The Archive · Official Positions
Speeches, Republican platforms, administration documents and policy timelines from the Trump era, together with the older history of the phrase. What the party and the administration say is recorded in their own words and labelled as theirs.
Before 2016
“America First” was a slogan long before 2016. It has been used by presidents and by a pre-war movement, and it has been disputed along the way.
April 20, 1915
Speech
With war raging in Europe, President Woodrow Wilson told an Associated Press luncheon in New York that the nation’s whole duty “for the present” was summed up in the motto “America first.” He meant neutrality and readiness, not withdrawal: Americans should think of America before Europe so that the country would be fit to be Europe’s friend when the fighting ended. The United States entered the war two years later.
Source: Address at the Associated Press Luncheon in New York City · The American Presidency Project
January 20, 1920
Speech
Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio told the Ohio Society of New York that Americans should hesitate before surrendering their hard-won nationality to the League of Nations and should “think of America first.” Nominated that June, he made “America First” a theme of his 1920 campaign alongside a promised return to “normalcy,” and he won the presidency in a landslide.
Source: January 20, 1920: Americanism · Miller Center, University of Virginia
1940
History
Yale law students led by R. Douglas Stuart Jr. organized the America First Committee in 1940 to keep the United States out of the war in Europe, with Sears, Roebuck chairman Robert E. Wood as its national chairman. It became the most prominent noninterventionist organization of its day, with more than 450 chapters and an estimated 800,000 or more members, and its rallies featured senators from both parties. The Roosevelt administration and groups such as the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies argued that helping Britain was essential to American security.
Source: America First Committee (1940–1941) · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
September 11, 1941
History
At an America First rally in Des Moines, Iowa, the aviator Charles A. Lindbergh, the committee’s best-known speaker, named the British, American Jews and the Roosevelt administration as the groups pressing the country toward war. The speech repeated antisemitic claims about Jewish influence and was denounced in the press and by political leaders across the spectrum. Critics of later uses of the phrase “America First” have pointed to it ever since.
Source: Charles Lindbergh Makes “Un-American” Speech · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
December 11, 1941
History
Four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and on the day Germany declared war on the United States, the committee’s national leadership voted to dissolve the organization. Lindbergh, a civilian technical representative for an aircraft manufacturer, later flew some fifty combat missions in the Pacific.
Source: America First Committee (1940–1941) · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
1992
Election
The commentator Patrick J. Buchanan challenged President George H. W. Bush for the 1992 Republican nomination under an “America First” banner, opposing new free-trade agreements, calling for lower immigration and questioning foreign commitments after the Cold War. He won more than a third of the New Hampshire primary vote but no primaries, and Bush was renominated.
Source: Insurgents in New Hampshire: Before Donald Trump, there was Pat Buchanan · CBS News
February 20, 1996
Election
Running again on trade, immigration and nonintervention, Buchanan narrowly won the 1996 New Hampshire primary before Senator Bob Dole secured the nomination. He left the Republican Party in 1999 and was the Reform Party’s presidential nominee in 2000, winning less than one percent of the national popular vote.
April 27, 2016
Speech
After accepting the label in a March 2016 interview with The New York Times, in which he said he was not an isolationist, Donald J. Trump made it the centerpiece of his first major foreign-policy address as a candidate, delivered in Washington: putting America first, he said, would be the overriding theme of his administration. The Anti-Defamation League urged him to drop the phrase because of its 1940–41 associations; it went on to anchor his campaign and his 2017 inaugural address.
Source: Remarks on Foreign Policy · The American Presidency Project
Official GOP Position
The Republican National Convention adopts a platform in presidential years. Its themes are paraphrased and linked here. We do not reproduce the text.
July 18, 2016
Platform
Adopted at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, the platform affirmed American exceptionalism and a Constitution read as an enduring covenant rather than a flexible document. It supported building a wall along the entire southern border, called for trade agreements that put America first within a wider zone of open and fair markets, and backed a human life amendment to the Constitution.
Source: 2016 Republican Party Platform · The American Presidency Project
August 24, 2020
Platform
With the 2020 convention scaled back by the COVID-19 pandemic, the RNC voted not to convene a platform committee. Its resolution declared that the party would continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda and that the convention would adjourn without adopting a new platform until 2024, leaving the 2016 platform in place and ruling any motion to amend it out of order.
Source: Resolution Regarding the Republican Party Platform · The American Presidency Project
July 8, 2024
Platform
Titled “Make America Great Again!” and opening with a preamble headed “America First: A Return to Common Sense,” the platform was approved by the convention’s platform committee on July 8, 2024 and adopted at the national convention in Milwaukee the following week. Far shorter than its predecessors, it is organized around twenty promises and ten chapters covering inflation, the border, the economy, affordability, trade, seniors, education, government and culture, constitutional rights and national security.
Source: The 2024 Republican Platform: Make America Great Again! · Republican National Committee
The platform’s first chapter promises to end inflation and bring prices down by expanding domestic energy production, cutting what it calls wasteful federal spending, rolling back regulations and securing the border, which it links to the cost of housing.
It pledges to seal the southern border, complete the wall begun in the first term, shift federal law-enforcement resources to immigration enforcement, carry out what it calls the largest deportation operation in American history beginning with criminals, cut funding to sanctuary jurisdictions and favor merit-based legal immigration.
The platform promises to make the United States the world’s dominant energy producer by lifting restrictions on oil, natural gas and coal, expanding nuclear power, streamlining permitting and canceling what it calls the electric-vehicle mandate.
Describing a patriotic “America First” economic policy, it supports baseline tariffs on foreign-made goods, a reciprocal trade act, revoking China’s most-favored-nation trading status, bringing critical supply chains home and strengthening Buy American and Hire American rules for companies that do business with the federal government.
It pledges to make permanent the 2017 tax cuts, including the larger standard deduction and expanded child tax credit, to end taxes on tips and to pursue further tax cuts and deregulation, alongside support for cryptocurrency, artificial-intelligence development and commercial space.
The platform promises no cuts to Social Security or Medicare and no change to the retirement age, and proposes more support for care at home, including tax credits for unpaid family caregivers.
Among its twenty promises is to defend the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and fundamental freedoms, naming freedom of speech, freedom of religion and the right to keep and bear arms. Its chapters propose barring the federal government from helping to censor lawful speech, a federal task force on anti-Christian bias and judges who respect the rule of law, and they oppose enlarging the Supreme Court beyond nine justices.
The platform says the Fourteenth Amendment’s due-process guarantee leaves the states free to pass laws protecting life, and it credits the party with returning the issue, after fifty-one years, to the states and a vote of the people. It opposes late-term abortion while supporting prenatal care, access to birth control and IVF.
It calls for the most modern and powerful military in the world, a missile-defense shield built in America, allies who meet their obligations to invest in the common defense, support for Israel, strength against China and a revived defense industrial base, with military force used sparingly and only when national interests are clearly threatened.
The platform supports universal school choice, parental rights, merit pay for teachers and patriotic civics education, including reinstating the 1776 Commission. It would cut federal funds to schools it says promote critical race theory or gender ideology and would close the federal Department of Education, returning education to the states.
It calls for voter identification, paper ballots, proof of citizenship and same-day voting, and says noncitizens must not be given the right to vote.
The platform pledges to end what it calls the weaponization of government against political opponents, declassify government records and remove corrupt officials; to reassert federal control over public safety in Washington, D.C.; and to honor American history, including a national celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding.
Primary Sources
Major addresses, linked to authoritative transcripts.
June 16, 2015
Speech
At Trump Tower in New York, the businessman announced his campaign for the Republican nomination in a speech built around trade with China, Japan and Mexico, border security and a promise to make America great again. His remarks about immigrants from Mexico drew immediate criticism and helped make immigration the central issue of his candidacy.
Source: Remarks Announcing Candidacy for President in New York City · The American Presidency Project
July 21, 2016
Speech
Accepting the nomination in Cleveland, Trump promised to restore law and order, build a border wall and renegotiate trade agreements so as to put America first, declaring that Americanism rather than globalism would be his credo. He presented himself as the voice of the “forgotten” men and women of the country.
Source: Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio · The American Presidency Project
January 20, 2017
Speech
The 45th president told the nation that “from this day forward, it’s going to be only America first,” with every decision on trade, taxes, immigration and foreign affairs made to benefit American workers and families. He summed up his economic program in “two simple rules: Buy American and hire American,” while affirming “the right of all nations to put their own interests first.”
Source: Inaugural Address (January 20, 2017) · The American Presidency Project
July 6, 2017
Speech
Speaking in Warsaw’s Krasiński Square, Trump honored Poland’s resistance to Nazi and Soviet tyranny, affirmed American support for NATO’s Article 5 mutual-defense commitment and cast the West as a civilization worth defending: “The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive.”
Source: Remarks by President Trump to the People of Poland · Trump White House Archives (National Archives)
September 19, 2017
Speech
In his first address to the General Assembly, Trump made national sovereignty his organizing principle: “As President of the United States, I will always put America first, just like you, as the leaders of your countries will always, and should always, put your countries first.” He also warned North Korea against its nuclear program and called the Iran nuclear agreement an embarrassment to the United States.
Source: Remarks by President Trump to the 72nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly · Trump White House Archives (National Archives)
January 26, 2018
Speech
Addressing business and government leaders in Davos, Switzerland, Trump declared America “open for business” and explained his agenda to an international audience: “America first does not mean America alone.” The United States supported free trade, he said, but it needed to be fair and reciprocal.
Source: Remarks by President Trump to the World Economic Forum · Trump White House Archives (National Archives)
July 3, 2020
Speech
On the eve of Independence Day, amid nationwide protests in which statues were toppled, Trump defended the Founders and their monuments, warned of “a merciless campaign to wipe out our history,” and announced an executive order to create a National Garden of American Heroes. Supporters welcomed a defense of the nation’s heritage; critics called the speech divisive at a time of unrest.
Source: Remarks by President Trump at South Dakota’s 2020 Mount Rushmore Fireworks Celebration · Trump White House Archives (National Archives)
July 18, 2024
Speech
Five days after surviving an assassination attempt at a rally near Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump accepted his third Republican nomination in Milwaukee. He recounted the shooting, called for healing the nation’s divisions and said he was running to be president for all of America, then laid out his agenda on the border, inflation, energy, manufacturing and ending foreign wars.
Source: Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin · The American Presidency Project
January 20, 2025
Speech
Delivered in the Capitol Rotunda after cold weather moved the ceremony indoors, the address opened with the declaration that “the golden age of America begins right now” and a pledge to “put America first” every day. The 47th president announced national emergencies at the southern border and on energy, and promised to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America and to restore the name Mount McKinley.
Source: The Inaugural Address · The White House
March 4, 2025
Speech
Six weeks into his second term, Trump opened with “America is back” and described his early actions on the border, federal spending and energy. He announced that reciprocal tariffs would take effect on April 2 and asked Congress to fund a “Golden Dome” missile-defense shield.
Source: Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress · The American Presidency Project
Policy Timelines
Statutes, orders and court rulings are primary sources. The administration’s descriptions of its results are its own position. Where outcomes are contested, the disagreement is recorded.
From leaving the Trans-Pacific Partnership to emergency tariffs and the Supreme Court’s answer: the movement’s sharpest break with postwar trade policy.
January 23, 2017
Executive action
In one of his first acts in office, President Trump directed the U.S. Trade Representative to withdraw the United States as a signatory to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a twelve-nation agreement negotiated under his predecessor, and to pursue bilateral trade negotiations instead.
Source: Presidential Memorandum Regarding Withdrawal of the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiations and Agreement · Trump White House Archives (National Archives)
March 8, 2018
Executive action
Invoking Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows the President to adjust imports that threaten national security, Trump proclaimed tariffs of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on imported aluminum following Commerce Department investigations.
Source: Presidential Proclamation on Adjusting Imports of Steel into the United States · Trump White House Archives (National Archives)
July 6, 2018
Executive action
After a Section 301 investigation concluded that Chinese policies on technology transfer and intellectual property were unreasonable and burdened American commerce, the first tariffs on Chinese goods took effect and were expanded in stages as China retaliated. A “Phase One” agreement signed in January 2020 committed China to larger purchases of American goods and some intellectual-property reforms; most of the tariffs remained in place.
Source: Section 301 – China Technology Transfer · Office of the United States Trade Representative
January 29, 2020
Legislation
Passed by large bipartisan majorities, the law implemented the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, which replaced NAFTA when it took effect on July 1, 2020. The renegotiated pact tightened automobile rules of origin and added labor, digital-trade and dairy-access provisions.
Source: Public Law 116–113: United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement Implementation Act · U.S. Government Publishing Office
April 2, 2025
Executive action
Executive Order 14257 declared large and persistent goods trade deficits a national emergency and, invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), imposed a tariff of at least 10 percent on imports from nearly all trading partners, with higher rates for dozens of countries. Earlier 2025 orders had used the same law to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China over drug trafficking. Most of the higher country-specific rates were paused a week later while negotiations proceeded.
Source: Regulating Imports with a Reciprocal Tariff to Rectify Trade Practices that Contribute to Large and Persistent Annual United States Goods Trade Deficits · The White House
April 2, 2025
Executive action
The administration has argued that decades of unfair trade and persistent deficits hollowed out American manufacturing and undermined critical supply chains; that tariffs protect industries vital to national security; and that they bring trading partners to the table to negotiate better terms for American workers, farmers and businesses.
Source: Executive Order 14257 · The White House
February 20, 2026
Court
In cases brought by small businesses and twelve states, the Supreme Court held 6–3, in an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, that IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs, emphasizing that the Constitution gives Congress the power to lay duties. The ruling reached only tariffs imposed under IEEPA; duties imposed under other statutes, such as Sections 232 and 301, rest on separate authority.
Source: Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, 607 U.S. 229 (2026) · Supreme Court of the United States
2018–2026
Executive action
Supporters credit tariffs with pressing China, reshaping North American trade and encouraging investment in domestic manufacturing. Many economists, including some conservatives, counter that tariffs are paid largely by American importers and consumers, invite retaliation against farmers and exporters, who received billions of dollars in federal aid during the 2018–2019 dispute, and protect some jobs at the expense of others in industries that buy steel and other inputs.
The movement’s signature issue, from the first wall order to the Supreme Court’s ruling on birthright citizenship.
January 25, 2017
Executive action
Executive Order 13767 directed the immediate planning and construction of a physical wall along the southern border, expanded detention of people apprehended while crossing illegally and called for hiring 5,000 additional Border Patrol agents.
Source: Executive Order: Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements · Trump White House Archives (National Archives)
June 26, 2018
Court
By a 5–4 vote, in an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, the Supreme Court upheld the third version of the administration’s travel restrictions, which limited entry from several countries, most of them majority-Muslim, holding that the proclamation fell within the President’s authority under immigration law and rejecting an Establishment Clause challenge. The opinion also formally repudiated Korematsu v. United States (1944).
Source: Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U.S. 667 (2018) · Supreme Court of the United States
February 15, 2019
Executive action
After a 35-day partial government shutdown over wall funding ended without the money the President had sought, Proclamation 9844 declared a national emergency at the southern border so that military construction funds could be redirected to barrier construction. Congress voted to terminate the emergency, and Trump vetoed the resolution, the first veto of his presidency.
Source: Presidential Proclamation on Declaring a National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States · Trump White House Archives (National Archives)
January 20, 2025
Executive action
On his first day back in office, Trump proclaimed a national emergency at the southern border, directing the armed forces to support border operations and resuming barrier construction, and signed companion orders on securing the border and on what the administration called protecting the American people against invasion.
Source: Declaring a National Emergency at the Southern Border of the United States · The White House
January 20, 2025
Executive action
Executive Order 14160 declared that children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and so are not citizens at birth. Federal courts blocked it, and in Trump v. Barbara (June 30, 2026) the Supreme Court held that such children are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, with three justices dissenting.
Source: Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship · The White House
January 29, 2025
Legislation
The first bill signed in Trump’s second term, passed with bipartisan votes, requires federal authorities to detain noncitizens who are in the country unlawfully and are charged with or arrested for crimes including theft, burglary, shoplifting and assaulting a police officer. It is named for a Georgia nursing student murdered in 2024 by a man who had entered the country illegally.
Source: Public Law 119–1: Laken Riley Act · U.S. Government Publishing Office
March 4, 2025
Speech
Addressing Congress six weeks into his second term, the President said his administration had launched “the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history” and had quickly achieved “the lowest numbers of illegal border crossers ever recorded.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection publishes the monthly encounter data on which such claims rest.
Source: Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress · The American Presidency Project
2018–2026
Executive action
Supporters argue that enforcing the immigration laws is a basic duty of government and that the sharp fall in crossings shows that policy, not new legislation, determines results. Critics point to the 2018 separation of families under the zero-tolerance prosecution policy, ended by executive order after a public outcry, and to 2025 removals under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, in which the Supreme Court held that detainees were entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal.
Source: Affording Congress an Opportunity to Address Family Separation · Trump White House Archives (National Archives)
Pipelines, deregulation, two exits from the Paris Agreement and a declared energy emergency, set against a production boom that began before 2017.
January 24, 2017
Executive action
Presidential memoranda invited TransCanada to resubmit its application for the Keystone XL pipeline, which the previous administration had rejected, and directed the Army to expedite its review of the Dakota Access pipeline.
Source: Presidential Memorandum Regarding Construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline · Trump White House Archives (National Archives)
March 28, 2017
Executive action
Executive Order 13783 directed agencies to review and, where appropriate, suspend, revise or rescind rules that burden domestic energy production, beginning with the Clean Power Plan’s limits on power-plant emissions.
Source: Presidential Executive Order on Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth · Trump White House Archives (National Archives)
June 1, 2017
Executive action
Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, arguing that it imposed unfair economic burdens on American workers; the withdrawal took formal effect on November 4, 2020. The United States rejoined in 2021 and began withdrawing again under an order signed on January 20, 2025.
Source: Statement by President Trump on the Paris Climate Accord · Trump White House Archives (National Archives)
December 22, 2017
Legislation
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act included a provision directing the Interior Department to establish an oil and gas leasing program on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, a question Congress had debated for decades.
Source: Public Law 115–97 · U.S. Government Publishing Office
2018–2019
History
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the United States surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia in 2018 to become the world’s largest crude oil producer, and in 2019 its total energy exports exceeded its energy imports for the first time since 1952, reflecting rapid growth in oil and natural gas production.
Source: U.S. total energy exports exceed imports in 2019 for the first time in 67 years · U.S. Energy Information Administration
February 4, 2020
Speech
In his 2020 State of the Union address, the President credited his administration’s “bold regulatory reduction campaign” with making the United States “the number one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world” and declared that “America is now energy independent.”
Source: Remarks by President Trump in State of the Union Address · Trump White House Archives (National Archives)
January 20, 2025
Executive action
On the first day of his second term, Trump declared a national energy emergency, directing agencies to use emergency and permitting authorities to expand domestic energy production and infrastructure, and signed a companion order, Unleashing American Energy, to remove regulatory obstacles and end what it called the electric-vehicle mandate.
Source: Declaring a National Energy Emergency · The White House
2017–2026
Executive action
Supporters argue that abundant American oil, gas and nuclear power lower costs for families, strengthen national security and give allies alternatives to Russian energy. Critics note that the production boom began with the shale revolution years before 2017, and argue that rolling back emissions rules and leaving the Paris Agreement slow the response to climate change and cede clean-energy industries to competitors such as China.
Three justices, dozens of appellate judges and the decisions that followed, including the Court’s rulings on the powers of the presidency itself.
April 7, 2017
Court
Nominated to the seat left vacant by Justice Antonin Scalia’s death, Gorsuch was confirmed 54–45 after the Senate changed its rules to allow debate on Supreme Court nominations to be ended by a simple majority. The Senate had declined to act on President Obama’s nominee for the seat, Merrick Garland, in 2016.
Source: Current Members · Supreme Court of the United States
October 6, 2018
Court
Nominated to succeed Justice Anthony Kennedy, long the Court’s pivotal vote, Kavanaugh was confirmed 50–48 after contentious hearings that included an allegation of sexual assault from his high-school years, which he denied.
Source: Current Members · Supreme Court of the United States
October 26, 2020
Court
Nominated after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Barrett was confirmed 52–48 eight days before the 2020 election, giving Republican appointees six of the Court’s nine seats.
Source: Current Members · Supreme Court of the United States
January 2021
Court
By the end of his first term, Trump had appointed more than 200 federal judges, including 54 judges of the federal courts of appeals, one fewer than President Obama appointed in twice the time, and had shifted the balance of several circuits to a majority of Republican appointees.
Source: How Trump compares with other recent presidents in appointing federal judges · Pew Research Center
June 24, 2022
Court
With all three of Trump’s appointees joining the majority opinion, the Court held that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion, overruled Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and returned the authority to regulate abortion to the people and their elected representatives.
Source: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022) · Supreme Court of the United States
July 1, 2024
Court
In a 6–3 opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court held that a former president has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority, at least presumptive immunity for his other official acts, and no immunity for unofficial acts. The dissenters warned that the decision placed presidents above the law.
Source: Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. 593 (2024) · Supreme Court of the United States
June 27, 2025
Court
Ruling 6–3 in an opinion by Justice Barrett on challenges to the birthright-citizenship order, the Court held that universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority Congress has given federal courts, limiting relief to what is needed to protect the plaintiffs with standing to sue. The decision did not address the order’s constitutionality.
Source: Trump v. CASA, Inc. (2025) · Supreme Court of the United States
2016–2025
Court
Critics argue that Senate Republicans applied inconsistent rules, refusing to consider Merrick Garland in an election year in 2016 but confirming Barrett weeks before the 2020 election, and that the resulting majority has overturned long-settled precedents. Supporters answer that in 2016 the presidency and the Senate were held by different parties while in 2020 they were not, that the Constitution leaves the timing of confirmations to the Senate, and that the Court is returning to the Constitution’s text and history.
Tax cuts, deregulation, a pandemic and a second round of tax legislation, with the administration’s claims and the economists’ arguments side by side.
January 30, 2017
Executive action
Executive Order 13771 required agencies to identify at least two existing regulations for elimination for every new regulation issued, and to offset the costs of new rules so that the total incremental cost of regulations issued in fiscal year 2017 would be no greater than zero.
Source: Presidential Executive Order on Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs · Trump White House Archives (National Archives)
December 22, 2017
Legislation
The most extensive rewrite of the tax code since 1986 permanently cut the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent, lowered individual rates, nearly doubled the standard deduction, expanded the child tax credit and capped the deduction for state and local taxes, with most individual provisions set to expire after 2025.
Source: Public Law 115–97 · U.S. Government Publishing Office
May 24, 2018
Legislation
Passed with bipartisan support, the law eased several requirements of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act for small and mid-sized banks, including raising the asset threshold at which banks face enhanced federal oversight.
Source: Public Law 115–174: Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act · U.S. Government Publishing Office
September 2019–February 2020
History
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent in September 2019 and again in February 2020, the lowest level since 1969. The COVID-19 pandemic then drove it to 14.8 percent in April 2020, the highest since the series began in 1948.
Source: Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey: Unemployment Rate · U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
February 4, 2020
Speech
In the 2020 State of the Union address, the President described “the great American comeback,” citing 7 million new jobs since his election and an unemployment rate he called the lowest in over half a century, and credited his administration’s reversal of its predecessor’s economic policies for the results.
Source: Remarks by President Trump in State of the Union Address · Trump White House Archives (National Archives)
March 27, 2020
Legislation
Enacted with near-unanimous support as the COVID-19 pandemic shut down much of the economy, the roughly $2 trillion relief law provided direct payments to households, expanded unemployment benefits and created the Paycheck Protection Program of forgivable loans to small businesses.
Source: Public Law 116–136: Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act · U.S. Government Publishing Office
July 4, 2025
Legislation
Known to its sponsors as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the law made permanent most of the 2017 individual income-tax cuts that were due to expire, created temporary deductions for tip and overtime income, increased funding for border enforcement and defense, and reduced projected spending on Medicaid and food assistance. It passed both chambers without Democratic support.
Source: Public Law 119–21 · U.S. Government Publishing Office
2017–2025
Legislation
Supporters credit the 2017 tax law with stronger investment, rising wages and the low unemployment of 2019, and argue that extending it in 2025 prevented a large tax increase on most households. Critics cite the Congressional Research Service’s early finding of relatively small first-year growth effects and Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the 2017 law would reduce revenue by about $1.5 trillion over ten years, and argue that the 2025 law adds substantially to deficits while its spending reductions fall hardest on lower-income households.
Source: The Economic Effects of the 2017 Tax Revision: Preliminary Observations · Congressional Research Service (via EveryCRSReport.com)
“Principled realism” in practice: summits, agreements, withdrawals, strikes and a new bargain with allies.
December 18, 2017
Executive action
The administration’s National Security Strategy described itself as “a strategy of principled realism” and identified China and Russia as “revisionist powers” competing with the United States, marking a shift in emphasis from counterterrorism toward great-power competition.
Source: National Security Strategy of the United States of America (December 2017) · Trump White House Archives (National Archives)
May 8, 2018
Executive action
The President ended U.S. participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, and ordered sanctions reimposed, arguing that the deal did not permanently close Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon or address its missile program and regional activities.
Source: Ceasing U.S. Participation in the JCPOA and Taking Additional Action to Counter Iran’s Malign Influence and Deny Iran All Paths to a Nuclear Weapon · Trump White House Archives (National Archives)
June 12, 2018
Executive action
In the first meeting between a sitting American president and a North Korean leader, Trump and Kim Jong Un signed a joint statement committing to new relations and to work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Later talks, including a 2019 summit in Hanoi, ended without an agreement.
Source: Joint Statement of President Donald J. Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un at the Singapore Summit · Trump White House Archives (National Archives)
February 29, 2020
Executive action
Signed in Doha, Qatar, the agreement committed the United States to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan within fourteen months in exchange for Taliban pledges to prevent the use of Afghan soil against the United States and its allies and to open negotiations with other Afghan parties. The withdrawal was completed under President Joe Biden in August 2021 as the Taliban took power.
Source: Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan · U.S. Department of State
September 15, 2020
Executive action
At a White House ceremony, Israel signed agreements normalizing relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, brokered by the United States; Morocco and Sudan later joined. They were the first Arab–Israeli normalization agreements since Israel’s 1994 peace treaty with Jordan.
Source: The Abraham Accords Declaration · Trump White House Archives (National Archives)
June 21, 2025
Executive action
During the war between Israel and Iran, U.S. forces struck Iranian nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan. In an address to the nation that night, the President said the facilities had been “completely and totally obliterated” and warned Iran to make peace; a ceasefire between Israel and Iran followed within days.
Source: Address to the Nation on United States Airstrikes on Iran · The American Presidency Project
June 25, 2025
Executive action
At their summit in The Hague, NATO allies committed to invest 5 percent of GDP annually by 2035 in defense and security-related spending, including at least 3.5 percent for core defense requirements, far above the 2 percent guideline allies had adopted in 2014 and a target the President had pressed for.
Source: The Hague Summit Declaration · NATO
2017–2025
Executive action
Supporters point to the Abraham Accords, higher allied defense spending and the 2025 strikes as evidence that strength and unpredictability deter adversaries and produce agreements. Critics argue that leaving the Iran deal, the Paris Agreement and other commitments made American promises less reliable, that the Doha agreement set the stage for the Taliban’s return and that public doubts about defending allies weakened deterrence; the lasting damage done to Iran’s nuclear program in 2025 was also disputed, including in intelligence assessments reported in the press.
Opposing View / Debate
America First has divided conservatives as well as the country. Each position is stated in the terms its own advocates use.
The America First trade agenda revived an older Republican tradition of protection, associated with Lincoln, McKinley and the tariffs of the 1920s, and broke with the broadly free-trade consensus that prevailed in both parties for much of the period after World War II. It also raised a constitutional question about how far a president may set tariffs without Congress, which the Supreme Court answered for the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in February 2026.
Tariffs protect industries vital to national security, answer unfair practices by China and others, encourage companies to build and hire in the United States, and give American negotiators leverage that decades of free-trade orthodoxy gave away. The renegotiation of NAFTA and the Phase One agreement with China show that the threat of tariffs can produce better terms.
Many economists across the political spectrum argue that tariffs are paid largely by American importers and consumers, provoke retaliation against farmers and exporters, and protect jobs in some industries at the expense of jobs in industries that use steel, aluminum and other imported inputs. Conservative critics add that tariffs are taxes and that industrial policy substitutes government judgment for the market’s.
Some legal scholars, conservative and liberal, argued that the Constitution gives Congress the power to lay duties and that broad emergency statutes should not be read to hand that power to the President. A majority of the Supreme Court agreed in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump; the dissenting justices read the power to “regulate … importation” in the emergency statute to include tariffs.
Immigration enforcement has been the movement’s signature issue and the subject of its most sustained legal challenges, from the 2017 travel restrictions to the 2025 birthright-citizenship order.
A nation that cannot control who enters cannot protect its citizens, its wages or its public finances. Enforcing laws Congress has already passed is a duty, not a choice, and the sharp fall in border crossings in 2025 shows that executive determination matters. Measures such as the Laken Riley Act passed with votes from both parties.
Enforcement methods have repeatedly raised due-process and humanitarian concerns, from the 2018 family separations to rapid removals under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, where the Supreme Court held in 2025 that detainees must receive notice and a chance to challenge their removal. Business and farm groups have also warned that large-scale deportations could cause labor shortages.
Defenders of the birthright-citizenship order argued that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was meant to exclude those who owe allegiance elsewhere. In Trump v. Barbara (2026), the Supreme Court held that children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are citizens at birth, relying on the clause’s roots in the common law and the repudiation of Dred Scott; three justices dissented.
Both Trump administrations advanced a strong view of Article II: that the Constitution vests the whole executive power in the President, who must be able to direct and remove those who exercise it, and that Congress has delegated broad emergency authority by statute. The Supreme Court has accepted parts of that view and rejected others.
Article II vests “the executive Power” in a single president answerable to the voters. Agencies insulated from presidential control escape democratic accountability. In Trump v. Slaughter (2026) the Court held that the Federal Trade Commission’s protection against removal violated the separation of powers, and in Trump v. United States (2024) it recognized immunity for official acts to protect an energetic executive.
Emergency declarations have been used to spend money Congress declined to appropriate, as with the 2019 border-wall emergency, and to impose tariffs Congress never enacted, a use the Court rejected in 2026. Dissenting justices warned that the 2024 immunity ruling puts presidents beyond criminal accountability for abuses of official power.
Many conservatives support presidential control of the executive branch while insisting that lawmaking and taxing belong to Congress. The Court drew roughly that line in 2026, upholding the removal power in Slaughter while holding in Learning Resources that the emergency statute did not authorize tariffs.
Every recent president has urged European allies to spend more on defense, and in 2014 the allies pledged to move toward 2 percent of GDP within a decade. Trump pressed the point harder and more publicly than his predecessors, and in June 2025 the allies agreed at The Hague to a new target of 5 percent of GDP by 2035.
Public pressure succeeded where polite requests had not. Allied spending rose substantially, the 5 percent commitment far exceeds the 2014 goal, and fairer burden-sharing makes the alliance stronger and more sustainable for American taxpayers. Trump affirmed the Article 5 commitment in Warsaw in 2017.
Public doubts about defending allies, including a 2024 campaign remark suggesting he would not protect members that failed to pay, weakened deterrence. Tariffs on allies and public disputes strained trust, and alliances are a force multiplier the United States cannot replace on its own.
The movement has divided conservatives since 2016. Its positions on trade, immigration, entitlements and foreign policy differ from the Reagan-era fusion of free markets, traditional values and global anti-communism, and its defenders and critics disagree about whether that is a break or a recovery.
Protective tariffs were Republican orthodoxy from Lincoln through McKinley and into the 1920s; President Coolidge signed the restrictive Immigration Act of 1924; and Senator Robert A. Taft’s skepticism of permanent foreign commitments shows that restraint has deep Republican roots. On this view the post–Cold War consensus of free trade, high immigration and nation-building was the real departure, and it failed working Americans.
Reagan championed free trade and described America as a city whose doors were open to newcomers. Tariffs are taxes, industrial policy is central planning by another name, and the postwar alliances were instruments of victory in the Cold War. Some social conservatives also objected when the 2024 platform left abortion policy to the states and dropped the call for a human life amendment found in earlier platforms.
The party’s coalition has shifted toward working-class voters without college degrees, which helps explain the new emphasis on trade, immigration and protecting Social Security and Medicare. On this view the movement is less a new philosophy than a response to a changed electorate.
