Trump has had an incredible run, but there may be impending repercussions

With his extensive policy victories and uncontested personal power plays, President Donald Trump is riding high nearly seven months into his second term, encroaching on every aspect of American society to impose his will and vision.

But his presidency may be about to enter a new phase, as the policy and political consequences of his relentless pace begin to unfold and the lives of Americans and millions overseas feel the impact of his relentless ambition.

He completed everything in a flash and all at once.

Slaying his biggest monsters, like global free trade, and more domestic objectives, like reintroducing a Presidential Fitness Test in schools or imprinting his architectural style on the White House, are his obsessions.

His quest on trade is typical of Trump. His lifetime personal fixation with an economic theory derided by professionals led him to implement the harshest import tariffs since the Great Depression. Although he claims to be recovering manufacturing, federal data shows that the industry lost a net 14,000 jobs in May and June.

Inflation may also be accelerated by the tariffs, which impose a levy on all consumers.

Following through on a pledge that helped him regain the White House, the president has secured the southern border.

As the government constructs armed camps to house undocumented migrants and federal officials in masks remove their neighbors from the streets, would Americans suddenly shudder at his harsh deportation tactics?

By passing his “big, beautiful bill” and prolonging his first-term tax cuts, Trump achieved a legislative victory. The White House maintains that the action will spur rapid job creation and economic expansion. However, if it closes rural hospitals and thousands of people lose their Medicaid, how will this gift to the wealthy appear?

Robert Kennedy Jr., Trump’s secretary of health and human services, is promising to “Make America Healthy Again.” However, there are serious concerns, particularly if Kennedy’s decision to revoke half a billion dollars in funding for vaccines similar to those that stopped the Covid-19 pandemic exposes the US to a new public health emergency that could result in thousands of fatalities.

In the meantime, Trump is about to make his most significant foreign policy decision to date when he welcomes Russian President Vladimir Putin to Alaska on Friday in an attempt to salvage his botched attempt to put an end to the conflict in Ukraine. A breakthrough might bring him the much-desired Nobel Prize and save thousands of lives. But if he caves to Putin’s demands, Trump could make a historic error that paves the way to future Russian expansionism and shatters his White House-conjured image as “the president of peace.”

Exercising authority for questionable reasons

There’s a common thread running through most of Trump’s actions — whether it’s browbeating political enemies and weaponizing the legal system or forcing trade concessions out of small and vulnerable nations. He constantly evaluates his power over an opponent and tries to enforce his will.

Trump is alienating partners that were force multipliers of US global influence, even though displaying American strength can be helpful. What will happen the next time America turns to its allies for support, such as following a 9/11-style attack? Will disgruntled citizens permit the leaders he intimidated to jump to America’s aid? Trump meanwhile may also be pushing angry allies into the arms of a new superpower — China. And his failure so far to wring trade concessions out of a Beijing that keeps dealing its rare-earth metals trump card may render his broader trade agenda hollow.

Trump is taking big and dangerous chances. Maybe a lot will pay off. But history is full of presidents who misread their mandate and overreached.

The upcoming months may reveal whether political gravity will take over if some of Trump’s most ambitious promises have unfavorable effects.

In polls, the president is already trailing. Most studies place his approval rating in the mid-to-low 40s. Meanwhile, a rift in Trump’s base has been revealed for the first time as a result of the administration’s inability to resolve the controversy surrounding its refusal to make the Jeffrey Epstein files public.

A perilous national moment could arrive if public opinion turns sharply against Trump and Republicans seem about to pay the price in next year’s midterm elections. This, after all, is a president who believes he has almost unlimited power and tried to steal an election he lost in 2020.

Trump’s increasing authoritarianism is seen in his use of shaky national emergencies to exercise broad presidential authority. Republican government fundamentals are already in jeopardy due to his attacks on the courts, media, universities, and officials from past administrations. Trump is becoming more and more like the inexplicable whims of kings, which is why this occurs a year before he preside over the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution.

Already, the president is taking precautions to avoid a political reaction.

His recent actions, such as dismissing the government official in charge of unemployment statistics and trying to create five new US House seats in Texas through an unprecedented mid-cycle gerrymander, appear to be attempts to defy reality and avoid facing the political fallout if the economy falters.

The most notable political changes made by Trump

The most striking illustration of Trump’s ability to alter political and economic norms is the imposition of tariffs. America built a global free trade system over many years. In a few weeks, Trump has ruined it.

In an interview with CNBC last week, Trump referred to the money coming into the government via import taxes as “trillions of dollars.” Although Trump never acknowledges it, American consumers—who are already fed up with the increased cost of housing and groceries—will ultimately bear the penalty of tariffs.

Every American will benefit, according to the administration, as the world economy adapts to tariff rates that begin at 10% and go considerably higher for some nations. Trump has so far avoided the worst effects of changes that nearly all economists oppose.

Republican pollster, strategist, and CNN political analyst Kristen Soltis Anderson stated on Sunday’s “State of the Union” that “at this time, the tariffs are not necessarily creating the kind of economic chaos that I think was forecast.” However, if rising prices trickle down to customers, things will change. “It is hard to message your way out of a situation … if prices are really going up, if these retailers are saying, ‘We have been absorbing some of this for a little while, but we’re going to have to stop.’ The possibility of political backlash is real.

After threatening allies like Japan, Indonesia, and the European Union into signing agreements that disproportionately favored the US, Trump has been promoting trade agreements during his days-long victory lap. However, the fine print of these agreements implies that they are not as great as they appear. The anticipated foreign investment in the United States, worth hundreds of billions of dollars, is dubious. Foreign governments can’t force firms to spend in the US. And most of the deals do not, as Trump claims, throw open protected sectors of foreign markets to US goods.

At best, they contain promises that the United States and its trading partners will cooperate to discover answers. Additionally, foreign countries have an incentive to locate non-American markets because they may still trade freely among themselves even when commerce with the US is subject to tariffs.

Trump’s trademark subject, immigration, which twice helped him win the presidency but resulted in harsh enforcement measures that alienated moderates during his first term, is another dangerous area. In his second, the strategy has been much harsher. Undocumented migrant flights have departed for repressive prisons in El Salvador. Some migrants’ rights to due process have been violated. And the administration plans more migrant camps like the already notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida. This has been accompanied by performative toughness to appeal to Trump’s most hardline voters.

But Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, a border-state Democrat, warned Sunday that Trump had gone too far. “President Biden’s border security strategy was failing. And I pushed the administration on that,” Kelly said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “But we have now swung drastically in another direction. And I don’t think this is what the American people want either.”

According to a CNN poll conducted last month, 55% of participants said the president had overreached himself in deporting illegal immigrants. Since February, that figure has increased by ten points. Majorities also oppose the construction of big detention centers to hold arrested migrants and the billions of dollars in spending that was included in Trump’s big policy bill.

Trump’s biggest legislative accomplishment throughout his two terms was passing that measure. Considering the GOP’s minuscule House majority, it was more impressive. However, it’s also among Trump’s least popular actions to date. Approximately 60% of Americans are against the plan, and most believe it would have a negative impact on the economy.

Trump is an individual politician who has benefited from a Democratic Party that lacks a platform and a Republican Party that follows his lead.

However, there may be an impending reckoning unless Trump defied political logic as he was shattering the model of the presidency.

History will remember his second term based on what transpires next.