Page 6A
TV TIME
East Oregonian
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
With one week left, a look at Trump’s 100-days promises
By JILL COLVIN and
CALVIN WOODWARD
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Sure
enough, the big trans-Pacifi c
trade deal is toast, climate
change action is on the ropes
and various regulations from
the Obama era have been
scrapped. It’s also a safe bet
President Donald Trump
hasn’t raced a bicycle since
Jan. 20, keeping that vow.
Add a Supreme Court
justice — no small feat —
and call these promises kept.
But where’s that wall? Or
the promised trade punish-
ment against China — will
the Chinese get off scot-free
from “the greatest theft in
the history of the world”?
What about that “easy”
replacement for Obamacare?
How about the trillion-dollar
infrastructure plan and huge
tax cut that were supposed to
be in motion by now?
Trump’s road to the White
House, paved in big, some-
times impossible pledges,
has detoured onto a byway
of promises deferred or left
behind, an AP analysis found.
Of 38 specifi c promises
Trump made in his 100-day
“contract” with voters —
“This is my pledge to you” —
he’s accomplished 10, mostly
through executive orders that
don’t require legislation, such
as withdrawing the U.S. from
the Trans-Pacifi c Partnership
trade deal.
He’s abandoned several
and failed to deliver quickly
on others, stymied at times by
a divided Republican Party
and resistant federal judges.
Of 10 promises that require
Congress to act, none has
been achieved and most have
not been introduced.
An AP reporter who
followed Trump throughout
the presidential campaign
collected scores of promises
he made along the way,
from the consequential to the
fanciful. Here are some of
them, and his progress so far:
ENVIRONMENT
• Lift President Barack
Obama’s roadblocks on the
Keystone XL and Dakota
Access pipelines.
Done. Keystone XL is
revived and construction of the
Dakota Access is completed.
• Lift restrictions on
mining coal and drilling for
oil and natural gas.
Done. Trump has unrav-
eled a number of Obama-era
restrictions and initiated a
review of the Clean Power
Plan, which aimed to restrict
greenhouse gas emissions at
coal-fi red power plants.
• Cancel payments to U.N.
climate change programs and
pull out of the Paris climate
accord
Nope. Trump has yet to
make a decision on Paris. His
aides are torn.
ECONOMY, TRADE
• Pass a tax overhaul.
“Just think about what can be
accomplished in the fi rst 100
days of a Trump administra-
tion,” he told his supporters
again and again in the fi nal
weeks of the campaign.
“We are going to have the
biggest tax cut since Ronald
Reagan.” He promised a
plan that would reduce rates
dramatically both for corpo-
rations and the middle class.
Nowhere close. Trump
has scrapped the tax plan
he campaigned on, and
his administration’s new
package is in its early stages,
not only missing the fi rst
100 days but likely to miss
a new August deadline set
by Treasury Secretary Steve
Mnuchin. Some details may
emerge this week.
• Designate China a
currency manipulator, setting
the stage for possible trade
penalties because “we’re like
the piggy bank that’s being
robbed. We can’t continue
to allow China to rape our
country, and that’s what
they’re doing.”
Abandoned. Trump says
he doesn’t want to punish
China when it is cooperating
in a response to North Korean
provocations. He also says
China has stopped manipu-
lating its currency for unfair
trade advantage. But China
was moving away from
that behavior well before he
took offi ce. Also set aside:
repeated vows to slap high
tariffs on Chinese imports.
• Announce his intention
to renegotiate or withdraw
from the North American
Free Trade Agreement.
Backtracked, in essence.
A draft of his administration’s
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
President Donald Trump poses for a portrait in the Oval
Offi ce in Washington, Friday.
plan for NAFTA proposes
only a mild rewrite. But in his
AP interview, he threatened
anew to terminate the deal
if his goals are not met in a
renegotiation.
• Direct his commerce
secretary and trade represen-
tative to identify all foreign
trading abuses that unfairly
hurt American workers.
Done. Trump has initiated
plenty of studies over the past
100 days.
• Slap a 35 percent tariff
on goods from companies
that ship production abroad.
Force companies like Apple
and Nabisco to make their
products in the U.S.
Nope.
• Embark on a massive
$1 trillion effort to rebuild
the country’s infrastructure,
including airports, roads and
bridges.
Not yet.
SECURITY, DEFENSE
and IMMIGRATION
• Immediately suspend the
Syrian refugee program.
Trump tried, but the fi rst
version of his travel ban
was blocked by the courts.
A revised version dropped
references to Syrian refugees
entirely. That was blocked,
too. And he has yet to mention
another campaign pledge:
to deport Syrian refugees
already settled in the U.S.
• Inform his generals they
have 30 days to submit a new
plan for defeating the Islamic
State group.
Trump did indeed order
up a plan. It’s unclear what it
is since it has yet to be made
public.
• Suspend immigration
from “terror-prone regions”
where he says vetting is too
diffi cult.
Trump’s effort to bar immi-
gration temporarily from some
Muslim-majority countries has
been stymied by courts.
• Implement “extreme”
immigration vetting tech-
niques.
In progress. The Home-
land Security Department
is considering a number of
measures, like asking for
visitors’ phone contacts and
social media passwords.
• Build an “impenetrable
physical wall” along the
length of the southern border,
and make Mexico pay for it.
The government has
been soliciting bids and test
sections could be built as
soon as this summer. Mexico
is not paying for this work.
• End federal funding to
“sanctuary cities” — places
where local offi cials are
considered by Washington to
be insuffi ciently cooperative
in arresting or detaining
people in the country illegally.
The Justice Department
has threatened to do so, but
there are legal limits.
• Immediately deport the
estimated 2 million “criminal
aliens” living in the country,
including gang members,
in joint operations with
local, state, and federal law
enforcement.
Deportations have not
increased. Arrests of people
in the U.S. illegally are up
and illegal border crossings
are signifi cantly down.
• Cancel visas for foreign
countries that won’t take back
criminals deported by the U.S.
There’s been no discus-
sion of this yet.
• “Immediately terminate
President Obama’s two illegal
executive amnesties,” one of
which allows young people
brought into the country as
children to stay and work.
Trump has made no
effort to end the program,
even though it would take a
single phone call. In fact, he
told AP these young people
can “rest easy” and not fear
deportation.
THE SWAMP
• Ask agency and
department heads to identify
job-killing regulations for
elimination.
Done.
• Propose a constitutional
amendment to impose term
limits on Congress.
Nope.
• “Drain the swamp.”
On his pledge to curb the
power of special interests,
Trump has so far used an
executive order to prohibit
political appointees from
lobbying the government
for fi ve years after serving
in his administration and
to ban outgoing offi cials
from representing foreign
governments. But he’s
discontinuing the Obama-era
practice of releasing White
House visitor logs, restoring
a shroud over what special
interests are getting in his
gates. He’s also issued
at least one waiver to his
lobbying ban, allowing a
White House budget adviser
to go advocate for a business
trade group
• Impose a hiring freeze
on
federal
employees,
excluding military and public
safety staffers.
This was one of Trump’s
fi rst actions. But the freeze
has since been lifted.
• Require that two regula-
tions be eliminated for each
new one imposed.
Trump signed an order
requiring agencies to identify
two existing regulations for
every new one imposed —
though there is nothing in the
order that requires the two to
be eliminated.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
• End the strategy of
nation-building and regime
change.
Trump’s foreign policy
posture is still in its early
stages, though he has already
intervened in Syria and has
escalated rhetoric against
North Korea.
• Move the U.S. Embassy
in Israel to Jerusalem.
The administration says it
is studying the issue.
• Negotiate the release of
all U.S. prisoners held in Iran,
even before taking offi ce.
Renegotiate or leave the Iran
nuclear deal.
No prisoners have been
released. The administration is
studying the nuclear deal and
Trump told AP “it’s possible”
the U.S. will withdraw.
• Create a safe zone in
Syria for refugees, paid for
by the Gulf states.
Not yet.
HEALTH CARE,
COURTS and GUNS
• “My fi rst day in offi ce,
I’m going to ask Congress
to put a bill on my desk
getting rid of this disastrous
law and replacing it with
reforms that expand choice,
freedom,
affordability.
You’re going to have such
great health care at a tiny
fraction of the cost. It’s
going to be so easy.”
The bill to replace
“Obamacare” was pulled from
Congress because it lacked
enough support. He will try
again with a revised plan.
• Begin selecting a new
Supreme Court judge to fi ll
the court’s vacancy.
Done. Trump nominated
Neil Gorsuch and the Senate
approved him.
• Eliminate gun-free zones
in schools and on military
bases.
Nope.