Trump’s First Month: Victory at Home, Danger Abroad

By Matthew Continetti

Saturday, February 22, 2025

 

As Trump delivers on the economy and the border, foreign policy threatens gains.

 

Ignore the Beltway Sturm und Drang: One month into his second term, Donald Trump has advanced his coalition’s priorities of changing Washington, tackling inflation, and sealing the border. Yet these gains could vanish if Trump succumbs to the perennial second-term temptation of foreign policy overreach.

 

For now, Trump’s position is secure because he’s delivered. His job approval rating remains above water, 49 percent to 47 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls. Congress’s approval rating has spiked as Republicans confirm Trump’s cabinet and pursue his agenda. The GOP also maintains its edge in voter identification.

 

As I write, Trump has issued 108 executive actions. They are aligned with the electorate’s aims as revealed in last year’s exit polling. What did the electorate want? A point-by-point refutation of the Biden years. Which is what we’re getting.

 

The political class can’t — or won’t — grasp the extent of public dissatisfaction with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Seventy percent of voters in 2024 said the country was headed in the wrong direction, according to the Fox News Voter Analysis. Eighty-three percent of voters said they would like to see substantial change or complete and total upheaval (my italics) in how the country is run. Fifty-two percent of voters said Trump would bring positive change, whereas 48 percent of voters said Harris would do so.

 

The CNN exit poll asked voters which candidate qualities mattered most. The top two responses were the ability to lead and the capacity to bring needed change. Trump trounced Harris on both qualities: 66 percent to 33 percent on leadership and a staggering 74 percent to 24 percent on disruption. The message wasn’t subtle.

 

Elon Musk’s DOGE may be acting fast and breaking things, as befits its Silicon Valley parentage, but its mission is consistent with the public desire to stop Washington’s slide into stagnation and decline. And Trump’s notable executive orders on affirmative action, DEI, gender ideology, and paper straws fit into the MAGA coalition paradigm of uprooting politically correct, net-zero nostrums that Biden and Harris embedded in government.

 

The most important issue facing the country in 2024, according to the Fox News Voter Analysis, was the economy and jobs. Trump beat Harris on the issue by 24 points. Two-thirds of voters said the economy was not so good or poor, and they voted overwhelmingly for Trump. Seventy-five percent of voters in the CNN exit poll said inflation caused their families severe or moderate hardship in the past year. These voters also went for Trump. The fate of the Trump majority depends on stable prices.

 

Last month’s inflation spike exposed the continuing threat. The executive branch can help reduce inflation by lowering regulatory burdens, increasing domestic energy, and cutting spending. Trump has signed presidential directives to accomplish these tasks. Meanwhile, the legislative branch can carry out a similar mission while also pursuing wage growth through tax reform.

 

Which is why Trump’s support for one “big, beautiful” House bill is significant. The president understands that his legacy rests on improving living standards for working- and middle-class Americans. He understands that his economic program hinges on a 218–215 House majority that could crumble before the next Congress. He understands that the House proposal isn’t mere legislation. It’s survival.

 

The 2024 electorate’s second-most important issue was immigration. Here, too, Trump demolished Harris. Public opinion on immigration shifted because of Biden’s open border, giving Trump leeway to build the wall, deport illegal immigrants, and fight narcos and human traffickers. The most recent data show that illegal border crossings have declined by 90 percent since Trump returned to the Oval Office. He’s been so successful in deterring illegal immigration that the media rarely bring up the subject.

 

For Trump to succeed, he needs to enact his domestic agenda in 2025 and hold the GOP House in 2026. (The map makes a Democratic Senate takeover unlikely next year.) The greatest danger to these objectives is a foreign policy that ends in trade wars, military conflict, and wasted political capital.

 

So far, Trump’s tariff threats are more abstract than real. Let’s hope they stay that way. A low-tax, low-reg, cheap-energy economy can endure mild protectionism. But beggar-thy-neighbor tariffs and a scrambled supply chain make no one wealthier. They just make government more powerful.

 

Voters chose Trump to improve the economy and close the southern border. Acquiring Greenland — as much as this columnist loves the idea — wasn’t on the menu. Nor was making Canada the 51st state, retaking the Panama Canal, or owning the Riviera of the Middle East on the Gaza Strip. Just 22 percent of voters in a recent Quinnipiac poll support Trump’s plan for Gaza.

 

And while it’s true that Trump campaigned on ending the Ukraine war, he risks losing popularity and support if an agreement with Russia makes America look weak. Eighty-one percent of voters in the Quinnipiac poll said the United States shouldn’t trust Vladimir Putin. The voters are right.

 

Second-term presidents often pay a price for foreign policy hubris. Reagan had Iran-Contra. Bush’s surge in Iraq succeeded militarily but cost him politically. Obama’s deal with Iran endangered America. Trump, more powerful than ever, seems tempted to join their company. The message from voters was simpler: raise wages, seal borders, drain the swamp. Everything else is a distraction.