Trump is wrapping up 100 days of historic failure
America has seen ruinous periods, but never when the president was the one knowingly causing the ruin.
By any reasonable measure, President Donald Trump’s first 100 days will be judged an epic failure.
He has been a legislative failure. He has signed only five bills into law, none of them major, making this the worst performance at the start of a new president’s term in more than a century.
He has been an economic failure. On his watch, growth has slowed, consumer and business confidence has cratered, and markets have plunged, along with Americans’ wealth. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday that “growth has slowed in the first quarter of this year from last year’s solid pace” and that Trump’s tariffs will result in
higher inflation and slower growth.
He has been a foreign-policy failure. He said he would end wars in Gaza and Ukraine. But fighting has resumed in Gaza after the demise of the ceasefire negotiated by his predecessor, and Russia
continues to brutalize Ukraine, making a mockery of Trump’s naive overtures to Vladimir Putin.
He has been a failure in the eyes of friends, having launched a trade war against Canada, Mexico, Europe and Japan; enraged Canada with talk of annexation; threatened Greenland and Panama; and cleaved the NATO alliance.
He has been a failure in the eyes of foes, as an emboldened China menaces Taiwan, punches back hard in the trade war and spreads its global influence to fill the vacuum left by Trump’s retreat from the world.
He has been a constitutional failure. His executive actions, brazen in their disregard for the law, have been
slapped down more than 80 times already by judges, including those appointed by Republicans. He is
flagrantly defying a unanimous Supreme Court, and his appointees are facing
contempt proceedings for their abuse of the legal system.
H
e has been a failure in public opinion. This week’s Economist-YouGov poll finds
42 percent approving of his performance and 52 percent disapproving — a
16-point swing for the worse since the start of his term. Majorities say the country is on the wrong track and out of control.