“Drain the swamp”
“I want everyone in Washington to take notice that if we win on November 8, we are going to Washington, D.C. <…> and we are going to drain the swamp,” Donald Trump promised to a thunderous applause from his supporters.
In fact, 11 of Trump’s nominees happened to be board members of major corporations and organizations, which had spent almost half a billion dollars lobbying their interests with the federal government. Including $368 million by ExxonMobil, then managed by Rex Tillerson, who is now Secretary of State in the Trump administration.
Bringing Hillary Clinton to account
A promise to investigate the scandal with Hillary Clinton’s emails, which was supposed to end with her in jail, was a major trump card in Donald Trump’s campaign strategy.
During televised debates with Clinton, Trump said that if elected, he would appoint a special prosecutor to look into her use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State.
“If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation because there has never been so many lies, so much deception," Trump promised.
However, after his election Trump quickly put the issue on the back burner and soon after he said he would not press the case against his former rival.
Taxing China
While on the stump, Donald Trump also said that on his very first day in the White House he would impose a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports.
His complaint about the US dollar strengthening too fast sent the national currency tumbling down, along with returns on 10-year US bonds.
Building a border wall with Mexico
On January 25, 2017, President Trump signed off on an executive order to erect a “powerful physical barrier” along the Mexican border (at Mexico’s expense) to keep illegal migrants out.
He also promised harsher punishment for foreign nationals who outstay their welcome in the US, to deport 3 million “illegals” and increase the cost of working visas for Mexicans.
Trump also wants to impose a 20 percent tax on Mexican imports and use the proceeds to build the wall on the border with Mexico.
Rewriting trade deals
In another campaign-trail promise, Donald Trump pledged to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, to reconsider the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico (NAFTA), which he said had caused a great deal of damage to the US economy and prevented the creation of new jobs in the United States.
As a result, Canadian and Mexican exports to the US have contracted by 1.8 percent.
On Thursday, however, Trump said that the US would not be completely pulling out of NAFTA after all.
Abandoning Obamacare
President Donald Trump passed his 100th day in office without successfully repealing Obamacare – a key element of his campaign strategy. On March 24, Republican leaders in Congress pulled their overhaul of the nation’s health —care system from the House floor in dramatic defeat for President Trump effectively leaving President Obama’s chief domestic policy achievement in place.
"Obamacare is in serious trouble. The Democrats need big money to keep it going — otherwise it dies far sooner than anyone would have thought,” Trump tweeted on April 25.
Immigration order
In March, making good on his campaign promise to protect Americans from Islamic terrorists, Donald Trump signed an immigration executive order which suspended immigration into the United States from a number of predominantly Muslim countries.
“Each of these countries is a state sponsor of terrorism, has been significantly compromised by terrorist organizations, or contains active conflict zones,” Trump wrote.
However, a federal judge in Hawaii blocked the travel ban, while a federal judge in Maryland suspended a portion of the executive order.
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