from hurricane warnings to Medicaid, evidently didn’t appreciate his taking his chainsaw to their departments, and as the 100-day mark neared, he announced he would be spending more time fixing his own businesses and less time meddling with the business of government.

For its part, the Republican-controlled Congress has put aside its prerogatives and any principled concerns about checks and balances and instead allowed the president to have his way on anything and everything. The Congress has unilaterally divested itself of all sorts of powers assigned to it by the Constitution (including the authority to set tariffs) and allowed the president to declare national emergencies with little or no justification and to exercise expanded powers pursuant to such emergencies without constraint.

Meanwhile, Democrats have been ineffectual, for the most part unable to put forward a coherent set of criticisms, much less serious alternatives as the party attempts to rehabilitate its image after November’s election results. The media’s record has been, as you would expect, mixed, with arguably the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page—often speaking with a conservative voice critical of an administration that is anything but conservative—the most pleasant surprise. The most significant pushback against the many attempts to overreach on executive authority has come from the courts, with liberal and conservative judges alike fulfilling their constitutional mandate. A good many decisions and actions have been put on hold; others are winding their way through the legal process. There has been some limited defiance of the court rulings, the most prominent being the administration’s continued refusal to bring back an individual wrongly deported to El Salvador, but thus far we have not seen behavior rejecting judicial review outright.

These actions reflect the ongoing parallel effort to weaken institutions that tend to provide any check on this administration. Attacks on legacy media, universities, and law firms have become commonplace instead of chilling. These assaults are backed by the threat or reality of expensive lawsuits for media, reduced government economic support when it comes to schools, and lost business for firms. Some, such as Harvard University and selective law firms, have pushed back, but many have capitulated. Absent collective action, which may now be emerging in the case of universities, many targets have allowed themselves to be picked off one at a time.

Anchors Aweigh

Foreign policy is no less changed. The United States has shifted from being a steadfast supporter of Ukraine to tilting decidedly in Russia’s favor. The shift appears to be motivated by a clear dislike for Ukraine’s president for reasons known and an embrace of Vladimir Putin for reasons unknown. Trump, who boasted all he needed was a day to end the war, which he regularly blames on Biden and Zelenskyy, is now talking about walking away from diplomacy entirely. He is finding it difficult to make good on his campaign promise, in no small part because his pro-Russia policy fails to give Putin any incentive to compromise or Zelenskyy the confidence to do so.

Europe and our other traditional allies receive no special treatment—or if they do, it is especially negative. This is certainly the case with tariffs, which tellingly spared Russia but severely hit Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Vice President Vance traveled to Munich to ignite a cultural clash with Europeans, while Defense Secretary Hegseth openly raised doubts about the U.S. commitment to Europe at NATO headquarters. This has stimulated European preparations for supporting Ukraine if U.S. assistance wanes and for strategic self-sufficiency more broadly.

In the Middle East, the administration launched what could well prove to be a promising negotiation with Iran, with the third round of talks taking place this past weekend. (Here is a link to my just-published column on it.) The stage was set thanks to Israeli military action against Iran and its proxies, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, and Iran’s worsening economy, which makes backing away from its nuclear program to avoid military attack and secure sanctions relief particularly attractive to Tehran. It will be interesting to see if the Trump administration is willing to allow Iran limited uranium enrichment, a concession that may well be required if there is to be a deal, but one that would be sure to generate criticism from some here and in Israel.

Otherwise, Trump has essentially given Israel’s government a free hand to do what it wants in both Gaza and the West Bank. It seems to have lost interest in extending the Hamas-Israel ceasefire as this would put it at odds with a prime minister who appears to value maintaining his coalition, through continuing military operations against Hamas, over freeing the remaining hostages. Gone is pressure on Israel to rein in its military operations or even allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, which is almost two months into a full blockade. Trump’s own proposal for Gaza, to empty it of its two million Palestinian inhabitants and to rebuild a new Riviera, went nowhere, but seems to have emboldened the Israeli government to begin making efforts to depopulate, occupy, and potentially settle large swaths of Gaza.

In the West Bank, this administration rescinded President Biden’s sanctions on settlers who commit acts of violence against Palestinians and/or their property as one of Trump’s first presidential acts. There is no call on Israel to refrain from settlement activity or penalty for not doing so. Indeed, this is the first U.S. administration in modern times not to be pushing Israelis and Palestinians to narrow their differences. What interest there is in reconciliation is focused almost exclusively on facilitating Israel-Saudi normalization, a prospect set back by Israel’s continued use of armed force in Gaza and insistence that it will not consider a meaningful pathway to some variation of Palestinian statehood.

The most unexpected dimension of foreign policy, one neither previewed in Trump’s first term nor during the campaign, is the focus on the Western Hemisphere, beyond just Latin America. Canada and Mexico were singled out for early tariffs over alleged failures to control their borders. There were also heavy-handed efforts calling for the return of the Panama Canal, the purchase of Greenland, and the acquisition of Canada. What these efforts seem to have done more than anything else is trigger anti-American nationalist reactions amongst our neighbors. Monday’s election results in Canada are but the latest example of this phenomenon.

There is as well what might be described as an amoral slant to U.S. foreign policy. The Trump administration has all but ignored moves weakening democracy in such places as Turkey and Israel. It has dramatically reduced support for democracy promotion efforts around the world. All that said, it would be difficult for a president who has done so much to weaken democracy and foster corruption at home to be a credible proponent of democracy and the rule of law abroad. As they say, you must walk the walk if you want to talk the talk, and this is an administration largely uninterested in doing either.

The biggest foreign policy uncertainty remains China. On the one hand, Trump has repeatedly granted TikTok extensions allowing it to remain on Americans’ phones, despite it being unclear whether he even has the authority to do so. He continues to speak highly of Xi Jinping and express confidence that the United States and China will reach a deal. On the other hand, the massive tariffs he has levied on China mean that the U.S. and Chinese economies may actually decouple. Whether the tariffs on China are an attempt to gain leverage for a negotiation or are ends in themselves remains perhaps the biggest question in Sino-U.S. relations.

Overall, I would describe Trump 2.0 foreign policy as less isolationist than unilateralist. There are the tariffs, the staking out of a pro-Russian stance on Ukraine, and a U.S. approach to the Middle East that has found few partners. There was as well the withdrawal from both the World Health Organization and the Paris climate process along with attacks on the Houthis that appear to have cost us much more than them. The United States remains involved in the world, but the means and ends are much changed.

100 Days and Counting

So there you have the bulk of it. Thus far Trump has destabilized a healthy economy, put an end to illegal immigration, challenged the checks and balances central to American democracy, and begun dismantling a global order that has served the country and world well for eight decades. Yes, after only 100 days, a truly consequential president, but arguably the sort of consequences that we could have mostly done without. Remember this the next time anyone tells you that elections don’t matter.

Not surprisingly, the president’s approval ratings have taken a substantial hit since he took office in January. These sinking poll numbers reflect the fact that a majority of Americans support the basic tenets of democratic government, from checks and balances to due process, want to be able to sell abroad what is produced here and buy here what is produced abroad, fear inflation and all that comes with it, believe the United States should stand against evil in the world, and prefer normalcy to chaos. The question now is whether Donald Trump has it in him to undergo something of an early mid-course correction.

What strikes me is how much Trump’s problems are of his own doing. Imagine if at home he had not thrown his tariff-tantrum and instead limited himself to securing the border, undertaking a serious effort to cut government waste (say, by instructing and empowering all agency heads to come up with savings of 10 percent), rolling back some onerous regulations, pressing schools to make sure equal opportunity was not conflated with outcomes and that Jewish students received the same protection as others, and developing a reasonable voter ID proposal that could have garnered bipartisan support. And, if Away, he had leaned on Russia, and not just Ukraine, to accept a ceasefire, pressed Bibi Netanyahu to implement the ceasefire deal that promised to free the remaining hostages, and worked with Greenland and Denmark to negotiate new economic and security arrangements.

If he had done just this and a few other relatively modest things, his approval ratings would be in the 60s rather than the low 40s, the Dow would be closer to 50,000 than 40,000, and both Europe and the Middle East would be far better off. As would be the United States. The tragedy of Donald Trump’s first 100 days, for him, for us, and for many around the world, is that it could and should have turned out so much better. He has dug himself a deep hole; to borrow from the cliché, the question going forward is whether he will stop digging.

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