With the election over, Donald Trump has been named the 47th U.S. President. From promising stronger border regulations to mass deportations, his policies have been criticized heavily by multiple sources, including those he himself appointed. Here are 3 policy changes that Donald Trump is planning on doing when he gets into office in 2025.

1: Increase prices of tariffs

The Food Price Index from 1961-2022. Prices rapidly shot up near the beginning of Biden’s term when Trump’s economy was at its peak. 

Something that Trump had done in his last term was increase the price of tariffs, which are taxes on imported and exported goods. For example, according to NPR News on Jan 22, 2018, Trump added 30-50% tariffs on solar panels and washing machines that were imported from other countries. The increased prices to tariffs sound good at first, until you research and realize that the increased prices of tariffs would actually have horrible effects on the economy. 

According to taxfoundation.org, a tax non profit organization, Trump’s tariffs would increase the price on importing goods rather than exporting, meaning that the price to buy things from overseas would increase, which in turn would result in increased prices and inflation just to make up for the money losses that come from the increased purchasing prices. 

Hard evidence and statistics
According to CNBC, the tariffs that Trump wishes to implement would be 10-20% on all imports and for Chinese products, these tariffs would go up from 60-100% of the cost of the original object. Also from taxfoundation.org, there are around a dozen estimates on how this would hurt the economy by reducing work and investment.

While these tariffs are one of the returning policies from Trump’s first term as president, some of the new things he’s planning could have more devastating consequences than the economy.

2: “Drill, baby, drill.”

An oil derrick. Trump has proposed more fracking, which would have negative effects on the environment and make oil more scarce. (Source

On July 19, at the Republican National Convention, Trump said he would “end the devastating inflation crisis immediately, bring down interest rates and lower the cost of energy,” and while this sounds good on paper, this statement was immediately followed by his solution: “We will drill, baby, drill.” 

By this, Trump means he wants to increase oil production to “levels that nobody’s ever seen before.”  He says that the increase in production would have a “large-scale decline in prices”. to reduce the amount of other forms of energy being used by the U.S., but in actuality while this may decrease the price in the short term, the long term effects of the production of oil would make it a rarity, thus making it far more expensive, which would increase prices for oil based products in the long term. And as outlined by environment america.org, an environmentally friendly research group, fracking could contaminate drinking water and destroy areas such as forests and farm lands. 

In addition, Trump has also criticized efforts from Joe Biden’s administration for trying to address climate change. Trump said that rejoining the Paris Climate Accord,  was “so unfair to the United States, good for other countries, so bad for us.” The goal of the accord, or the Paris Agreement, was an international treaty to reduce the effects of climate change. 

Trump also stated that the Green New Deal energy policy Biden proposed wouldn’t benefit the U.S. at all but only benefited China. “They’ve spent trillions of dollars on things, having to do with the green new scam, that’s a scam, and that’s caused tremendous inflationary prices, in addition to the cost of energy,”

While the energy policies Biden signed were similar in some ways to the deal, contrary to Trump’s statement, the Green New Deal policy was never signed while Biden was in office. Trump’s push to bring back oil drilling and make it a more prominent resource via the use of fracking is a dangerous thing, because of how it can pollute water and destroy natural ecosystems.

3: Restructuring of School System and closing Department of Education  

In a video posted on the Agenda47 section of Trump’s website, Trump talked about key ideas regarding education. Two ideas were concerning: 1. The rights of parents to control the education of their kids and 2. bringing back prayer to schools. Trump frankly stated “We will respect the right of parents to control the education of their children,” and also said they would “support bringing back prayer to our schools.”

The second proposal would be a violation of the first amendment as outlined in the case Engel v. Vitale from 1962 that states “official recitation of prayer in schools was a violation of the first amendment.” If Trump were to mean that Prayer was to be regulated as part of the classroom, then it’d be a very sketchy move.

Another issue was that he said he would be closing down the Department of Education and have the states run the education of students. In that same video, Trump stated that one thing he’d be doing early into his term as president was “closing up the Department of Education in Washington D.C. and sending all education and education work and needs back to the States.”

This is disastrous, as the Department of Education does several things such as provide financial aid, collect data on America’s schools to be used by the public, prohibit discrimination, and allow equal access to schools. 

If Trump were to close the department of education it would mean that students could be discriminated against in education, students of color or other minorities could be disallowed access to any form of education and access to school.

In Closing

Trump’s policies for his new term in the U.S. would have bad effects on the country, from damaging the economy, the environment, and the education system, Trump has shown that his plan for the U.S. would lead the country down a bad route. 

It’s important for the people to be informed about Trump’s policies and how they could affect the country, because turning a blind eye to them wouldn’t allow people to know what’s going on in the country and the effects that could happen to them, and it wouldn’t make them unaffected, it’d simply hit them harder than those who were prepared.