Numbers that matter from the first 100 days of Trump’s second term
By JOSH BOAK Associated Press WASHINGTON AP President Donald Trump s first days back in the White House have been a demolition job and that s a point of pride for his administration For the Republican administration the raw numbers on executive actions deportations reductions in the federal workforce increased tariff rates and other issues point toward a renewed America To Trump s critics though he s wielding his authority in tactics that challenge the Constitution s separation of powers and pose the peril of triggering a recession From executive orders to deportations a few defining numbers from Trump s first days Roughly executive orders In just days Trump has nearly matched the number of executive orders that his predecessor Democrat Joe Biden signed during the previous four years Trump at roughly is essentially moving at a pace not seen since Franklin Delano Roosevelt s presidency when the Great Depression necessitated urgent action President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House Monday Feb in Washington AP Photo Evan Vucci But the number alone fails to capture the unprecedented scope of Trump s actions Without seeking congressional approval Trump has used his orders and directives to impose hundreds of billions of dollars annually in new import taxes and reshape the federal bureaucracy by enabling mass layoffs John Woolley a professor at the University of California Santa Barbara and co-director of the American Presidency Project sees very aggressive assertions of presidential authority in all kinds of techniques that are far more audacious than anything done by former presidents That includes Biden s candidate debt forgiveness project and Barack Obama s decision to allow residency for immigrants who arrived in the country illegally as children None of those had the kind of arbitrary forceful quality of Trump s actions Woolley stated tariff rate on China Trump s tariff agenda has unnerved the global economic system He s gone after the two biggest U S pact partners Mexico and Canada with tariffs of as much as for fentanyl trafficking He s put import taxes on autos steel and aluminum On his April Liberation Day he slapped tariffs on dozens of countries that were so high that the financial markets panicked causing him to pull back and set a baseline tax on imports instead to allow days of negotiations on pact deals Related Articles Trump marks his first days in office with a rally in Michigan a state rocked by his tariffs Battenfeld Wisconsin matter yet another judge who thinks they re above law Trump Admin to name and shame sanctuary cities after new executive order Trump administration launches race-based discrimination investigations against Harvard Law Review FDA scrutiny of Novavax COVID- vaccine sparks uncertainty about other shots But that pales in comparison to the tariff he placed on China which prompted China to fight back with a tax on U S goods There are exemptions to the U S tariffs for electronics But inflationary pressures and recession fears are both rising as a transaction war between the world s two largest economies could spiral out of control in dangerous avenues The U S president has explained that China has been talking with his administration but he s kept his description of the conversations vague The Chinese authorities says no transaction negotiations of any kind are underway Trump is banking on the tariffs raising enough revenue for him to cut taxes even as he simultaneously talks up the prospect of an agreement So far despite the economic risks the Trump group shows little desire to budge even as the president declares a deal with China will eventually happen I believe that it s up to China to de-escalate because they sell five times more to us than we sell to them Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recounted CNBC on Monday More than square miles of Crimea Trump mentioned during his presidential campaign that he could speedily defuse the Russian-started war in Ukraine But European allies and others say the U S president s statements about how to end the war reflect a troubling affinity for Russian leader Vladimir Putin Trump s peace proposal says that Ukraine must recognize Russian authority over the more than square miles square kilometers of the Crimean Peninsula Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy rejected the idea out of hand There is nothing to talk about it is our land the land of the Ukrainian people Vice President JD Vance right speaks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy left as President Donald Trump listens in the Oval Office at the White House Friday Feb in Washington AP Photo Mystyslav Chernov The U S president is essentially asking Ukraine to surrender any indicates to a land mass slightly larger than Maryland Russia annexed the area in when Obama was president and Trump says he s only being realistic about its future The four meetings that Trump s envoy Steve Witkoff has had with Putin have yet to produce a trustworthy framework for the deal that Trump wants to deliver After newest Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian cities and towns Trump posted on social media that perhaps Putin doesn t want to stop the war he s just tapping me along Over more Palestinians in Gaza dead Trump was eager to take credit for an epic ceasefire agreement in the Israel-Hamas War in order to restart the release of hostages taken in Hamas Oct attack But the ceasefire ended in March and more than Palestinians have died since the temporary truce collapsed Palestinian bureaucrats have put the total number of deaths above Food fuel and medicine have not entered the Gaza Strip for almost days Trump commented in February that he would remove the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and relocate them elsewhere suggesting that the United States could take over the area level the destroyed buildings and construct a luxurious Riviera of the Middle East Roughly federal job losses The Department of Executive Efficiency led by tech billionaire and adviser Elon Musk is dramatically shrinking the administration workforce Across all agencies there have been about firings including at the IRS which might make it harder to collect taxes and reduce the budget deficit Another federal workers accepted administration buyout offers And the Trump administration has floated at least another job cuts Those estimated job losses don t include the attainable layoffs and hiring freezes at nonprofits administration contractors and universities that had their federal funding frozen by the Trump administration The federal administration had about million federal employees including at the U S Postal Provision when Trump became president according to the Labor Department deportations The Trump administration says it has deported people who were in the United States without proper legal authority Trump s first months also have produced a sharp drop in crossings at the Southwest confines with Boundary Patrol tracking encounters in March down from the same month last year Deportations have occasionally lagged behind Biden s numbers but Trump personnel reject the comparison as not apples to apples because fewer people are bridging the margin now The administration maintains that it s getting rid of violent and dangerous criminals But countless asylum seekers who assert their innocence have been deported without due process In April the Supreme Court directed the Trump administration to facilitate the return to the U S of Kilmar Abrego Garcia an El Salvador citizen who was deported to his home country Abrego Garcia had been living in Maryland and had an immigration court order preventing his deportation to his native country over fears he would face persecution from local gangs So far Abrego Garcia remains held in a Salvadoran prison Trump commented last week that he won the presidential electoral process on the promise of deportations and that the courts are interfering with his efforts We re getting them out and a judge can say No you have to have a trial Trump revealed The trial s going to take two years and now we re going to have a very dangerous country if we re not allowed to do what we re entitled to do
