Now that we’re three years in, people are seeing that Trump has done some things that many of us don’t agree with, but he has also done some pretty incredible things while he’s been sitting in the White House. Here’s a list of the 10 greatest things while President Donald Trump has had control of the country.It goes without saying that the prison system in the United States is absolutely flawed. It’s an unfortunate fact that the prisoners in this country are treated more like animals than humans, so President Trump decided to take the situation into his own hands. With the introduction of the First Step Act, President Trump expanded earned-time credits for prisoners, created more chances for them to slowly transition from prison back into society through halfway homes, took time off sentences for vocational achievements, as well as, created better approaches to mandatory sentencing that retroactively decreased drug sentences of ridiculous length. Not to mention, 63-year-old Alice Johnson, who was pardoned by Trump after sitting in prison ever since 1996 for drug charges.
It’s kind of ironic that President Trump has embraced gun control the way that he has, especially when you think about the NRA’s continuous accusations that Obama was going to confiscate all of the guns. Even though gun sales increased, Trump used already granted powers to ban bump stocks, which are used to allow semi-automatic rifles to mimic automatic ones. The shooter in the deadliest mass shooting in United States history, the Las Vegas massacre, used a bump stock to carry out his attack. Even though he has promised to veto an expansion of background checks, there’s no denying that he eliminated one of the deadliest tools on the market.
On February 5, 2019, President Trump delivered a State of the Union Address to announce his goal to end the HIV epidemic in the United States within 10 years. In order to achieve this goal, President Trump implemented the “Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for America will leverage the powerful data and tools now available to reduce new HIV infections in the United States by 75 percent in five years and by 90 percent by 2030.”
It may come as a surprise to you to find out that President Trump has stuck to more than half of the promises he made while on the campaign trail. One of those promises was that he would donate his presidential salary instead of keeping it, which is exactly what he has done. He has gifted his paychecks to the National Park Service, the U.S. Education Department, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Transportation Department as well as the Department of Veterans Affairs. Trump also donated $100,000 to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in memory of his older brother’s struggle with alcohol. If Trump continues this pattern, he’ll actually surpass the number of donations that Obama made by 2021.
When President Trump’s administration made the trade deal with Mexico it came with specific regulations regarding labor laws. Included in the new set of laws were the rights that were given to workers for collective bargaining. Previously, while U.S. companies sought cheap labor, NAFTA helped keep unionization out of Mexico. Trump’s new deal, USMCA, was created to de-incentivize transferring jobs beyond the southern border by improving the lot of Mexican workers. This is a major effort to fight the corporations who are trying to save money at labor’s expense outside of the country.
Trump has actually done a pretty great job at making sure that Americans stuck overseas are safely brought back home. In one month, Trump’s administration was able to successfully negotiate the return of three Americans who were jailed in North Korea, and a U.S. national who was being imprisoned in Venezuela. According to the White House, Trump has brought home a total of 17 Americans during his presidency.
As of October 2018, the unemployment rate in the United States stood at 3.7%, which is the lowest that it’s been since 1969. Trump can boast that the number of unemployment for members of the black community has gone down to 5.9%, which is the lowest that it’s been since the 1970s. Female unemployment is currently at a 65 year low.
Fortunately, Trump’s business sense has allowed him to achieve win after win on the country’s economic front. Job growth continues to rise to around 200,000 per month, and the expect 2019 slowdown hasn’t shown its face as of yet. In fact, the first-quarter growth read that the economy actually expanded at a rate of 3.2% in the first three months of 2019, which is pretty nice considering that the government was in a shutdown at the time.
One of the biggest reasons why Trump was elected over Clinton was his “America First” jobs message in states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Throughout recent years, America’s manufacturing industry has suffered greatly because of foreign Asian competitors. Ever since Trump has taken office, he has followed through with his promise of bringing jobs back into the United States. According to Whitehouse.gov, 304,000 manufacturing jobs have been created during Trump’s time in the White House.
One of the world’s largest and most violent street gangs is the MS-13, and Trump has launched a crackdown to take away their control. According to El Faro newspaper, the MS-13, who are well known for their brutal murders, is believed to have an annual revenue of $31.2 million. In 2017, the United States worked alongside Central American law enforcement to file criminal charges against more than 4,000 members of MS-13. Trump created some controversy in May of 2018 when he emailed reporters and referred to members of MS-13 as “animals.” Trump’s email read: “President Trump’s entire administration is working tirelessly to bring these violent animals to justice.”
