Trump’s time in office brings frustration

Paul Jonas, Staff Reporter

Everyone knows about Donald Trump’s story: a former businessman and television personality turned politician that shocked the world when he defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton to win the Presidential election on November 8, 2016. To many, however, his blunt honesty when debating prove to his naysayers that he may not be fit to be the leader of the free world.

On the other hand, his charisma and optimistic claims to “Make America Great Again” make people believe in his ability. Regardless of personal opinions, there is one fact about Donald Trump the cannot be debated: he is the 45th president of the United States of America, and he will be at least until the next election in 2020.

The first 250+ days of the Trump administration have been nothing short of interesting, with many people unsatisfied with the progress the Commander in Chief had made thus far. According to the BBC’s article, “Trump tracker: How much has the president achieved so far?” the president has had one of the lowest approval ratings of any president, (39 percent) halfway through his presidency, a clear indicator of how much he has fulfilled his promises.

However, the approval rating doesn’t tell the whole story. Despite Trump’s inability to get Congressional approval to build his border wall, illegal immigration has been cut down being “still well ahead of the Obama era, with the number of illegal immigrants…down by 46 percent in July compared with the same period last year,” according to Stephen Dinan and Andrea Noble of the Washington Times.

This measure is partnered by the amount of immigrants deported being “up 28 percent compared with the same period last year under President Obama.” Although he has made a positive stride statistically, many people view his ideals on building a border wall and his “Muslim Ban” as unfair and unjust. These ideals have also partially strained relations with foreign countries.

Maintaining good relations with other countries will always be an important task of any President. One criticism of Trump’s Presidency has been his disruption of these relationships between the U.S. and its allies. China, Australia and even Russia have all felt their respective relationships degrade in the wake of Trump’s administration.

Russia in particular had always been considered Trump’s biggest ally pre-election. CBSNews states that; “Better relations with the U.S. require Russia to stop propping up Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.” Trump declared that Putin’s support of chemical bombs usage was “like an animal.”

Russia is refusing to revoke their praise of al-Assad, which indicates that Russia may no longer be as big of an ally as America thought. So relations have dropped, and illegal immigration has decreased, but what of the most important of Trump’s promises: Health care?

As of September 13, the Senate is split. According to Robert Pear of The New York Times, in one Senate office the Democratic Party gathered to “embrace what was a huge expansion of Medicare, large enough to open the popular, government-run health program to all Americans.”

In the other Senate office building, a smaller group of Republican senators are “together to take one last stab at dismantling the Affordable Care Act,” both of which are of the far extremes of healthcare. Pear thinks they are far from becoming a reality. So after all this time, Trump and his administration have yet to make a significant impact on the current healthcare system.

Trump may have had a miraculous victory to secure the Presidency, but his time in office sparked controversy. Despite making strides on his agenda towards immigration, many think he has not fulfilled on a majority of what Republican voters elected him for.