Tracking President Trump's Promises to the American People

What has happened · as of August 2026

Within months of Trump's inauguration, southwest border encounters fell to their lowest sustained level in decades. Three things drove it: a national emergency declared on January 20, 2025, his first day in office, an order shutting off asylum claims for anyone crossing between ports of entry, and active-duty troops sent to the border.

SourcesDHS: 14 straight months of zero releases at the borderCBP Nationwide Encounters dataCBP Southwest Land Border Encounters

What has happened · as of August 2026

ICE is detaining people at several times the old rate. The agency booked roughly 300 people a day into detention in the months before the inauguration and 1,053 a day by June 2025, close to 600,000 book-ins in the eighteen months from January 20, 2025 to mid-July 2026. It holds about 65,000 people on an average day now, against roughly 39,000 the day he took office. Deportations track the same curve: 234,211 people removed between January 26 and September 20, 2025, and another 356,389 between October 1 and July 21, 2026, about 591,000 in all. DHS puts the number higher, 622,000 by December 2025 plus 1.9 million it says left on their own, because it folds in border turnbacks and an estimate of self-deportations that nobody counts one by one.

Obama is the benchmark, and the word largest is the whole question. Border Patrol caught about 3.3 million people crossing the southwest border during his eight years and his administration deported about 3.1 million of them, with a record 438,421 in 2013, his peak year. Trump is running at 1,212 removals a day, which puts this year near 442,000. That edges past Obama's best single year and comes nowhere near his eight-year total. He is also doing it with the border almost shut, so the people going out are found in the interior rather than picked up at the line, which is slower work. Kept in substance, not yet in the superlative he used.

SourcesCBS News: "the largest deportation operation in the history of our country" (RNC, July 2024)ABC News: ICE says over 350,000 removed so far this year (July 2026)TRAC: Trump administration record on detention and removalsICE Enforcement and Removal Statistics

What has happened · as of August 2026

Biden ended Remain in Mexico, announcing it in 2021 and finishing the job in 2022 once the Supreme Court cleared the way, and went back to releasing asylum seekers into the country with a court date years out. Trump reversed both by executive action in his first days back. People who cross the southern border seeking asylum are again sent to Mexico to wait for their immigration hearings.

SourcesDHS: reinstating the Migrant Protection ProtocolsAmerican Immigration Council: what the Migrant Protection Protocols areDHS press releases

What has happened · as of August 2026

President Trump signed an order ending birthright citizenship on January 20, 2025, as promised. Federal judges blocked it within days and on June 30, 2026 the Supreme Court struck it down 6 to 3, ruling that the Fourteenth Amendment grants citizenship to nearly everyone born on American soil and that a president cannot change that with an order.

He did what he said he would do and the courts stopped him. Ending birthright citizenship now takes a constitutional amendment: two thirds of both chambers of Congress and three quarters of the states.

SourcesSCOTUSblog: Court strikes down birthright citizenship orderNPR: Ruling on constitutional grounds

What has happened · as of August 2026

Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border on January 20, 2025 and put the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon to work on new barrier, with contracts and land waivers following. Roughly 80 miles have gone up. The southern border runs about 1,950 miles. At the pace so far, finishing it is the work of several more years, so the promise is underway rather than done.

SourcesPolitiFact: projects adding over 80 miles of new barrierTIME: what is the status of Trump's border wallCBP border infrastructure updates

What has happened · as of August 2026

Trump's campaign pledge was to "bring back the travel ban" and to bar refugee resettlement from Gaza. The first proclamation, signed June 4, 2025, covered 19 countries against seven in his first term: twelve under a full suspension of immigrant and non-immigrant visas, seven under partial restrictions.

A second proclamation, signed December 16, 2025 and effective January 1, 2026, took it to 39 countries, 19 fully suspended and 20 partial. It also extended the full ban to anyone travelling on a Palestinian Authority travel document, which is how the Gaza half of the pledge was carried out.

SourcesCongressional Research Service: the expanded travel ban effective January 1, 2026American Immigration Council: who the 2025 travel ban affectsFredrikson & Byron: the December 2025 proclamation, full and partial lists in fullPresidential Actions

What has happened · as of August 2026

Trump signed a day-one order directing the Attorney General and the Department of Homeland Security to cut sanctuary jurisdictions off from federal money, and followed it on April 28, 2025 with Executive Order 14287, which required a published list of non-cooperating jurisdictions and eligibility checks to keep people in the country illegally from collecting federal benefits.

The funding cutoff itself did not survive. Judge William Orrick blocked it on April 24, 2025, holding that ordering agencies to withhold or condition money Congress had already appropriated violates the separation of powers and the Spending Clause, that parts of the order were unconstitutionally vague, and that it violated the Tenth Amendment by trying to force local officials to enforce federal immigration law. When the April 28 order arrived four days later with the same threat, Orrick ruled on May 9 that a new order could not be used as an end run around the injunction.

The Ninth Circuit has sat on the appeal. Justice Department lawyers argued to lift the injunction before a panel in December 2025 and, eight months later, no ruling has come down. The injunction stands, the money is still going out, and in January 2026 Orrick threw out the government's motion to dismiss the case. The same appeals court struck down the first-term version of this order in 2018 on the same separation-of-powers ground, which is the precedent the panel would have to work around.

SourcesJustice Department: the published list of sanctuary jurisdictionsNBC News: judge blocks the bid to halt federal funding to sanctuary citiesNPR: the executive order and the courts' skepticismNational Constitution Center: sanctuary jurisdictions return to the courtsILRC: docket for San Francisco v. Trump, injunction still in force pending appeal

What has happened · as of August 2026

President Trump suspended the refugee admissions program by executive order on January 20, 2025, his first day in office. A district judge blocked the suspension in February 2025, but the Ninth Circuit overturned that part of the ruling on March 5, 2026, so the freeze on new refugee processing stands. The court did require the government to keep paying for resettlement help already owed to refugees who had arrived. He set this year's refugee cap at 7,500 people, the lowest since the program began in 1980.

SourcesPacito v. Trump: Ninth Circuit opinionWRAPS: refugee admissions and arrivals dataIRC: administration suspends refugee resettlement

What has happened · as of August 2026

The 2025 budget law made the expiring individual rates and the larger standard deduction permanent, and let businesses write off equipment purchases in full in the year they buy them. The Congressional Budget Office puts the cost at roughly $4.6 trillion in added debt over a decade.

SourcesEconomic Club of New York: full transcript of the September 5, 2024 addressWays and Means: hearing on making the Trump tax cuts permanentIRS: One Big Beautiful Bill provisions (Public Law 119-21)

What has happened · as of August 2026

The relief passed in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act as a deduction. Up to $25,000 of tip income comes off one's taxable income. Tips are still income and still taxed above the cap.

Here is what that is worth in a paycheck. Take a server on $80,000 a year with $30,000 of it in tips, filing single. Under the 2025 brackets they owed about $9,000 in federal income tax. The deduction takes $25,000 off their taxable income and the bill falls to about $4,500. That is roughly $4,600 they keep, just under $400 a month, on the same wages as before. For a working family that is a car payment.

Two things keep it short of the promise. The cap is $25,000, so the last $5,000 of tips in this example is still taxed. And this is an income tax deduction only: Social Security and Medicare tax, 7.65%, still comes out of every tipped dollar. It also expires after 2028 unless Congress renews it.

SourcesFederal Register: final rules defining qualified tips and the tipped occupations listCato Institute: the new income tax deductions for tips and overtimeIRS: how to take advantage of no tax on tips and overtime

What has happened · as of August 2026

The pledge was to end "all taxes" on overtime, which would cover income and payroll tax. What passed covers only the premium half of time-and-a-half, caps the deduction at $12,500 (or $25,000 filing jointly), phases out above $150,000 of income, and expires after 2028. Payroll tax still applies to all of it.

Here is what that is worth. Take someone on $80,000 a year working five hours of overtime a week. That is about $38.50 an hour, so time-and-a-half pays $57.70 and a year of it comes to roughly $15,000. The deduction only covers the premium half, the extra $19.20 an hour, which is about $5,000. In the 22% bracket that is around $1,100 back, close to $90 a month, or about a week of groceries.

The deduction is also a long way from ending all taxes on overtime. Two thirds of that $15,000 is still taxed, payroll tax applies to every dollar of it, and the deduction expires after 2028.

SourcesCNBC: IRS clarifies the no-tax-on-overtime deduction rulesCato Institute: the new income tax deductions for tips and overtimeIRS: how to take advantage of no tax on tips and overtime

What has happened · as of August 2026

Seniors 65 and over received a temporary $6,000 enhanced deduction, $12,000 for a married couple where both qualify, running 2025-2028. It phases out above $75,000 of income, $150,000 filing jointly. The law made no change to how Social Security benefits are taxed.

Here is what that is worth. Take a retired couple, both over 65, on $60,000 a year with $40,000 of it in Social Security. In the 12% bracket the extra $12,000 of deduction is about $1,440 off the tax bill, roughly $120 a month. The Council of Economic Advisers put it as 88% of beneficiaries owing no federal tax on their benefits, which is close to the headline he ran on.

Two things keep it short of the promise. Benefits themselves are still taxable, so a retiree with enough other income still pays on them, and the relief runs out after 2028. And it is keyed to age rather than to Social Security: beneficiaries under 65, including survivors, dependents, and disabled workers, get nothing from it.

SourcesIRS: One Big Beautiful Bill provisions for individuals and workersSSA benefit taxation rules

What has happened · as of August 2026

Consumer prices have not fallen since Trump took office. They are up 4.3% overall between January 2025 and June 2026. Groceries are up 3.4%, with coffee up 35%, ground beef 23%, and steak 21%. Gasoline is up 34%, fuel oil 24%, natural gas 12%, and electricity 8%. Eggs, bacon, and bread cost less than at inauguration. Almost nothing else does. Estimates put the added cost at about $2,120 a household in 2025, and about $950 for the bottom fifth of earners, more than 5% of their income.

Two different numbers both get called inflation, and they answer different questions. The inflation rate measures how fast prices are climbing right now, against the same month a year earlier. The price level measures how much they have climbed in total, and stayed climbed. A falling inflation rate does not bring prices down. It means they are rising more slowly than before. Prices only fall when the rate drops below zero, which has not happened in either term.

Trump wins on the rate and is stuck with the level Biden left. Biden's rate peaked at 9.1% in June 2022, the fastest since 1981. Trump's was 3.4% in July 2026, with core inflation, which strips out food and fuel, at 2.5%. On the level, Biden's four years raised prices 21.4%, and none of that came back. Trump's 4.3% stacks on top of it, so a shopper now pays about 27% more than in January 2021. Over the same stretch of Biden's term prices rose 10.5%, so Trump is running at well under half that pace. He promised to bring prices down on day one, not to raise them more slowly.

SourcesBLS Consumer Price Index Summary, July 2026FactCheck.org: Biden's final numbers (21.4% cumulative CPI, Jan. 2021 to Jan. 2025)Texas A&M PERC: inflation, real wages, and unemployment through February 2026CNBC: July 2026 CPI reportCNN fact check: eggs are cheaper, "everything else" is notPolitiFact: Trump said prices are "all coming down now." They aren't. (Aug. 2026)

What has happened · as of August 2026

Benefit checks were not cut. Nobody on Social Security or Medicare is receiving less money than they were, and no legislation reducing benefit levels has passed. On the promise as most voters heard it, President Trump kept his word.

Two things did change. The administration cut funding and staffing at the Social Security Administration starting in February 2025, which does not touch benefit amounts but does make the agency slower to reach. And the 2025 budget law ended Medicare eligibility for certain lawfully present immigrants, which is a cut for the people in that group even though it leaves everyone else untouched.

SourcesPolitiFact: no direct Social Security or Medicare benefit cuts under TrumpSocial Security AdministrationCongressional Budget Office: budget and program topics

What has happened · as of August 2026

Both halves of the pledge took effect in April 2025: a 10% universal baseline at the low end of the promised range, and country-by-country reciprocal rates matched to what each partner charged.

On February 20, 2026 the Supreme Court held 6-3 in Learning Resources v. Trump that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize tariffs, because the taxing power belongs to Congress. Importers who had already paid became entitled to refunds estimated at around $175 billion. The tariffs themselves did not go away. Within hours the White House re-imposed a 10% global tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act, and when that expired on July 24, 2026 it was replaced under Section 301.

The baseline survived every one of those legal swaps and stands at 10% today, with 12.5% for a 46-economy list. The average effective rate is 8.9%, down from a 16.5% peak but the highest since the 1970s. What did not survive is the reciprocal architecture itself, the country-by-country matching of foreign rates that gave the promise its name. He delivered the tariff wall and lost the mechanism.

SourcesLearning Resources, Inc. v. Trump: slip opinionTax Foundation tariff tracker: current rates and effective averageGlobal Trade Alert: from IEEPA to Section 122, what changed on Feb. 20, 2026White & Case: U.S. terminates IEEPA tariffs

What has happened · as of August 2026

Rates on China reached 145% during the spring 2025 escalation, well past the promised 60%, then fell to 30% under the truce negotiated in Geneva and announced on May 12, 2025. After the Supreme Court voided the emergency-powers tariffs, the administration rebuilt the same rates out of older trade laws, Section 301 and Section 232. China's average effective rate now sits near 31.6%, roughly half the promised level, though individual goods such as Chinese steel can carry 10% baseline plus 25% Section 301 plus 50% Section 232.

SourcesTax Foundation tariff tracker: rates by country and authorityPolitiFact: 145% rate, then Supreme Court restriction

What has happened · as of August 2026

A tariff is collected at the border from the American company importing the goods, not from the foreign company selling them, and the money goes to the U.S. Treasury. Whoever ultimately absorbs it, the check is written by an American business.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that American consumers and businesses bore close to 90% of the 2025 tariffs, with foreign exporters absorbing about 6% over the first eight months of the year. A separate paper by Federal Reserve and Columbia University economists put the American share at 94%. Fed researchers tracking shelf prices found close to dollar-for-dollar pass-through: when a tariff raised a retailer's cost by $1, the retail price rose by about $1 within seven months. Core goods prices ran roughly 3.1% higher as a result, and the Tax Foundation put the 2025 cost at about $1,000 per household.

The administration has publicly disputed the New York Fed's analysis. On the specific claim graded here, that foreign countries and not American consumers would pay, the available measurements point the other way.

SourcesCBS News: New York Fed finds U.S. consumers and businesses paid nearly 90% of 2025 tariffsFortune: Federal Reserve researchers find close to full pass-through to consumersRetail Dive: U.S. companies and consumers bear 90% of tariff costsPIIE: Who is paying for Trump's tariffs?CBP tariff collections

What has happened · as of August 2026

Chipmakers, drugmakers, and steel producers announced large new U.S. plants, and the promised 15% corporate tax rate for companies that make their products in the United States was enacted, along with full write-offs for new equipment. Manufacturing payroll employment has been roughly flat since inauguration; the announced facilities carry multi-year construction timelines.

SourcesWashington Examiner: the 15% corporate rate for domestic manufacturersBLS manufacturing employment

What has happened · as of August 2026

Federal leasing, permitting, and liquefied natural gas export approvals were reopened on January 20, 2025, his first day in office.

The output followed. U.S. crude oil production averaged a record 13.6 million barrels a day in 2025, breaking the 13.2 million record set in 2024, which was itself the highest any country had ever produced. American output ran about 40% ahead of Russia and Saudi Arabia, the next two largest producers. The Energy Information Administration expects roughly 13.5 million a day in 2026 and 14.2 million by 2027.

The promise to halve energy prices was a separate pledge and it did not land. It is graded on its own card.

SourcesEIA: U.S. crude oil production rose in 2025, setting a new recordEIA: the United States produced more crude oil than any other country in 2025

What has happened · as of August 2026

Energy prices did not fall by half. They rose. Since inauguration gasoline is up 34%, fuel oil 24%, natural gas 12%, and electricity 8%. Household utility bills have been climbing rather than dropping.

Oil itself did fall, roughly 20% across 2025, but the cause was OPEC, the cartel of oil-exporting countries, raising output into an oversupplied world market. That is not American drilling, and it did not reach household bills. When crude dropped below what it costs to pull a barrel out of the ground, U.S. drilling slowed. The 2026 war with Iran took crude back up and the pump followed it.

President Trump attached a number and a deadline to this one, in Michigan in August 2024 and again in Pennsylvania that September, and Newsweek counted it upwards of a dozen times on the trail. Twelve months came and went. Not Delivered.

SourcesEIA energy prices and production dataBLS Consumer Price Index Summary

What has happened · as of August 2026

President Trump ordered the rollback on January 20, 2025, his first day in office, but the regulation itself took longer. The Environmental Protection Agency proposed repealing the tailpipe rules in July 2025, and the repeal was published in the Federal Register on February 18, 2026, stripping out the greenhouse gas standards for new light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles.

The purchase subsidies went faster. The 2025 budget law ended the $7,500 credit for a new electric vehicle and the $4,000 used-car credit on September 30, 2025. The waiver authority that let California set its own rules requiring electric sales was revoked as well.

One caveat on timing: the mandate was promised gone on day one and the rule was not actually off the books for another thirteen months.

SourcesIRS: clean vehicle tax credits and their terminationCoastal Review: EPA eliminates emission standards for new vehiclesEPA regulatory actions

What has happened · as of August 2026

Signed on January 20, 2025, his first day in office, as Executive Order 14162, for the second time, with the United Nations ambassador directed to file formal notice immediately and climate finance commitments rescinded. The United States now sits outside the agreement alongside Iran, Libya, and Yemen.

SourcesExecutive Order 14162, Putting America First in International Environmental AgreementsCRS: U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, process and effects

What has happened · as of August 2026

He promised the commission and he promised drastic reform. The $2 trillion savings figure attached to this promise in most coverage was Elon Musk's, floated at the Madison Square Garden rally days before the election; Musk himself later called it a best case and revised the goal to $1 trillion before departing. Trump never used the figure himself.

The commission was created immediately as the Department of Government Efficiency, and the bureaucracy did contract. The federal civilian workforce fell by roughly 300,000 people during 2025, about one in eight of it, through deferred resignations, layoffs, and a hiring freeze. USAID was dismantled outright rather than trimmed, and the Department of Education lost about half its staff. On the half of the promise that concerns the size of the federal workforce and the number of agencies doing the work, he delivered something close to what he described.

On money he did not. DOGE's own dashboard claimed roughly $215 billion in savings, a figure independent analysts disputed, and total federal outlays did not fall. The entity stopped operating as a centralized organization in November 2025 and reached its mandated expiration on July 4, 2026 without publishing a closing report.

The bureaucracy shrank considerably more than the spending did, and it was the spending that the promise of drastic reform was understood to be about.

SourcesDOGE: formation, claimed savings, and July 2026 shutdownCBO Monthly Budget ReviewOPM: federal workforce data

What has happened · as of August 2026

Schedule F is a job classification, created by executive order in October 2020 and revoked by the Biden administration three months later. It moves career federal employees whose work is judged policy-influencing out of the competitive civil service, stripping the removal protections and appeal rights those positions normally carry and making the jobs effectively at-will. Estimates of how many positions it can reach run from tens of thousands upward. Its supporters call it the tool for firing unaccountable bureaucrats; its opponents call it the return of the spoils system.

The 2020 order was re-issued and finalized as Schedule Policy/Career, and agencies began using it. Federal employee unions have challenged it in court, and the rule remains in force while that litigation proceeds. He said he would re-issue the order on day one and he did.

SourcesFinal rule: Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service (91 FR, Feb. 6, 2026)OPM: Schedule Policy/Career hiring authority

What has happened · as of August 2026

Roughly half the department's staff were laid off, and student loan servicing and several other programs were handed to other agencies. Lower courts ordered the staff reinstated, but the Supreme Court cleared the way for the layoffs 6-3 in McMahon v. New York in July 2025, with the underlying case still live. Abolishing the department requires an act of Congress; no such bill has passed, and it continues to operate, retaining Title I funding, Pell grants, and disability programs.

SourcesCNBC: executive order to dismantle the Department of EducationSCOTUSblog: Court clears the way to shrink the Education DepartmentED press releases

What has happened · as of August 2026

President Trump signed an elections executive order on March 25, 2025 and a second one, Executive Order 14399, on March 31, 2026. Together they ordered documentary proof of citizenship for federal voter registration, tighter mail ballot deadlines, and federal pressure on states that did not comply.

The courts took the center of it apart. Judge Denise Casper ruled that the proof-of-citizenship requirement exceeded presidential authority and violated the separation of powers, because setting election rules belongs to Congress and the states, and she made that permanent in June 2026. Two other federal judges blocked it as well, one of them ruling for nineteen states that had sued.

Not all of it fell. The Supreme Court allowed parts of the mail-in voting order to take effect 6-3 ahead of the November midterms, letting Homeland Security build a federal citizenship list to share with states and letting the Attorney General prioritize prosecutions of state election officials.

President Trump acted, and acted twice. The signature piece was struck down, which is why this is Blocked rather than Not Delivered. Voter ID and paper ballots are set by states, and no president can order them into place.

SourcesWhite House: Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal ElectionsPBS: federal judge bars the proof of citizenship requirementABC News: judge permanently blocks the proof of citizenship orderABC News: Supreme Court allows parts of the mail-in voting order

What has happened · as of August 2026

The war did not end in 24 hours, and it has not ended. A revised twenty-point peace plan was discussed in December 2025, and a three-day ceasefire announced in May 2026 collapsed within days, with each side blaming the other. Talks remain stuck on Donetsk, roughly three-quarters of which Russia holds, and on security guarantees. He later called the pledge "sarcastic" and "an exaggeration." A database of his public remarks records at least 53 occasions on which he made it in earnest.

SourcesCFR: War in Ukraine conflict trackerState Department briefings

What has happened · as of August 2026

The hostages are the 251 people taken from Israel by Hamas during the October 7, 2023 attack, roughly a hundred of whom were still held in Gaza when he was elected. Peace in the Middle East is the broader half of the pledge and comes from the party platform.

A ceasefire was agreed on January 15, 2025, five days before he took office. It was built in three stages: first an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners, then a wider Israeli withdrawal and further releases, then reconstruction. The first stage brought 33 Israeli hostages home.

A broader deal followed in late 2025. Every living hostage was released and Trump signed a peace agreement alongside other leaders. On the hostages, the promise was kept outright.

What is not settled is who governs Gaza now and whether the terms survive contact with that question. Peace in the region is the larger half of the pledge, and it is still being negotiated.

SourcesCouncil on Foreign Relations: guide to the twenty-point Gaza peace dealNPR: Israel and Hamas agree to a Gaza ceasefireAxios: the White House launches phase two of the ceasefireWhite House briefings

What has happened · as of August 2026

The United States struck Iran's nuclear sites in June 2025, then fought a 40-day war alongside Israel from February 28 to April 8, 2026, opening with a strike that killed Iran's supreme leader. That ceasefire crumbled in July 2026 and strikes resumed. Military action was also ordered in Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Nigeria, and Venezuela. None was authorized by Congress. In a June 2026 NBC interview the President said he had never guaranteed no new wars and that as a candidate he "didn't promise anything," a claim contradicted by the campaign record.

SourcesBritannica: 2026 Iran warCNN: US-Iran ceasefire crumbles as fresh strikes hit the regionNPR: Trump on Iran and the no-new-wars pledge

What has happened · as of August 2026

Maximum pressure sanctions were reimposed by memorandum on February 4, 2025, with the stated aim of driving Iranian oil exports to zero and reaching the shipping, insurance, and port operators handling that trade. That was the means. The end he promised was that Iran would never hold a weapon.

Iran held 440.9 kg of uranium enriched to 60% when B-2s struck Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan on June 21, 2025. Iran then stopped cooperating, and inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency lost track of where much of that uranium went. The Cairo Agreement restored inspection procedures in September 2025; Iran terminated it that November. A second joint campaign with Israel ran from February 28 to a Pakistan-brokered ceasefire on April 8, 2026, and a June memorandum set a 60-day negotiating framework. Limited inspections have resumed at some sites, but the IAEA still cannot access the enrichment facilities and cannot account for the stockpile. The President has said Iran is denuclearized and also that Iran "can change their mind." Absent verification, the promise is not closed.

SourcesISIS: analysis of IAEA Iran verification and safeguards reports, June 2026House of Commons Library: US-Iran ceasefire and nuclear talks in 2026NPR: dispute widens over Iran nuclear inspectionsNSPM-2, Imposing Maximum Pressure on the Government of Iran

What has happened · as of August 2026

A day-one executive order directed the designations, and on February 20, 2025 the State Department designated eight groups (six Mexican cartels, Tren de Aragua, and MS-13), unlocking sanctions and authorities since used against trafficking networks.

SourcesPBS: eight Latin American cartels designated as foreign terrorist organizationsAS/COA: which cartels and groups were designatedState Dept. FTO list

What has happened · as of August 2026

During the campaign Trump wanted allies spending at least 3% of their national income on defense. After the election he raised the number to 5%.

Trump got the 5%. At the NATO summit in The Hague on June 25, 2025 the alliance agreed to reach 5% by 2035. Every member signed except Spain, which was granted an exemption. That is more than he asked for as a candidate.

Two things cut against it. The deadline is 2035, a decade away and long after he leaves office. And the 5% is split: at least 3.5% has to be actual military spending, while the remaining 1.5% can be things like roads, cyber defenses, and factories. Counted the strict way, the commitment is 3.5%, not 5%.

SourcesThe Hague Summit Declaration, NATO official textCRS: NATO's June 2025 summit in The Hague

What has happened · as of August 2026

President Trump signed Executive Order 14155 on January 20, 2025, his first day in office, starting the one-year notice the WHO constitution requires. The United States formally left on January 22, 2026, ending its membership, its seat in the organization's governance, and its funding contributions.

That was the second time he ordered it. The first attempt, in 2020, was reversed by the Biden administration before it took effect. This one ran the full clock and completed.

SourcesHHS: fact sheet on the U.S. withdrawal from the World Health OrganizationNPR: the U.S. begins the process of leaving the WHOLawfare: the withdrawal orders from international organizations and treaties

What has happened · as of August 2026

Proclamation 10887, signed on the first day of the term, commuted the sentences of fourteen named individuals to time served and granted full, complete, and unconditional pardons to every other person convicted in connection with January 6, roughly 1,500 in all. That is broader than the campaign's suggestion that violent cases might be excluded.

SourcesFederal Register: Proclamation granting pardons and commutations for January 6 offensesJustice Department: text of the clemency proclamationLawfare: Trump pardons or commutes the terms of all January 6 rioters

What has happened · as of August 2026

An executive order titled "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" directed Title IX enforcement against schools allowing male athletes in women's competition, and governing bodies changed their eligibility rules in response. On June 30, 2026 the Supreme Court upheld the Idaho and West Virginia bans, ruling unanimously that they do not violate federal civil rights law and dividing 6-3 on the constitutional question, with Justice Kavanaugh writing that the Constitution and Title IX do not require an overhaul of women's sports.

SourcesChristian Post: the Salem, VA rally pledge, Nov. 2, 2024SCOTUSblog: states may exclude transgender athletes from girls' and women's teamsPresidential Actions

What has happened · as of August 2026

Agenda 47 committed him to two things that travel together: declaring male and female the only sexes the federal government recognizes, and pulling federal money out of gender transition care. He acted on both in his first eight days.

The declaration came in the inaugural address and the order was signed the same day. It directs every agency to recognize two sexes, bars gender identity as a basis for federal categorisation, freezes funding for what the order calls gender ideology, and rescinds the Biden-era guidance treating gender as distinct from sex. A February 5, 2025 order applied it to women's sports. A January 28, 2025 order declared that the federal government would not fund, sponsor, promote, or support transition for anyone under 19, reaching puberty blockers, hormone therapy, surgery, and grants to hospitals and medical schools that provide them.

The declaration stands and agencies are operating under it. The Supreme Court let the military service ban take effect by staying the injunction against it. Several specific applications were stopped: in February 2025 a district court barred agencies from withholding federal money because a provider treats patients under 19, in June 2025 a court ordered the State Department back to its previous passport policy including the X marker, and a separate order blocked moving transgender women into men's federal prisons.

He declared the policy exactly as promised and signed the orders on the timeline he promised. It is not being applied everywhere it was written to apply, which is why this is Watered Down rather than Kept.

SourcesWhite House: Defending Women From Gender Ideology ExtremismHolland & Knight: how the order is being applied across agenciesLambda Legal: federal judge blocks the order on care for minorsACLU: Orr v. Trump, the passport marker case

What has happened · as of August 2026

The executive order that followed directs agencies to produce policy recommendations for protecting access and reducing out-of-pocket costs. It does not make in vitro fertilization free, mandates nothing of insurers, and appropriates no money. Congressional Republicans rejected a proposal to extend coverage to servicemembers. Costs to patients are essentially unchanged.

SourcesKFF: will the announcement expand access to IVF?CNN: Trump promised no-cost IVF for all, and it is still a long way off

What has happened · as of August 2026

President Trump signed it hours after the inaugural address, on January 20, 2025. Executive Order 14149 bars federal employees from acting to limit lawful speech, prohibits taxpayer money being used to do it, and directs the Attorney General to investigate the previous four years of federal contacts with platforms.

The order names what it is reversing: pressure applied to social media companies over COVID-19 claims and over the Hunter Biden laptop story. Several platforms have since dropped or narrowed their fact-checking programs, Meta among them.

The order is Kept on the plainest reading. What it cannot do is bind private companies, which remain free to moderate as they choose, so the promise reaches government conduct rather than speech online generally.

SourcesBallotpedia: Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal CensorshipFirst Amendment Encyclopedia: what the order does and does not reachLawfare: analysis of the speech and censorship order