Donald Trump
An 'America First' agenda: tighter immigration enforcement, tariffs and trade protectionism, deregulation, and tax cuts.
Donald Trump is a real estate developer and former television host who served as the 45th U.S. president from 2017 to 2021 and returned to office as the 47th president in January 2025. He won the 2024 election after losing in 2020, becoming the second person to serve non-consecutive presidential terms. He is known for a populist, nationalist governing style and extensive use of executive action.
The strongest case
Trump argues that decades of bipartisan governance left the border porous, hollowed out American manufacturing through trade deals, and grew a permanent bureaucracy unaccountable to voters; his program promises to put citizens’ economic and physical security first. Supporters point to a first-term record of pre-pandemic low unemployment, expanded domestic energy, and no new major foreign wars as evidence the approach delivers, and see his willingness to break norms as the only way to force a resistant system to change.
And against
The 'America First' program relies on tradeoffs its advocates rarely price openly: tariffs protect select industries while raising costs on consumers, and governing heavily by executive order invites the same court reversals and next-administration rollbacks that limited durability in prior terms. A consistency test also applies — expanding executive power to route around Congress is harder to defend as a lasting principle when the same tool is available to future opponents.
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On the record
Was inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States on January 20, 2025, beginning a second, non-consecutive term. [source]