Donald Trump has been voted in as the President of the United States of America for a second term. A highly controversial figure in the past has won pretty convincingly defeating his Democrat opponent, former Vice President — Kamala Harris.

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The question arises — what’re Trump’s intentions? Are his policies and words hinting at a positive future for Americans? His first two weeks have undoubtedly been very interesting. He’s made multiple headlines with his immigration policies, the wide variety of executive orders he’s signed and his infamous foreign policy.

Just like his first term, Trump’s policies are a drastic shift from his predecessor’s, at least in principle. Beyond that, the individuals that are a part of his administration are very controversial figures — especially his Vice-President, J.D Vance. In my opinion, these first two weeks indicate more harm than benefits for the future of American citizens and that’s what I’d like to highlight in this article.

The Immigrant Treatment

His policies all indicate a harsh nature that lacks a well detailed thought process and is very populistic by nature. A government that’s not exactly considerate for humanity is not a government that can provide a good future.

A good example is the anti-immigration policies he’s implemented. It’s more about the manner in which he’s treated them rather than whether his policies are valid or not. The treatment of these immigrants have been absolutely disparaging.

For example — immigrants that got deported back to India complained about receiving extremely inhumane treatment during the deportation process. The problem isn’t with the fact that he’s deporting undocumented residents, the problem lies in the way he’s carrying out the process. Recently, he flew some immigrants out to Guantanamo Bay to use it as a temporary holding facility.

This facility, as we all know, is famous for committing human rights violations without it having serious repercussions on the United States. It led to massive protests as well.

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The underlying problem is this, he doesn’t care about humanity nor is he considerate. He’s ruthless and he’s only driven by power and money, not by values and that’s the exact opposite profile of someone you’d want as the President of the most powerful country in the world, because not only is the wrong person getting ginormous amounts of power in his hands, he’s showing exactly what his critics have been pointing out before he became the President. Reuters reported there’s been a lower rate of deportation under Trump than Biden’s last year in office.

This indicates two things -- he’s not serious about the one reform that he campaigned so strenuously for and as a result, the intention behind all the noise is classic pseudo-populist politics to create ultra-nationalistic narratives for appeasement. It’s disappointing, but expected if you’d analyzed his campaign. Not being considerate is the sign of a government that’s going to approach situations in a very black and white manner and with Trump -- it’s clear it’s going to be the dark end of the spectrum in a lot of scenarios.

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The Array Of Executive Orders

Trump has made it sure enough that he will use his power to implement as many executive orders as possible. Trump has signed a total of 82 executive orders this year alone and that’s absurd considering that’s half the number of executive orders signed by Joe Biden in his entire 4 years as President. Firstly, he’s trying to fast-track reforms with no opposition and that’s an authoritarian tendency. Secondly, it’s an imposition with no opposition -- which is exploiting the system and ignoring the fundamental democratic values they preach on other countries, which is highly ironic.

Trump’s executive orders are just like any of his policies or political stances -- incoherent, traditionalistic, irrational and reeking of intolerance. There’s a precise reason why most of his executive orders have either been temporarily blocked or have been dismissed by the Federal Judges. He cut funding for cancer research in the name of not wasting money and the Judges blocked his order because it lacked material and would lead to serious repercussions in a very sensitive area of medical research.

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Trump’s executive orders against the transgenders have been insensitive and ignorant. If laws were meant to be created on imposing a certain religious standard onto an entire nation, it’s unconstitutional and unfair. On the basis of this, Trump ordered the transferal of transgender prisoners to facilities for prisoners of their birth gender.

This would’ve had serious consequences which would’ve gone unnoticed had the Supreme Court not blocked this order. V-coding has been a serious issue transgender people face when they’re in prison, but no one talks about them because transphobia is through the roof, and having Presidents like Trump is not helping the cause.

If anything, it instigates violence towards a particular section of people -- that increases all types of crimes stemming from intolerance and hate. Spreading fake news towards Haitian migrants because they’re not white and are not native Americans does the same. It makes you wonder how rational and considerate of a man he really is, and it speaks of how fit he is, for the job.

‘The Economic Masterclass’

J.D Vance, the current Vice-President of the USA, in a video that’s still quite popular on the social media was heavily criticizing the price of the eggs priced at $4 (which was a lie - as shown in the video itself) and blaming it on the then Biden administration -- which is fair, but the irony is, Trump’s primary promise of bringing prices down seems to be nothing but a campaign promise for the sake of votes because egg prices have been increasing at a rapid rate. The truth is -- this is because of a bird flu, not because of governmental policies, but it will be, in the future because that’s what the policies indicate.

Image Credit: Gage Skidmore from Wikimedia

Trump’s plans to reduce prices are by imposing tariffs. Trump’s actually been implementing harsh tariffs on a lot of countries -- which he thinks might be a smart move but in reality, it’s a painful one for the Americans on many levels. Firstly, it will affect foreign relations and lead to isolationism. If anything, Trump’s tariffs has led to him having conflicting relations with many world leaders such as Trudeau, which will reduce the list of allies into a very constricted one.

It’s self-sabotage in that sense. Secondly, these tariffs are pointless without high quality American alternatives in these industries because the whole point of tariffs is to increase the prices of imported goods so that domestically produced goods can thrive on lower prices but good quality by accumulating demand.

However, the Trump administration’s implementation of the tariffs has two issues. Primarily, he doesn’t recognize that the citizens will have to pay higher for these imported goods without good quality alternatives and secondarily, he’s using it more so for diplomatic pressure than development of industries.

His tariff war against China in 2018 only led to a shrinking of the manufacturing sector a year later and there was a slowdown that kept expanding. Beyond that, tariffs are extremely poor for businesses looking to invest in the U.S.A. If the United States are keen on increasing foreign investment, then tariffs are a poor idea.

It also reduces the extent of the business-friendly environment that they try to maintain. A September 2019 study by Moody's Analytics estimated that approximately 300,000 American jobs were lost or not created due to the trade war, particularly impacting manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, and retail sectors.

Once again, with very particular sectors, it could see a rise in domestic production, but the overall consequences -- short-term and long-term are too detrimental for the U.S to be going on about the economy like this. The only thing worse is, this isn’t helping the stock market either. Investors are struggling and losing confidence because they expect a reduction in the demand side.

Reuters reported that as of March 10, 2025, the U.S. stock market has seen a reduction of approximately $4 trillion in value since its peak in February 2025. The key to development is standardization of small businesses.

Tariffs hurt them too - both producers and retailers. For producers, they’ve to pay a larger amount for raw materials like steel and aluminum while for retailers, they’ve to pay a larger amount for the imported goods/products that they sell. It’s counterintuitive to the globalized economy that the U.S stand for because the tariffs lead to more isolationism on the global stage. The damage it could do is yet to unfold itself.

The Trump Government is Anti-Scientific?

This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise because most politicians and governments are more focused on creating populist, pseudo-scientific narratives than scientific ones. The truth is, the Trump government falls directly into that category.

Starting with RFK Jr. because he’s not a medical practitioner, has no medical degree or qualifications that make him eligible to be health secretary and has spread multiple misinformation campaigns against vaccines with no citation of scientific evidences but rather distorting data. Kennedy has promoted the debunked theory that vaccines cause autism, contradicting extensive scientific research confirming vaccine safety and efficacy. Studies from CDC and CHOP have explicitly rejected this theory. This is just the crux of it.

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The Republican party and the Trump administration in particular are experts at rejecting the very scientifically proven environmental distress that’s being faced due to extraction and usage of non-renewable energy. Not only is the administration ignorant towards it, their focus has been on de-regulating the energy sector prompting more energy production and consumption, as a result.

They’ve changed the NEPA (National Environmental Protection Act), gone back on a lot of climate policies that the Obama administration implemented and pulled out of the global climate accord also known as The Paris Agreement.

All this done in his 1st term and there’s been absolutely no signs to suggest things are gonna change in this term. In a day and age where there’s a need to work towards sustainable solutions for the betterment of the future, the Trump Administration seems to want to do the opposite, the complete opposite. This is a bigger matter of concern than most people think because nature can be very unforgiving.

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The Infamous Foreign Policy

Trump’s foreign policy is very questionable -- seeking to isolate itself from every country apart from Russia. What Trump’s doing is redefining geopolitics and the nature of alliances. Someone who’s got no fear in harshly opposing any world leader but will demand that Putin be respected. Interesting, isn’t it?

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Trump’s policy is also very public. He’s very vocal about the fact that he wants to acquire Greenland from Denmark, which would be a complete violation of international law and a violation of the territorial sovereignty of another country. He’s also very vocal about wanting to inculcate Canada into the United States of America. The perception around this ardent and uncanny insistence is negative, but I still don’t know if the seriousness is being interpreted fully.

We’re seeing a return of imperialistic tendencies on a larger scale, with higher intensity. Rather than seeking indirect control, leaders like Putin and Trump are coming out on the global stage claiming they are saviors / messiahs to indulge in nothing but a modernized, 21st century version of imperialism.

Condoning this is equal to setting a dangerous precedent for the future of territorial sovereignty -- which is why Europe sees its unification as key to fighting against these large scale powers. Russia and The U.S.A are two sides of the same coin, and the Trump Administration’s nature and characteristics indicate the same. This has to be taken into account when analyzing Trump’s policies or government as a whole.

Not only has Trump failed to bring about a fair stoppage in the Ukraine and Palestine invasions, he’s quite literally an endorser of the 2 aggressors and I don’t think that’s stopping anytime soon. For voters that claim to have not seen this coming, his 1st term indicated his ties with Netanyahu and Putin and there was no reasonable argument for anyone to think otherwise.

His policies in general is leading to isolationism, provocation and he’s viewing these war situations from a business perspective, which shows his inexperience dealing with such instances. Most would argue he’s supposed to stand up to American interests, but America has long-been a preacher of democratic and sovereign principles and treating Ukraine as a case where they’re supposed to extract maximum profit is odd for any nation. Not giving Ukraine security guarantees will lead to a repeat of what’s happening now and there’ll be a similar conundrum.

Agreeing to a ceasefire plainly wouldn’t solve the problem without it being sustainable in nature, and that once again, highlights Trump’s inexperience and ignorance in these situations. Gaza and Palestine are nothing for the Trump administration. No efforts for peace or reconciliation, and the fact is, the place is already half empty.

I appreciate him condemning the killings in Syria and Yemen, but there’s a severe lack of consistency when you’re ignoring Palestine’s case because the killings are done by your beloved ally. There’s no foreign policy without a humanitarian approach.

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Final Words

Trump’s a President that will make the United States a very volatile country in every facet there exists. The reality is - his government’s rhetoric is far outdated yet still works because it appeals to the deep insecurities of human nature. But, a projection I’ll make is that - there’ll be a realization point where a significant section of the population will realize the mess U.S.A is turning into and that will definitely ensure that there’s no way back for Donald Trump into power.

An inhumane, profit-oriented, power-oriented approach to governance isn’t a sustainable recipe in any country, especially one with an unforgiving voter base. The Republicans’ populism is a classic trick, and don’t get me wrong - so is the Democrats’ pretension, but none can last for too long which is why America can’t have a clear majority for long enough in this day and age. A cultural shift in polity is needed, and hopefully it’ll come with a newer generation, which it will, and it will require grit and determination. That’s the message I’ve for any American out there.

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