One Year of Trump: First Year Accomplishments

By Douglas V. Gibbs

On the anniversary of one year in office, President Trump shared his top three accomplishments.

1. The building of a powerful military (that would include the strikes on Venezuela and Iran).
2. Economic Investments coming into the United States (about $18 trillion).
3. Lower drug prices by using most-favored-nation status.

I believe that’s a great list.  But, let’s add…

• The use of tariffs to reverse the trade deficit, cutting it to its lowest level since 2009.
• Secured new and improved trade agreements.
• Increased tariff revenues, collecting $300 billion under new policies.
• Increased U.S. exports to their second-highest value on record.
• Resumed construction of the border wall.
• Reducing the number of illegal alien entries across the border to zero.
• Targeted sanctuary jurisdictions, essentially negating unconstitutional sanctuary laws.
• Improved emergency health by reducing the number of illegal aliens abusing hospital emergency rooms.
• Removing hundreds of thousands of the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens.
• Took on entry into this country by terrorists by pausing visas from 75 high-risk countries and restricting the entry of nationals from 39 terror-prone countries.
• Audited benefits programs to ensure they were only going to lawful residents.
• Expanded ICE through aggressive hiring and redeployment.
• Expanded federal detention capacity nationwide.
• Enforced English-language proficiency requirements for commercial truck drivers.
• Rescued over 60,000 missing migrant children from human trafficking networks tied to illegal immigration.
• Cut fentanyl trafficking by more than 50% and forcing Canada and Mexico to also take meaningful steps to address the issue.  Overall drug overdose deaths dropped 21% over the last year.
• Designated major Latin American cartels as terrorist organizations, expanding U.S. counter-terror authorities.
• Encouraged beneficial legal immigration with $100,000 payment to accompany or supplement H-1B petitions.
• Revealed and legally pursued Somali systemic fraud in Minnesota.
• Signed Laken Riley Act into law, strengthening federal law regarding the apprehension and detainment of illegal alien criminals.
• Anchored Supremacy Clause by filing lawsuits against states and cities obstructing federal immigration law.
• Signed an executive order ending unconstitutional birthright citizenship policy.
• Launched federal crime crackdowns in U.S. cities which has delivered the largest one-year decline in homicides in U.S. History, as well as driving down nationwide percentages of rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.
• Oversaw 25% decrease in on-duty law enforcement officer deaths.
• Dismantled foreign transnational gang-related criminal networks.
• Oversaw reduction in nationwide traffic fatalities, largely by removing non-English speaking commercial truck drivers from the road.
• Took on Antifa, designating the group as a domestic terror organization, and opened investigations into their funding sources.
• Captured a record number of FBI Most Wanted List criminals.
• Reduced gas prices to a five year low.
• Increased private sector jobs by 654,000.
• Achieved an increase of real GDP by 4.3% in the third quarter of 2025, with the GDP predicted to be higher for the fourth quarter.
• Oversaw largest increase of blue-collar wage growth in nearly 60 years and private sector real earnings by $1,100 annually.  Overall nominal private sector weekly wages increased by 4%.
• Reduced weekly jobless claims.
• Reduced inflation to 2.4%, the lowest over the last five years.
• Reversed runaway federal spending growth by eliminating much of the federal government’s wasteful spending, and by launching the largest deregulation initiative in U.S. History killing federal regulations at a 129-to-one rate.
• Achieved lowest mortgage rates in three years.
• Reduced rent growth to its slowest pace since 2021.
• Oversaw increase of home sales at the strongest pace in three years.
• Delivered historic stock-market rebound with major stock indexes all hitting new record highs.
• Reduced taxes for middle-class workers, and delivered on his No Tax on Tips, No Tax on Overtime, and No Tax on Social Security promises.
• Reduced small business and other key industry taxes.
• Reduced most food prices like egg prices by 89%.
• Working with credit card companies to cap interest rates at 10%.
• Created Trump Accounts to empower the next generation of Americans through tax-advantaged savings accounts for newborns.
• In addition to incoming investment, secured $10 trillion in domestic investment, on-shoring jobs and increasing domestic manufacturing.
• Expanded skilled-trade training programs through Labor grants and executive direction.
• Provided support for farmers and ranchers to recover after losses induced during the Biden Administration.
• Negotiated massive soybean purchase agreements with China and Bangladesh, reopening critical export markets.
• Approved $50 billion in rural healthcare funding.
• Oversaw the strongest year for new vehicle sales since 2019, while also encouraging price declines for both new and used vehicles.
• Reversed fuel economy standards to reduce the cost of the average new vehicle.
• Approved major U.S. auto manufacturing expansions following reshoring incentives.
• Approved new heavy-equipment and appliance manufacturing facilities across multiple states.
• Increased commercial fishing by eliminating Biden-era restrictions, boosting economy of American Samoa and other Pacific islands.
• Decreased seafood regulations so that the U.S. could combat unfair foreign trade practices, enhancing domestic seafood production, exports, and competitiveness.
• Expanded domestic semiconductor manufacturing.
• Moved TikTok to U.S. ownership, protecting American data against Chinese leverage.
• Stopped production of the penny, eliminating recurring loss for taxpayers.
• Reduced, eliminated, or paused various leftist cash funneling programs moving federal tax dollars to leftwing advocacy.
• Exposed USAID waste, fraud, and abuse, and shut down the agency.
• Began the process of bringing U.S. company operations abroad to American soil.
• Paused enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to better enable U.S. companies to compete abroad.
• Took on foreign competitors to defend American companies from discriminatory foreign taxation and regulations.
• Firmed up and hardened America’s food and agriculture supply chain with the USDA National Farm Security Action Plan.
• Lowered energy costs with tax relief and investment.
• Solidified U.S. as world leader in artificial intelligence, attracting $2.7 trillion in tech and A.I. investment.
• Increased America’s stake in chipmaker Intel.
• Expanded spectrum access to lower phone plan costs, while expanding competition and accelerating high-speed infrastructure buildout.
• Relocated U.S. Space Command to Huntsville, Alabama which created 30,000 jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars in investment.
• Launched plans through NASA to return to the moon during his presidency.
• Reworked federal government’s relationship with crypto assets, ending Biden-era crackdown on digital assets.
• Ended Israel-Hamas war.
• Brokered peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
• Brokered peace between India and Pakistan.
• Brokered peace between Congo and Rwanda.
• Brokered peace between Cambodia and Thailand.
• Brokered normalization between Kosovo and Serbia.
• Brokered peace between Egypt and Ethiopia.
• Established framework to end Ukraine-Russia war.
• Ended Iran’s nuclear weapons capability.
• Reduced strength of ISIS in Middle East by eliminating the Islamic State’s Chief of Global Operations Abdallah Makki Muslih al-Rifai and arresting ISIS-K terrorist who orchestrated the murders of 13 U.S. service members at Abbey Gate.
• Eliminated Al-Qaeda affiliate leader Bilal Hasan al-Jasim in northwest Syria.
• Achieved ceasefire with Houthi terrorists in Yemen, restoring Red Sea route for American ships.
• Conducted U.S. strikes against Islamic leadership in Nigeria to protect Christian communities.
• Rebuilt Indo-Pacific alliances, restoring U.S. deterrence with new security and trade agreements.
• Secured the release of 85 detained Americans abroad.
• Initiated process to build Golden Dome missile defense system.
• Seized sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers, cutting off funding for Maduro regime.
• Captured narco-terrorist dictator Nicolas Maduro.
• Secured agreement for NATO member nations to increase their defense spending to 5% of their GDP.
• Encouraged Panamanian President to withdraw from China’s Belt and Road Initiative, protecting Panama Canal from Chinese Communist influence and control.
• Initiated programs and agreements to counteract Russian influence in the Arctic.
• Welcomed Afrikaner refugees from South Africa after the rise of racial discrimination in their home country.
• Expanded Abraham accords to include Kazakhstan.
• Secured safe return of NASA astronauts who were stranded for nine months during Biden Administration.
• Through Maritime Action Plan has begun an increase in American shipbuilding.
• Banned funding to United Nations’ UNRWA agency that employs hundreds of Hamas and jihad operatives.
• Sanctioned International Criminal Court, halting its illegitimate intrusion into U.S. matters.
• Eliminated use of taxpayer dollars used to support foreign organizations that perform or actively promote abortion in other countries by reinstating the Mexico City Policy.
• Ordered embassies worldwide to only fly the American Flag, eliminating the practice of American facilities flying activist flags.
• Rejoined Geneva Consensus Declaration, promoting and strengthening opportunities for women and girls around the world and protecting the family as the fundamental unit of society.
• Increased recruitment for all branches of the military.
• Modernized military forces with cutting-edge technology and weapons development.
• Rebuilt military stockpiles.
• Improved overall military readiness, and improved U.S. defense planning and battlefield operations through A.I. integration.
• Provided $1,776 Warrior Divident for 1.5 million service members, and improved VA benefits backlog by 60%.
• Processed a record three million veterans’ disability claims at the VA.
• Opened 25 new VA healthcare clinics.
• Permanently housed 51,936 homeless veterans – the highest total in seven years.
• Reinstated troops and restored benefits eligibility for service members discharged under Biden-era COVID vaccine mandates.
• Barred transgender individuals from enlisting in the U.S. military.
• Returned standards to highest level for physical and grooming guidelines for military members.
• Stopped taxpayer funded sex-change surgeries among military personnel.
• Eliminated DEI and WOKE ideologies from the armed forces.
• Reformed VA home loan protections to prevent veteran foreclosures.
• Strengthened military family support programs and benefits.
• Reworked agreements to reduce U.S. military reliance on foreign suppliers.
• Strengthened cyber defenses.
• Restored the names or renamed various bases to their former names honoring war heroes.
• Expanded U.S. space security to protect satellites.
• Eliminated U.S. spending utilized by global terror networks.
• Targeted Chinese companies for intellectual property theft.
• Strengthened intelligence sharing with U.S. allies.
• Unveiled the F-47 sixth generation fighter jet.
• Increased leader-level meetings with foreign nations.
• Increased recognition of America’s role in the two World Wars by declaring May 8 “Victory Day of World War II,” and November 11 as “Victory Day for World War I.”
• Eliminated DEI in federal bureaucracy.
• Dismantled federal censorship operations.
• Ended federal funding for WOKE ideology, including sex-change operations for minors.
• Ended allowance of biological men competing in women’s sports.
• Made it U.S. policy that there are only two sexes.
• Pardoned pro-life Americans wrongly targeted by the Biden Administration.
• Established merit-based federal hiring practices.
• Terminated tens of thousands of wasteful unnecessary contracts across federal agencies.
• Revoked electric vehicle mandate.
• Implemented nationwide election integrity measures.
• Returned federal public buildings to classical architecture.
• Began the process of ending the Department of Education, constitutionally returning education to the states.
• Took actions to protect religious freedoms.
• Took actions to safeguard gun rights.
• Released Kennedy assassination records, as well as records related to the killings of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Released previously classified records regarding the disappearance of Amelia Earhart.
• Worked to eliminated federal overreach against American’s natural rights.
• Began challenge to anti-plastic policies, beginning with an executive order to end the use of paper straws.
• Ended federal funding for gain-of-function research in foreign countries.
• Improved Social Security Administration customer service.
• Adjusted how colleges are allowed to use federal funding.
• Canceled Biden-era “Climate Corps” work program.
• Ended Federal Executive Institute – wasteful training ground for bureaucrats.
• Held colleges accountable for DEI policies and for allowing anti-Semitism to flourish on their campuses.
• Barred COVID-19 vaccine mandates in schools receiving federal funding.
• Reinstated “Mount McKinley” to North America’s highest peak.
• Reversed IRS over-expansion.
• Changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
• Designated English as the official language of the United States.
• Upgraded paper records and storage of records in underground mine to digital storage.
• Reduced the size of the federal government workforce, reducing waste and bloat.
• Required bureaucrats back into the office, increasing the percentage of federal employees working in-office by 30%.
• Revoked over 100 unnecessary security clearances in the deep state.
• Initiated the modernization of the American workforce with programs designed to prepare citizens for skilled trade jobs of the future.
• Reinstated farming reports canceled by the Biden administration supplying farmers needed data.
• Fired WOKE and radical leftwing ideologues from various federal positions and members of the Trump-Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees.
• Improved average disaster approval time so as to accelerate recovery for disaster-impacted communities.
• Began overhaul of U.S. air traffic control system.
• Increased public access to the executive branch through increased press events and other speaking events, and by increasing the scope of credentialed reporters in the White House press briefing room.
• Reinstated press privileges for about 440 journalists silenced by Biden administration.
• Declassified FBI files related to Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
• Sought to end WOKE and DEI practices in Corporate America.
• Ended Climate Change automotive requirements such as the “stop-start” engine technology in cars, restrictive federal emission standards, allowing states to set their own emission standards, and electric vehicle sales mandates; reversed regulations disallowing the manufacture of “tiny cars.”
• Ended Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness program.
• Signed executive orders seeking to modernize banking, and disallow politically motivated “de-banking” policies.
• Signed executive order ending anti-American propaganda at federal museums and national parks.
• Halted Biden-era ban of fossil fuels in federal buildings.
• Began work to reduce energy regulations, and to promote energy production and innovation.
• Tackled fitness and nutrition, restored milk in schools, phased out artificial food dyes with natural replacements, expanded options regarding infant formula, and oversaw the updating of the food pyramid to a healthier condition through the Make America Healthy Again Commission to strengthen nutrition while also disallowing the use of chemicals with unknown safety data in food.  Prioritized real food over processed junk.
• Reclassified marijuana to Schedule III.
• Modernized the foster care system.
• Reduced vaccine recommendations to necessary vaccines, healthy vaccines and promoting parent conversations with their doctors and providing consent while also removing COVID-19 vaccines from the list of shots recommended for healthy children and pregnant women.
• Increased access to in vitro fertilization, doubled childhood cancer data initiative funding, approved 67 new drugs, and launched autism initiative.
• Withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization.
• Directed full enforcement of the Hyde Amendment, barring taxpayer dollars from being used to fund or promote elective abortion.
• Began process of domestic energy production, including reversing Biden-era drilling restrictions, reopening hundreds of millions of acres to oil, gas and coal production and expanding leasing and permitting. 
• Increased the export of liquefied natural gas.
• Approved expanded nuclear energy projects.
• Investing into and reinvigorating America’s clean coal industry.
• Terminated Green New Deal projects and programs.
• Empowered consumer choice regarding products restricted and water pressure standards based on Biden-era climate change legislation.
• Withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement.
• Expedited infrastructure projects by slashing federal red tape.
• Eliminated Diesel Exhaust Fluid requirement, benefiting farming operations by saving family farmers about $727 million annually.
• Halted construction of offshore wind turbines.
• Eliminated solar panel subsidies.
• Reformed federal permitting, and pushed back on environmental regulations stalling growth and the mining of critical minerals.
• Increased energy export deals.
• Fast-tracked uranium mining.
• Cut bureaucracy interference and red tape for building and purchasing of new Department of Energy laboratories.
• Initiated process of strengthening the reliability and security of the electric grid.
• Repealed Biden-era natural gas tax.
• Overrode bureaucratic red tape limiting water availability in California.
• Held geothermal lease sale while also scrapping Biden-era rules and regulations on greenhouse gases.
• Increased U.S. production of critical minerals, reducing reliance on China.
• Increased hunting opportunities across 87,000 acres of federal lands.

— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary