What Donald Trump has done during the first 100 days of his second term

The weeks since US President Donald Trump returned to office have been a whirlwind of activity to show Americans that his administration is relentlessly pursuing his promises.

With a compliant Republican-controlled Congress, Mr Trump has had a free hand to begin overhauling the federal government and upending foreign policy.

As Mr Trump hits his 100th day in office on Tuesday, his imprint is everywhere. But the long-term impact is often unclear.

Some of the Republican president’s executive orders are statements of intent or groundwork to achieve what has yet to be done. On day one, for example, he declared an energy emergency to spur production. But he is not promising a payoff until next year, when he told voters to count on a big drop in their utility bills.

Mr Trump’s goals occasionally conflict with each other. He promised both to lower the cost of living and to impose tariffs on foreign goods, which will most likely increase prices. Other issues are languishing.

Very much unsettled is whether Mr Trump has run up his scorecard lawfully. He has faced lawsuits over some of his actions, meaning much of what he has done could be undone as cases play out.

Here’s a look at where progress on his promises stands:

Inflation has been falling since a peak of 9.1% in 2022. It was at 3% in January, the month Mr Trump was inaugurated, and 2.4% in March.

“We already solved inflation,” Mr Trump boasted.

But the Federal Reserve warned that the president’s tariff plans will most likely lead to higher prices by taxing foreign imports.

In addition, it is unlikely Mr Trump will manage to “pay off all our debt”. His plans for tax cuts would reduce revenue to cover the country’s bills. He also made a similar pledge in 2016 and then the national debt ballooned during his first presidency.

Mr Trump has clearly made progress on a signature promise to control the border.

The number of people trying to cross illegally into the US from Mexico dropped steeply in former president Joe Biden’s last year, from a high of 249,740 in December 2023 to 47,324 in December 2024. Under Mr Trump, the numbers sank to only 8,346 in February and 7,181 in March.

It is unclear whether Mr Trump is matching Mr Biden’s aggressive deportation record last year – the numbers are not yet in.

Meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is arresting large numbers of people across the country. Many who assert their innocence have been deported without due process. The case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia is one of those hanging in the balance. He was deported to a Salvadoran prison despite having no criminal record and no hearing into whether he’s a gang member as alleged by the administration.

In the campaign, Mr Trump gave voters a pledge they will be able to judge for themselves, simply by looking at their utility bills. He promised to reduce their energy costs by half to three-quarters in 12 to 18 months.

At times, he hedged his bets, saying: “If it doesn’t work out, you’ll say, ‘Oh, well, I voted for him, and he still got it down a lot.’”

He was more bold on other occasions though.

“Under my plan, we will cut energy and electricity prices in half,” he told a rally in North Carolina in September.

Mr Trump made no secret of his fondness for tariffs or his conviction that other countries were ripping off the United States in international trade. “I will impose across-the-board tariffs on most foreign-made goods,” he said during the campaign.

He has followed through but with frequently changing caveats.

Mr Trump began by escalating tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, ostensibly as punishment for allowing fentanyl into the US. Then he announced even more widespread taxes on foreign imports on April 2, part of what he described as “Liberation Day”. Mr Trump retreated from parts of that plan, choosing to pursue negotiations instead, but he left in place tariffs on China as high as 145%.

The stock market has see-sawed from the hefty import taxes and the erraticism in their application. Mr Trump has shown more tolerance for market chaos than in his first term.

At rally after rally last summer, Mr Trump promised peace between Russia and Ukraine merely by winning the election.

“Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, shortly after I win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled,” he told a National Guard Association conference in Detroit in August. By then, he had been making the same vow at least since May. It did not happen.

At times, he framed the promise differently, saying he would end the war in one day. That day has not come.

Mr Trump has tested the limits of what he can do by decree, but he will need Congress to achieve his promised tax cuts.

He pledged to eliminate taxes on tips, overtime and social security payments and said he will make permanent the expiring tax cuts he enacted during his first term.

None of this has happened. And with big tariffs kicking in, the tax burden is on track to get worse before it possibly gets better.

But the president is working with Republicans in Congress to push through legislation. With thin Republican majorities in the House and the Senate, it could prove difficult to get near-unanimous support within the party for what Mr Trump calls a “big, beautiful bill”.

Mr Trump’s threats to choke off billions in tax dollars to institutions of higher learning flow from multiple promises in the campaign – to combat antisemitism on campuses, to take on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes and to rid campuses of foreign students he considers hostile to American values.

After several other prominent schools signalled their willingness to comply with Mr Trump’s demands, Harvard stood firm against the pressure.

In response, Mr Trump has called for withdrawing Harvard’s tax-exempt status, has threatened to block it from enrolling foreign students – more than a quarter of its enrollments – and has frozen more than 2 billion dollars in grants and contracts.

But such efforts extend far beyond Harvard. The Trump administration is going after other universities as well and at least temporarily ended the legal status of many foreign students at schools across the country.

The president’s promised agenda against “woke” policy swept quickly through the government as DEI programmes from Mr Biden’s years were halted and references to diversity in federal communications were purged.

This effort extended deep into cultural institutions and well beyond federal DEI hiring and workplace practices.

At the Pentagon, in particular, a messy revisionism ensued as thousands of images on webpages and other online content were flagged for removal. An image of the Enola Gay bomber from the Second World War was flagged for deletion — because of the “gay” — as were materials paying tribute to black and Navajo war heroes and pioneering women. Most of the targeted material ultimately survived.

An executive order from Mr Trump on “restoring truth and sanity to American history” forbade federal money to Smithsonian programmes that promote “improper ideology”.

Mr Trump campaigned against the participation of transgender athletes in sports and against broader moves in society, especially in Democratic-led jurisdictions, to accommodate views that gender is not inherently binary. He vowed to take on “transgender craziness”.

As president, he has signed executive orders to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s teams. He has also asked the Supreme Court to rule against lower courts that have blocked his attempt to remove transgender troops from the military.

Last year, Elon Musk pitched Mr Trump on his idea for a Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), which would be charged with downsizing the federal bureaucracy. “I’d love it,” Mr Trump replied.

The result was more hands-on than many imagined. Mr Musk started working directly for the administration, bringing along some of his allies. Loyalists spread throughout federal agencies to access sensitive data, question career officials and push for cuts.

The outcome has been mixed. Mr Trump and Mr Musk succeeded in sending shockwaves through the bureaucracy and pushing out tens of thousands of employees, with more changes to come. However, significant savings have not materialised.

Mr Musk lowered his targeted savings in the cost of government to 150 billion dollars after originally promising at least 1 trillion dollars. It is unclear if he will hit even the smaller goal. Doge has overstated its results.

After a mob of Mr Trump’s supporters descended on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, he denounced the “heinous attack” and declared he was “outraged by the violence, lawlessness, and mayhem”.

His tune soon changed. In the campaign, Mr Trump celebrated the rioters as “patriots” and “hostages” of the justice system and promised: “I will sign their pardons on Day 1.”

He did exactly that.

Roughly 1,500 people, including those who attacked police officers, received pardons.

As part of his promised effort to favour production of oil, natural gas and coal, Mr Trump signed executive orders toward that goal. But there is less than meets the eye here.

One order revoked what Mr Trump called a Biden-era “electric vehicle mandate”, but there is not one to revoke. He merely turned away from a non-binding goal by Mr Biden to have EVs make up half of new cars sold by 2030.

The order also seeks to end a federal exemption that allows California to phase out the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035. But Mr Trump is leaving it to Congress to pass a law stripping the waiver, and that has not been done.