President Donald Trump speaks during a North Carolina campaign rally. Photo / AP
President Donald Trump speaks during a North Carolina campaign rally. Photo / AP
President Donald Trump swept into office nearly four years ago as a populist outsider who promised to get things done quickly on behalf of the American people through sheer force of will and unrivalled knowledge about the art of the deal.
He has checked off some items on his to-do list.
Trump pushed through the most significant overhaul of the US tax system since President Ronald Reagan. Trump, as he said he would, tilted the Supreme Court further to the right with confirmation of two conservative justices and likely a third, Amy Coney Barrett, in the coming days. His promise to get tough on illegal immigration has resulted in a surge in migrant apprehensions at the US-Mexico border.
But Trump has also faced the same hard truth that each of his White House predecessors learned: governing is rarely easy.
A look at some of the president's unfinished business as he asks voters for a second term in the White House:
Healthcare
Trump has managed to undermine President Barack Obama's healthcare law, but has fallen far short of his promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
His administration has managed to dismantle parts of the law. Enrolment periods have been shortened, some subsidies were ended and the individual mandate — the fine for people without health insurance — has been eliminated.
President Donald Trump's attempts to dismantle Obamacare have met strong resistance. Photo / AP
Trump says he's still focused on replacing the ACA with something "much better and much less expensive". He said in an interview with CBS that "it will be so good" if the Supreme Court puts an end to Obamacare when the justices hear challenges to it next month.
The number of uninsured Americans has risen under Trump's watch. According to Census Bureau data released last month, nearly 30 million people in the US lacked coverage at some point during 2019, about 1 million more than in the previous year.
Endless wars
Trump has made only modest progress toward meeting his 2016 pledge to bring home all troops from what he calls America's "endless wars".
When Trump took over the White House, the number of US forces in Afghanistan stood at about 8400, and there were about 6800 troops in Iraq.
Within a year, the number of troops in Afghanistan climbed to about 15,000. Trump approved commanders' requests for additional troops to reverse setbacks in the training of Afghan forces, fight an increasingly dangerous Islamic State group and put enough pressure on the Taliban to force it to the peace table.
Peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban in Doha, Qatar. Photo / AP
In February, the US and the Taliban signed an agreement that calls for the eventual complete withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan.
With an eye toward the election, Trump has accelerated his push to bring troops home, teasing that all US troops could be out of Afghanistan by the end of the year.
Pentagon officials said the number of troops in Afghanistan will drop to 4500 in November, but they insist there are no plans to have all troops home from Afghanistan by the end of the year. US officials also say there currently is no approved plan to reduce the number to 2500 by early next year. The officials were not authorised to publicly discuss internal deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity.
In Iraq, the number of US troops has dipped from about 5000 to roughly 3000, although officials say the number fluctuates higher as units rotate in and out.
The wall
During his 2016 primary run, Trump sought to mark his ground as a hard-line immigration enforcer who would build "a great, great wall on our southern border".
"And I will make Mexico pay for that wall," Trump said as he launched his run for the White House in June 2015. "Mark my words."
Nearly four years later, Trump still has a lot of work to do completing his wall, and much that has been completed has been paid by US taxpayers, not Mexico.
President Donald Trump touring a section of the border wall in Arizona. Photo / AP
The president's administration has promised to build 725km of wall by the end of this year and has so far built 600km. Trump has replaced hundreds of kilometres of old, worn-out barriers, meant only to stop cars, with tall fencing that is much harder to get over and impedes wildlife from crossing the border. Conservationists in Arizona, where a bulk of the building has taken place, say the new wall is detrimental to wildlife and the surrounding ecosystems.
Mexico has steadfastly refused to pay for the border wall, though Trump earlier this year suggested that the wall is being paid, in part, by remittances from Mexican immigrants working in the US.
To date, the money is coming from the US Treasury, meaning it is today's taxpayers and future ones who will inherit the federal debt. To the extent any people who came into the US illegally are kicking in for the wall, it's because they're working and paying taxes like other workers.
Trump also freed up $3.6 billion for the wall last year by diverting money from military construction projects as well as $2.5b from approved counterdrug spending.
Mideast peace
Early in his presidency, Trump expressed confidence that his administration could broker a long-term peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. "We will get it done," Trump declared in May 2017. He put his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner in charge.
Trump moved the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a step that was cheered by Israelis and the president's evangelical Christian supporters in the US but angered Palestinian leaders. He scored a big win in recent weeks with the US nudging Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates — three Arab states — to normalise relations with Israel.
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump wait at the White House for the arrival of Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu in 2017. Photo / AP
The normalisation of relations between Israel and the three Arab nations is certainly an important achievement. But the agreements between nations that have never been in direct conflict don't meaningfully move the ball in achieving the large and long elusive goal of achieving peace between Palestinians and Israelis.
Infrastructure
The White House's multiple attempts to designate an "infrastructure week" — each effort quickly eclipsed by other issues — have become something of a running punch line in the administration.
In his 2016 victory speech, Trump said he would rebuild the nation's highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools and hospitals, making American infrastructure "second to none" and putting millions to work in the process.
Nearly four years later, Trump's soaring rhetoric has failed to produce legislation.
In April 2019, Trump reached an agreement with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to pursue a $2 trillion infrastructure plan. This March, he resurrected the idea for a "VERY BIG & BOLD" plan for infrastructure spending to help jolt the staggering economy after the coronavirus pandemic hit.
President Donald Trump has had a fraught relationship with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Photo / AP
While Pelosi and Schumer again threw their support behind big infrastructure spending, Senate Republicans have bristled at deficit spending, and Trump's sales pitch has gone nowhere with his own party.
Trump's taxes
On the debate stage four year ago, Trump said his federal income taxes were "under a routine audit" but promised they would be released as soon as the IRS finished.
Four years later, Trump says the IRS still hasn't completed its work, and the president has yet to fulfill his promise to release his tax returns. No law prevents Trump from making his tax filings public while under audit.
Trump promised four years ago to release his tax returns. Photo / AP
Questions about Trump's tax returns — and his broader financial situation — have only grown following revelations he is personally liable for more than $400 million in debt. That sort of debt load, ethics experts say, raises concerns he could be manipulated to sway US policy by those to whom he's indebted.
The New York Times reported last month that Trump's debt includes more than $300m in loans that will come due in the next four years.
Trump dismisses his debt load as a "peanut" compared with his assets.
