By Bryan Pinero
On March 4th, the 47th U.S. President, Donald J. Trump, delivered his 2025 State of the Union speech to a joint session of Congress. President Trump addressed several issues, such as the Kabul airport attack, a bill to ban sex changes in children, and plans to fund a “Golden Dome missile defense shield.” Now that it has been six weeks since Trump took the presidency, it is time to refresh ourselves on Trump’s policies for his second term.
According to AP News, Trump has called for “creating the largest mass deportation program in history” with this recent campaign. Trump has provided limited details on the program but has spoken about empowering American police forces and using the National Guard. He’s proposed bringing back policies such as “Remain in Mexico,” where certain asylum seekers arriving from Mexico by the border return to Mexico to await their asylum hearing in U.S. immigration court.
“We’re definitely gonna see an increase in violence against immigrants. I feel like there’s going to be a big shift in how the general population views Hispanics, people of color,” said senior Sophia Mora in response to the policy.
In addition, Trump has promised to continue his 2017 tax overhaul, but with some changes; he plans to lower the corporate income tax from 21% to 15%, remove the Inflation Reduction Act, and roll back President Biden’s policy to raise the income taxes of the wealthiest Americans. Additionally, Trump has focused on proposals that remove Social Security fees, overtime wages, and tips from income taxes.
Internationally, Trump has called for a proposal to Russia for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine. He has said that the U.S. has held discussions with the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, describing them as “very good and productive.” He’s said that “there is a very good chance” that the Russia-Ukraine war will end.
“I believe it will be a good plan if it goes through as it would free up grain supplies as Ukraine is a major supplier of grain,” said senior Tahir Davidson.
Interestingly, in October, Trump said on the Truth Social social media platform that if a federal abortion ban legislation reached him, he would veto it. However, Trump has underplayed abortion as a priority for his second term, even taking credit for the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade. Due to this, it is unclear if the Trump administration would safeguard abortion bill access from any legal challenges or enforce guiding hospitals to provide abortions.
Furthermore, Trump seeks to remove the Department of Education during his second term. Despite this, he also plans to use federal funding to convince K-12 schools to implement merit pay and remove tenure.
He also wants to abolish diversity programs at all levels of education, calling to pull funding from any school “pushing Critical Race Theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children,” says AP News.
Beyond K-12, Trump wishes to take over accreditation processes for schools or educational institutions and to fine, tax, or sue large private universities if they do not meet his orders. According to the article, this is “his ‘secret weapon’ against the ‘Marxist Maniacs and lunatics’ he says [control] higher education.”
While we can’t be certain of President Trump’s actions going forward, understanding his policies and platform allows us an idea of what’s to come.
