And how the world has reacted…
Donald Trump was elected President on 8th November 2016, his inauguration taking place just days ago on January 20th.
Since being elected Trump has done what we all knew he would. He has already, for example, gone back on a considerable amount of campaign promises, from the infamous ‘great border wall’ that he insisted he would get Mexico to pay for, to promising to ‘drain the swamp’ of corporate power in Washington, and then appointing millionaires as the top positions in his administration.
It’s no surprise that Trump’s approval rating has gone down since becoming president – something he was quick to explain as ‘rigged’. Shocker.
It seems obvious, however, when you read over his failed campaign promises and even more so, when you look at what he has actually achieved. Plus, the fact that his first day as President saw the biggest international protest in history against his policies doesn’t bode well for his popularity.
He has been President-Elect for just over two months and President for less than a week and here are the seven worrying things that have already happened…
1. Obamacare is already in the process of being repealed The first order signed by Donald Trump on the Monday morning of his presidency was of course related to Obamacare. Having previously promised to repeal the federal statute enacted by Obama in 2010, Trump was keen to get proceedings started on day one. Despite the success of The Affordable Care Act, which grants health insurance to all Americans and significantly reduces the cost of healthcare, Trump signed an order to ‘minimise’ its economic impact that morning.
2. Climate change doesn’t exist apparently Donald Trump famously rubbished global warming as a Chinese hoax, something he was clearly thinking about when selecting his cabinet. The new Head of the Environmental Protection Agency is Scott Pruitt, a climate change sceptic who has actually sued the Environmental Protection Agency…14 times. To add insult to injury, when Trump went on to revamp the official White House website, he actually removed all mention of climate change.
3. Women’s reproductive rights have come under threat Trump’s election has fueled the anti-abortion movement, with both him and Vice President Mike Pence being firmly Pro-Life. With US legislators supposedly introducing over 400 measures in an attempt to limit abortion access in 2016 and Trump hoping to overturn the Roe v Wade Supreme Court ruling in order to make abortion in the US illegal, this is said to be ‘the strongest the pro-life movement has been since 1973.’ He has just reinstated former President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 Mexico City policy (AKA ‘the global gag rule’) which means that U.S. funding to nongovernmental organisations around the world is prohibited if they offer/advise/include abortion in their services.
The world has had the last laugh though, with Planned Parenthood (an organisation Trump hopes to defund) seeing a huge spike in donations, receiving 40 times its normal rate. The best part is that the majority of these donations were made in VP Mike Pence’s name, meaning he receives a certificate of thanks every time a donation is made.
4. A nuclear arms race is on the cards Trump worried a lot of us last month when he talked about re-igniting a nuclear arms race. In late December when tweeting his plans for America, he included his hopes to ‘greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability, going on to announce in an interview on MSNBC, ‘Let there be an arms race, because we will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all.’ No Donald, no.
5. Hate crime has increased dramatically The days following Trump’s election saw a huge spike in US hate crime, with the Southern Poverty Law Centre recording over 1000 cases, a figure that they would usually expect to see over six months. The crimes, ranging from swastika graffiti to attacks on synagogues spiked immediately but have since balanced out. The figures, however, still show that the level of hate crime is a lot higher than it was pre-election.
6. The dollar has surged but the peso has dived Donald Trump’s election caused the value of the US dollar to surge dramatically. His campaign included lots of pro-business promises, which since his winning have helped the US dollar to reach a 14-year high, with the stock market index going up by 5.8 per cent. Whilst the US dollar has gone up, however, Trumps’s plans to impose tariffs on Mexican products and to move US factories out of Mexico have caused the Mexican peso to hit an all time low.
7. Trump took on his own intelligence agencies Yes, Trump threatened to go to war with his own intelligence agencies, repeatedly bashing the CIA, accusing them of fabricating intelligence and even comparing them to ‘Nazi Germany.’
All eyes are on Donald Trump to see what his next implementation will be...
