Former President Trump is renowned for off-the-cuff remarks and spontaneous moments that slide from the script. Let’s see what he said in his most recent campaign speeches and reveal some patterns.
His speech is close to 90 minutes, and he is switching on and off prompter. In the last 20 minutes, he seems to focus on his platform with a list of promises that are the substance of his campaign. Trump doesn’t really commit to details and he is not very specific, but this is something common for politicians. Somehow, he has a specific way of pronouncing and people are already used to his personal disregard for long policy briefs or intricacies. We can say that Trump’s approach is more led by instinct.
By analyzing some of his speeches that followed President Biden’s withdrawal from the race, we can observe that he seems to have the same promises in all of them, which is not a bad thing. But how are the promises themselves? Let’s see!
Here is the list of promises that Donald Trump made in his trials
1. Day one is about the largest deportation operation in American history
Donald Trump has promised to launch the largest deportation ever and his plan involves using multiple resources, like the local police, the National Guard, and active military troops to arrest and deport the people who are illegally living in the US.
He didn’t detail the operation, but he says that the first focus will be on deporting individuals who committed crimes like rape and murder. It may sound crazy, but the idea isn’t new, as he included the mass deportation as a key promise during the 2016 presidential campaign, too.
2. Undo Biden’s border policies
Another thing he talks about doing on his very first day in office is undoing all of the Biden administration’s border policies. That means bringing back his previous tough immigration strategies.
This includes bringing back the travel ban originally aimed at Muslim-majority countries and revised later; closing the refugee’s admission and halting their resettlement in the US and the “Remain in Mexico” policy requiring asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while the claims are processed, a measure that faced significant criticism and legal issues.
Moreover, he mentioned the potential use of Title 42 emergency to deal with immigration and return child immigrants to their families. He indirectly let us know that he plans to reintroduce family separations even if a court already ruled that there’s no way this policy will be restarted under the next administration.
3. Tackle inflation and make America affordable
His promises regarding inflation are well-known and this seems to be a major goal in the Republican Party platform, even with the inflation rates currently decreasing.
Trump doesn’t really enter into detail about what making America affordable again means or how he plans to achieve this, so nobody really knows what changes he has in mind.
4. End the “Green New Scam”
Here he talks about the Green New Deal, a set of climate and job proposals created by progressive lawmakers, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey. This is not an actual law, but Trump endlessly criticizes multiple progressive ideas.
Trump’s plan is to eliminate these regulations and other rules, such as the electric vehicle mandate. This is about the car manufacturers who are required to make their vehicles more fuel-efficient in time, which means that many companies will need to adopt producing electric or partially electric vehicles. The EV rule faces anyway multiple legal challenges and it might in trouble according to a recent decision of The Supreme Court.
5. Tax cuts for workers
Trump is promising big tax cuts, including the taxes on tips. As this is a complex operation, as we know, he doesn’t necessarily detail.
We know this: he wants to extend the Tax Cuts and Job Act he introduced during his presidency, as they need to expire in 2025. This means if nothing is done, taxes will go up, anyway. Millions of Americans benefited from these cuts back in 2018 and Trump’s plan is not to create another Act but to prevent taxes from increasing.
He doesn’t mention it in his speeches, but there are reports that he discussed with business leaders about keeping corporate taxes low and maintaining the tax cuts from 2017 because they don’t expire.
Replacing individual income taxes with tariffs on imports is another idea that Trump was mentioning. The idea of taxing goods coming into the US instead of people’s earnings faced significant criticism from economists who argued that this unrealistic measure would disproportionately harm the working class.
About the tips, he wants to stop taxing income, including tips. This sounds simple, but this would require Congress to pass a new law and currently, 6 million workers are reporting their tips to the IRS. Eliminating this tax would reduce federal revenue by $150-$250 billion over ten years.
6. Revoking China’s Most Favored Nation Status
Former President Trump promised to revoke this title that China currently possesses. Let’s see the background of all this In 2001, Republican President George W. Bush granted China the permanent MFN status, which means favorable trade and seeing China as the top trading partner. Taking away this title may lead to less favorable trade conditions between China and the US.
7. Trump Reciprocal Trade Act
He explains that by introducing a law called the Trump Reciprocal Trade Act (If a country imposes high import taxes on American goods, such as 100%-200%, the US will hit back with the same tariffs on their goods, with an eye-for-an-eye approach in trading and it mainly refers China).
While Trump believes this will protect American jobs and the manufacturing industry, critics argue that this could backfire in higher prices for American consumers and end up harming the workers because the costs of the tariffs will be passed on to them.
8. Settling the war between Russia and Ukraine… quickly
He hasn’t provided details on how this would stop the war between Russia and Ukraine but we can think that he suggests we should trust his relationships with global leaders such as Vladimir Putin. He often claimed that his strong negotiating and leadership skills would make him a broker for a peace deal, but he didn’t outline the steps he would take.
He believes he could pressure both sides by projecting strength and using diplomacy, but many experts are skeptical, as the conflict is a complex one and involves significant geopolitical interests and historical grievances.
9. He will save us from World War III
“I will prevent World War III. We’re heading to World War III, we’re heading right into the teeth of it … I will restore peace through strength.”
He approaches the World War III threat in many of his speeches and he argues that President Biden didn’t see the global danger the US was being pulled into during his presidency. Using this, he contrasts himself with Biden saying that if HE were in this position, he would be able to prevent World War III from happening.
Trump’s plan is “peace through strength”, meaning that he believes that a strong America, military and otherwise – will keep away other countries from engaging in conflict with the US, and this will keep the peace. He emphasizes the danger and tries to get to people by reminding them that he’s the better choice for maintaining stability and avoiding global wars.
Here you have the Amazon bestseller about Trump’s experience as the 45th President of the United States: Save America, by Donald J Trump
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