Trump's Domestic Successes and his International Failures

On Monday, 10th March, President Donald Trump ordered the beginning of a nationwide crackdown on university campuses to make sure that anyone promoting “pro-terrorist, anti-semitic, anti-American activity” will be deported and apprehended. This comes after the arrest of, as the President put it, “a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas student on the campus of Columbia University”. He added that supporting causes like this are “contrary to our national and foreign policy interests”. All of which he is right about. Marches that support a group who have deep anti-semititc roots and support for the genocide of millions of Jews can’t be deemed legal. Free speech means you can say what you like, without inciting violence - which is exactly what they’re doing. 

Other steps the Trump administration is taking to dismantle the previous status-quo includes the literal dismantling of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ plaza in Washington D.C following threats from Republican’s to cut transportation funding. The mural was brought in under the previous administration following the BLM marches and cost over $4 million dollars to build. Ironically, the mayor Muriel Bowser said the site would be “permanent”. Not so it appears.

In terms of larger public legislation, Trump has eliminated federal DEI initiatives and programmes and signed an executive order that states that federal departments can only recognise two genders. In fact, agencies have been instructed to report colleagues attempting to preserve such programmes. Moreover, he has barred transgender female athletes from participating in women’s sports: a rejection of the repugnant woke establishment. Trump has also threatened to cut funding for schools teaching "gender ideology" or critical race theory, a positive step to depoliticising the classroom. 

The border has been an area of success too, with border crossings down significantly. Official Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data from January 21–31, 2025, the immediate figures following Trump’s return to office, shows an 85% drop in southwest border apprehensions compared to the same period in 2024. As for his mass-deportation scheme, which promised the removal of 15-20 million illegal aliens, it has seen some success, with figures suggesting some few thousand deportations. The U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has however touted that, in order to enact the sweeping deportations, they will need at least $26 billion dollars in funding to turn thousands of extraditions into millions, a figure still being debated in Congress.

The Department of Government of Efficiency (DOGE) has seen strong promise also, with savings estimating $115 billion dollars so far. While DOGE has been cutting profligate spending, it has, at times, been guilty of cutting necessary spending. Even Elon Musk, the head of DOGE, has said that the Department “may make mistakes”, but will aim to restore any spending that is deemed useful. For a moment, DOGE halted the spending on Ebola prevention, which was quickly reinstated. Of course, like all departments, they’ll make mistakes, but in the name of making tax payer dollars better spent, they’re providing much needed rectification. 

Recently though, there have been external worries for the Trump administration, especially concerning the economy. There has been talk about recession in the United States for a long time, but only recently has this rhetoric been amplified. Many point to the harsh tariffs that have been implemented on importers such as Canada and China, which have been causing significant disturbance to international trade, worrying investors. Trump simply hasn’t realised that the trade war that he is engaging in will be most pernicious to domestic consumers. Due to the nature of tariffs, the cost that is levied on the importer is typically afforded for by raising the price of the products that are being imported. This won’t help an already struggling economy, ravaged by the past four years of exorbitant price increases over 20%.

In terms of other international policy, Trump has ramped up tensions between the United States and essentially all the proponents of Ukraine and their fight against Russia. Following the notorious fight in the White House between him and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky, many European leaders re emphasised their support for the Ukrainian President, subliminally throwing shade at the American President. In the international community, Trump has received widespread condemnation for undermining Ukraine, not least for the verbal onslaught in Washington, but also for a short period, stopping the sharing of information between the US and Ukraine and pausing aid. Both have since been reinstated, which represents a larger theme that has been running through the Trump administration in recent weeks: there’s constant change to policy, particularly internationally. This has caused distress for markets, deterring international investment. If this continues, the economic outlook for the US could be, in the coming weeks and months, in a seriously dire state.

So there’s two sides to this coin. Domestically, so far, Trump has been responsible for some, ostensibly, successful policy. Border crossings are down, wasteful spending is down and the woke establishment is on its way out. Outside of the US though, Trump is shaking the foundations of the global order which may turn out to cost the US more than he realises. In terms of the entertainment factor though; massive improvement on the previous administration. Sure, that’s not always a good thing, but it’s great fun to watch.