First 100 days: How Trump has reshaped America in his second term

As of noon Wednesday, 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term will have passed, completing his political comeback but by no means marking the end of his quest to “make America great again.”

Trump 2.0 has moved much more aggressively across nearly every policy area, governing largely by the executive orders his backers have cheered at every turn and detractors have characterized as a return to the nightmare of his first term.

Here’s a look at how Trump’s (second) first 100 days have played out across the major policy areas so far:

Immigration

If there was one issue where the American public clearly trusted Trump over 2024 Democratic opponent Kamala Harris, it was immigration. Former President Joe Biden’s administration presided over a record number of illegal U.S.-Mexico border crossings, an issue the public perceived them as being unable or unwilling to address.

Trump moved to secure the border with a flurry of executive orders during his first days back in office, such as restoring the “Remain in Mexico” policy for asylum seekers, deploying military personnel to the border, designating Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and resuming the construction of his signature border wall. U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows monthly border encounters dropped from an average of 155,000 during Biden’s term to about just 7,180 in March — a 95% reduction.

Rep. Andy Harris, a Republican who represents Maryland’s Eastern Shore, said Trump’s success on slowing illegal border crossings has been “better than I could have ever expected.”

“I think the president has achieved stunning success on closing the southern border and beginning a deportation process, especially for the gang members and criminals who have been allowed in over the last four years,” Harris told The Sun.

But as demonstrated by the case of mistakenly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the push to protect America from what Trump calls an “invasion” by foreign nationals has a controversial side.

Abrego Garcia, who entered the U.S. illegally from El Salvador as a teenager but was granted “withholding of removal” status and legal working papers by a judge in 2019, was arrested in Maryland last month and ended up in a notorious Salvadoran prison with MS-13 gang members despite having no criminal record. A unanimous Supreme Court decision ruled the Trump administration must “facilitate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. Still, he remains in a different prison in El Salvador following a visit by Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen on his behalf.

Despite this ruling, the Trump administration seems to perceive that it has broad public support for deporting people who entered the country illegally. Officials close to the president have doubled down on describing Abrego Garcia as a gang member — which his attorneys dispute — while attacking Van Hollen for ignoring the case of Rachel Morin, a Maryland mother killed by a Salvadoran fugitive in 2023.

Economy

Trump also rode into the White House on a wave of voters upset with Biden’s economy, which saw a nearly double-digit inflation rate in June 2022 before gradually declining in the later years of the Biden administration. It continued to dip under Trump through March, although Trump’s implementation of widespread tariffs led to economic and stock market uncertainty.

Trump declared April 2 to be “Liberation Day” and announced “reciprocal” tariffs against dozens of countries. While the White House has maintained that the tariffs will improve trade deficits with countries “ripping off” the U.S., economists and critics worry that the cost burden will be passed on to American consumers.

Rep. Johnny Olszewski, a Democrat representing Baltimore and Carroll counties, has maintained a daily social media counter of the time he says House Republicans have not introduced a bill to lower costs. He believes Trump’s tariffs are actively “assaulting the pocketbook” of American families and could cost them up to $3,000 per year.

“This is in pretty stark opposition to an administration that pledged to lower costs on Day 1,” Olszewski told The Sun of Trump’s tariffs.

But Harris spoke of the tariffs as bargaining chips that could encourage more investment in American manufacturing.

“I think those threats have worked. I think that we’re going to start seeing a lot of manufacturing infrastructure being reestablished in the United States, and I think that’s good for our economy,” Harris said.

Government cuts

Trump’s elevation of world’s richest man Elon Musk to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency has proven much more controversial. Musk has become the figurehead of the administration’s cuts across the federal workforce, such as shuttering the U.S. Agency for International Development, slashing staffers at the Social Security Administration, and implementing — and later walking back — a $3 trillion federal funding freeze.

While Republicans have framed the cuts as necessary to root out “waste, fraud and abuse” in government, Democrats have sought to capitalize on the chaotic nature of federal employee layoffs.

According to a new website launched by the Maryland Democratic Party, more than $1.65 billion has been cut from “critical” programs in the state. This includes about $480 million in education-related funds and nearly $298 million in health care money, while the site also notes that 11,619 “public servants” in Maryland have been fired.

Trump-led cuts have also impacted institutions’ ability to access federal grant funds, which has weighed heavily on the world of higher education. Johns Hopkins University joined dozens of other schools in a February lawsuit challenging the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) indirect cost rate cuts, arguing NIH’s attempt to cut down on administrative costs would jeopardize about 600 clinical trials for cancer, pediatrics and more.

During a call marking Trump’s 100-day mark with other Democratic mayors, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said the administration “picked up the hacksaw” by pursuing cuts without considering their widespread societal impacts.

“From the beginning, instead of bringing real solutions to the table, this administration picked up the hacksaw, and what we are seeing right now is the fabric of American society such as the programs and safety nets that people rely on in cities around this country, are being pulled from under them,” Scott said Monday. “They slash programs that support research, that feed the elderly, fund our schools, and now even prevent violence within our cities.”

Social policy

Trump has also wielded the federal government’s power to bring states and institutions in line with his worldview, dividing Democrats over how hard to fight back.

Upon returning to office, Trump wasted no time in pardoning nearly 1,600 rioters convicted in relation to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack.

“He’s taken … really irresponsible actions, like pardoning January 6 individuals who were convicted [of] doing terrible things, like assaulting police officers,” Olszewski told The Sun.

Other early executive orders targeted diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) mandates and banned transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports. Baltimore sued Trump over the former order, while Trump sued Maine over the latter, citing Gov. Janet Mills’ refusal to “keep men out” of female athletic divisions.

The administration has also wielded its power against Ivy League universities like Harvard and Columbia, which saw a rise in antisemitic behavior during protests against the war in Gaza last year. By freezing $2.2 billion in federal funds to Harvard, Trump wanted the university to stop recognizing some student clubs, implement “merit-based” hiring practices and audit “ideological diversity” among faculty on campus.

Harris applauded Trump’s move to freeze funding to universities like Harvard, arguing the schools should do more to address instances of antisemitism on campus.

“I’m really surprised that [private] universities feel they’re somehow entitled to federal taxpayer dollars and have advanced that idea through the court system,” Harris said.

Foreign policy

Trump’s bold agenda has created monumental shifts for America on the world stage, most recently evident by the results of Monday’s Canadian election. Despite looking dead in the water just months ago, the Liberal Party remains in power after rallying voters against Trump’s tariffs and threats to annex Canada into the U.S.

On Europe, Trump has been much more critical of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as he leads his country in a war against Russia. The tension was highlighted by a Feb. 28 Oval Office meeting during which Trump and Vice President accused Zelenskyy of being “disrespectful” toward the U.S. and ripped him for not wearing a suit.

The administration has also taken a harder stance against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. This conflict was at the center of the “Signalgate” controversy, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz accidentally included a reporter in a Signal group chat discussing details about targeted airstrikes.

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