WASHINGTON – President-elect Donald Trump unveiled plans Monday for his first 100 days in office, including proposals related to immigration, trade deals and defense policy, using a video published online to briefly outline his proposals.
Trump promised to withdraw from negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, cancel environmental restrictions put in place by President Barack Obama, ask his national security team to buttress against infrastructure attacks, have the Labor Department investigate federal worker visas and impose broad new bans on lobbying by government employees.
The six items Trump detailed Monday are all somewhat easy lifts inside Washington — because they can be done with a simple signature by Trump and do not require congressional approval.
But Trump also left out his biggest campaign promises — including promises to build a wall along the Mexican border, establish a “deportation force,” place new restrictions on immigration from some majority Muslim countries, repeal Obamacare and spend $1 trillion on infrastructure.
Unlike his items unveiled Monday, those measures would require the approval of Congress and are likely to take significantly more work.
Time and speed are very likely to be key factors as the new president looks for bigger, more durable wins in his first year. Republicans control the House and Senate, as well as the White House — but Democrats struggled to pass key items, like Obamacare, when they were in a similar position eight years ago.
Republicans hold a firm majority in the House, but could struggle in the Senate, where Democrats will hold 48 seats next year, enough to blockade Trump measures.
Trump cast his measures as completely focused on American workers.
“Whether it’s producing steel, building cars, or curing disease, I want the next generation of production and innovation to happen right here, in our great homeland: America — creating wealth and jobs for American workers,” Trump said in the two-and-a-half-minute video statement. “As part of this plan, I’ve asked my transition team to develop a list of executive actions we can take on day one to restore our laws and bring back our jobs.”
Among his first actions, the Republican said he would “issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Transpacific Partnership” and replace it with negotiating “fair bilateral trade deals.”
Trump campaigned on a promise to halt the progress of the TPP trade deal, an agreement President Barack Obama had hoped would be a part of his administration’s trade legacy.
Some of the first international reaction came from Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
“The TPP without the United States is meaningless,” he said during a press conference at the APEC summit in Peru on Monday.
“Renegotiation is impossible, because the TPP without the United States will collapse the balance of the benefit,” Abe said, according to a translator.
“As for the policy of the new US government, I don’t want to discuss with any assumption.”
On immigration, Trump promised to “investigate all abuses of visa programs that undercut the American worker,” but did not mention his signature campaign promise of building a wall along the US border with Mexico.
The items are all measures he broadly campaigned on, though Trump has begun moderating some of the toughest stances he took on the campaign trail. In an interview with “60 Minutes,” he said that he would likely keep key portions of Obamacare.
And not long after his election win, his campaign took down the web page with his earlier promise to ban all Muslims from entering the country — he has since moderated that view greatly, but left major questions on how precisely he would limit immigration.
