Trump and the Border Wall Mystery

It's nearly a quarter of the way through Donald Trump's presidential term. There have been promises kept, broken and ignored. But, how much has his policies changed U.S. Politics? Has he succeeded?

A Discussion:-

Immigration

The Trump administration undertook the immigration issue pretty much right out of the gate, with it’s ill-fated executive order closing the U.S border to entrants from a handful of majority-Muslim nations. Application of that effort led to chaos at U.S airports and a quick suspension at the hands of US courts.

Mr. Donald Trump also announced an end to the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) programme. It granted normalised residency status to roughly 700,000 undocumented immigrants who entered the US when they were children. The order has been temporarily suspended by the court, as well

As for the Mexican border wall, possibly the most memorable of Donald Trump campaign promises, funding is still in doubt and the money to pay for it will almost certainly come from U.S. taxpayers and not Mexico. He makes the claim that it is being paid through trade tariffs, precisely because he doesn’t seem to understand how trade works: tariffs are essentially a tax on American importers, and ultimately, American consumers. 
 

Infrastructure

The infrastructure plan during the Trump reign has always been just around the next bend. Instead, Congress and the administration first emphasized on healthcare reform, an effort that ended in a string of disappointments. Despite the heightened impeachment rhetoric and investigations, Democratic leadership continues to try and work with Trump on infrastructure. 

Healthcare

For most part of the year, it seemed as though Mr. Trump's efforts to revoke Obamacare and replace it with a conservative plan would fall flat. Beneath the dramatic legislative failures, the administration has taken important steps to chip away at the foundations of the Democrat's signature law, but with nothing to replace it -- despite his claims in January 2017 that a new plan “was almost complete. And it’s a great plan”. Yeah, not.

Trade

He has repeatedly emphasised "reciprocal" trade and encouraged friendly nations to buy US-made products. But he quickly ended US participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership., and initiated talks with Canada and Mexico to restructure the North American Free Trade Agreement. Meanwhile, his trade war with China, which he claimed “Trade wars are easy to win” lingers on, costing American companies billions of dollars as the trade deficit with China has skyrocketed. And again, he claims the treasury is taking in billions from the tariffs, although he fails to realize the increased costs to American importers is not paid to the treasury, it is paid by those American businesses. 

 

Conclusion:-

From the analysis mentioned above, it can be deduced that U.S. politics during the tenure of Trump has suffered quite a lot on the political as well as the economic front. 

-Dr. Bart Rossi, Ph.D