Where Donald Trump will be constrained—and where he will not

The 47thMAGAEVEVBy John Prideaux, United States editor, The Economist president of America will be less constrained than the 45th president was, even though they are the same person. Donald Trump will enjoy more deference from his staff, his party and the courts than he did in his first term. That is not the same as saying there will be no constraints on him. Where can he be expected to get his way on his domestic-policy agenda in 2025—and where will he struggle?While running for election, Mr Trump issued 20 headline policy priorities, backed by a 16-page document which goes into a little more detail. A practical way to think through presidential authority and constraints is to rank them on a five-point plausibility scale, from category five (certain to happen) down to category one (certain not to). In the coming year there will be intra-party battles between Republican factions. The courts will not let Mr Trump do whatever he wants. America’s federal system delegates important powers to states and cities. And the clock is ticking, because the recent pattern has been that presidents who start with a trifecta go on to lose control of the House two years later. The interplay of these constraints will shape what Mr Trump can accomplish.In category five—the dead certs—is the pledge to “make America the dominant energy producer”. That is because America, which produces more barrels of oil than any other country, is by that metric the dominant producer already. Job done! The same goes for the pledge to bring America “record levels of success”: on many economic measures America is already there. The promise to make its cities beautiful again is more subjective. But, with the possible exception of Houston (which has other charms), America’s big cities are aesthetic marvels and will continue to be so in 2025.Pledges that belong in category four—the highly likely—include those to scrap the electric-vehicle () mandate and to cut costly regulation. The mandate was a Biden-administration executive order and therefore can be reversed by a Trump-administration executive order, with no need for legislation. The power to cut regulation resides in large part with the federal bureaucracy, which Mr Trump will slash, aided by Elon Musk. Also in category four is the pledge to keep the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. It is hard to see that changing over the next year, or four. The same goes for the promises not to cut Medicare or Social Security, or to raise the retirement age. Control of Congress should enable Mr Trump to extend his 2018 tax cuts: that is also highly likely in 2025.In category three—the probable—is one of Mr Trump’s biggest domestic-policy pledges: to sharply increase tariffs on imports. The policy platform does not put a figure on this: it merely says Republicans will support “baseline tariffs” on foreign-made goods. A universal tariff of 20%, which Mr Trump promised on the campaign trail, would probably need congressional approval, which is a constraint. Support for “baseline tariffs” is vaguer, though. Next, the promise to “keep men out of women’s sports” will be hard to bring about. But the administration will issue an executive order banning the participation of trans girls in women’s sport in schools and colleges that receive funding from the federal government. In category two—possible, but less likely—is Mr Trump’s other signature domestic promise: to “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history”. The recent total for the most people deported in a single year is held by Barack Obama’s administration, which at its peak deported just over 400,000. A bit further back, Dwight Eisenhower’s administration is thought to have deported just over 1m people in 1954 (it is hard to be precise because records from then are less complete). If that is the benchmark, it would be very hard to exceed it without cheating, for example by classifying someone turned away at the border as having been deported. “Sealing the border” will also be hard: irregular crossings were high during Mr Trump’s first term until covid-19 closed the southern border. Attempts to deter migrants through extravagantly harsh policies, such as breaking apart migrant families, were stopped by Mr Trump after they were widely denounced as cruel. That is a constraint, too.That leaves category one, the policies least likely to happen in 2025. Mr Trump’s pledge to make college campuses patriotic again is, thankfully, doomed to fail. A patriotic university sounds like something that belongs in Beijing, not Boise. Students presumably love their country as much as other citizens do, but core to America’s greatness is that they cannot be compelled to do so, least of all by the president. As for the promise to “restore peace in Europe and in the Middle East, and build a great Iron Dome missile defence shield all over our country—all made in America”: if President Trump is able to end the war in Ukraine without capitulating to Russia, and bring a durable peace between Israel and the Palestinians, he could leave a legacy that exceeds that of any president since Ronald Reagan. That is something to aspire to.