A Relook at Trump’s and Biden’s Accomplishments

What were some of the campaign promises each candidate made prior to taking office and which ones were actually achieved (for better or for worse)?

Donald Trump’s Campaign Promises made in 2016:
a) Tax Cuts: President Trump promised to lower the corporate tax rate (the tax paid by companies to the US Federal Government) of 35% down to 15% and bring in huge tax cuts for working Americans.
–Somewhat achieved. Under the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017” (the “Tax Cuts Act”) signed into law in December 2017 by Trump, Congress agreed to lower the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. While this is more in-line with the average corporate tax of 22.5% charged in 188 other countries, it is much lower if compared by Gross Domestic Product (“GDP”). In that case the corporate tax for the U.S. should be 29.5%. The Tax Cuts Act cut estate taxes for the very wealthy and eliminated some deductions for homeowners especially in high tax, democratic states. All this resulted in a 1.5 Trillion
tax cut to the coffers of the U.S. government (See, Trump 1.m) below).
–Achieved huge tax cuts for the 1% most wealthy Americans. Samatha Jacoby (Senior Tax Legal Analyst, Center on Budget & Policy Priorities) testified before the Senate Committee on the Budget on 17 May 2023. She stated that the huge Trump tax cuts to the most wealthy benefited those more than twice as much as those in the lower 60% of the population.* She stated that there was little evidence these tax cuts promoted growth. Instead, they contributed to a rise in income inequality and ballooned deficits and debts (Noted also in Trump 1.m) below). (See, “After Decades of Costly, Regressive &
Ineffective Tax Cuts, a New Course is Needed”, The Center on Budget & Policy Priorities, 17 May 2023.) (See, 3. Tax Cuts below.)

All these tax cuts under the Tax Cuts Act are temporary measures until the end of 2025. If Congress does not agree to make these different cuts permanent by the end of 2025, certain ones will revert to their previous levels. For example, the current inheritance tax cutoff at $13.61 million would revert to its prior level of $5 million if it is not made permanent law in 2025.

b) “The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change” i.e., the Paris Agreement: Trump promised to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. 
–Achieved. To this day, Trump has never admitted that climate change is occurring on Earth. Instead, he calls it a “hoax”. The Paris Agreement (“PA”) was adopted by 196 countries (including the U.S.) in Paris on 12 December 2015 and entered into force on 4 November 2016. In order to withdraw from the PA, the terms of the PA required that the US to wait until three years after the treaty’s effective date (i.e., 2019). Following the three years, the US then had to wait one more year before withdrawing. 
Thus, the US withdrawal from the PA took place on 4 November 2020, one day before Donald Trump lost his bid for a second presidential term. (See, Biden rejoining, Biden 1.d) below). With Trump’s intention being to withdraw from the PA when he became president, he also rescinded or weakened two domestic policies initiated by President Obama to help the U.S. meet its climate goals under the PA. Trump also altered the National Environmental Policy Act governing the environmental review of big infrastructure projects.

c) Repeal and Replace the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (“Obamacare”) Insurance:
— Not achieved although Trump managed to dismantle parts of the law such as shortening the enrollment period. Signed into law in 2010, Obamacare’s popularity has grown over the last years. During Trump’s administration, those without health insurance grew by 3 million. At the beginning of 2021, 12 million Americans had Obamacare. As of 17 January 2025, Forbes reported that 24.2 million Americans were enrolled in Obamacare.

d) Building a Wall Along the US and Mexican Border and have Mexico Pay for It.
The 2016 Republican Platform stated: “The Border Wall must cover the entirety of the southern border and must be sufficient to stop both vehicular & pedestrian traffic.”
–Not achieved as expected. Differing reports on the work state that some 49 miles/no, 62/no, 69 miles etc. of new wall was build by May 2020 under President Trump. Turning instead to FactCheck.org, this site reported that the “wall” was actually a resulting patchwork of fencing and that most of the wall construction was actually replacement for existing, including inadequate, fencing despite plans to build new barriers where none had existed before. Before the Trump work began, there was some 654 miles of barrier with 354 miles built to stop people and 300 miles that was anti-vehicular. In a report on the “Borderwall Status” dated 18 December 2020, the US Customs & Border Protection stated the following had been completed: “365 miles of new primary and secondary borderwall to replace dilapidated and outdated designs.” Besides this replacement fencing, there was also “40 miles of new primary wall & 33 miles of secondary wall that was built where there had been no wall before.” While the repair of the already-built barrier is something that is routinely done, this would mean that there was only some 73 miles of new wall built during Trump’s presidency. Despite Trump’s threats that Mexico must pay for the wall, Mexico never agreed to pay for the wall nor did it pay any thing towards the wall.
    Congress actually refused to pay for the wall, too, when it denied Trump’s request for $5 billion to build the wall. Not to be deterred, President Trump then redirected defense spending and other funds to pay for building the wall. This decision faced several legal challenges: the US District Court ruled in 2019 that this transfer of funds was unauthorized, followed by the US Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit upholding this decision. On 31 July 2020 the US Supreme Court ruled 4-5 that Trump could use these diverted funds thus defying Congress.
    On his second campaign trail in 2024, Donald Trump falsely claimed, “We created the most secure border in US history, building nearly 500 miles of border wall” (29 July 2023). Further, Joseph Biden never said he had plans to “take down the wall’ as Donald Trump falsely accused him. 

e) Withdraw From the Iran Nuclear Agreement, technically known as “The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” (JCPOA). This agreement came into effect on 16 January 2016 between Iran and a group of world powers including all permanent members of the UN Security Council.
–Achieved. This agreement was put into place to stop or, at the least, slow down Iran’s development and attainment of nuclear abilities (i.e., nuclear weapons) by putting new, more strict sanctions in place on Iran. It was effective in doing this until Trump withdrew the US from the JCPOAin 2018 saying it was “the worst deal in history” and reinstated all previous sanctions against Iran which had been lifted when Iran signed the JCPOA.** It should be pointed out that Iran was keeping to the conditions of the JCPOA at this time but about a year after the US leaving the agreement, Iran began ignoring limitations on its nuclear program. (See, “What is the Iran Nuclear Deal?” by Kate Robinson, updated 27 October 2023).

(See, Biden 1.f) below.)

As a timely aside, on 7 March 2025, President Trump announced he had written Iran on 5 March 2025 because “Iran’s nuclear capacities are reaching a critical point”. The New York Times reported on 8 March 2025 that Trump said, “We can’t let them have a nuclear weapon”. Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei strongly rebuffed Trump’s message to Iran, stating that Trump demanded Iran should negotiate with the US or face potential military action. Khamenei said, “The US’s offer to negotiate is not to solve issues but to put new demands on Iran.” Trump’s new instigation has now led to discussions between the US and Iran beginning with weekend talks on 12 April (in Oman) and 19 April (in Rome) 2025. But, to what
end? On 19 April 2025, CNN reported that Iran in recent weeks had been vocal about “its concerns about striking a nuclear deal with Trump.” The Islamic Republic “has voiced objections to any deal that fully dismandles its nuclear program as opposed to only limiting its uranium enrichment to civilian-only use as stipulated by the JCPOA.” CNN noted that various US officials have made conflicting remarks, resulting in muddying the US’s true objectives in restarting these talks.

f) Rebuilding the U.S. Military So Strong That “Nobody will Mess with Us”.
— Achieved (but see j) below) by reversing the defense cuts implemented by President Obama in 2013 for the Department of Defense (DoD). Defense spending increased from $656 billion in 2017 to $774 billion dollars in 2020. During Biden’s four years, the DoD’s Budget started at $759 billion (2021) and grew to $910 billion dollars for 2024. The Biden defense increase was mostly due to the U.S.’s large military support of Ukraine after it was attacked by Russia in February 2022 and supporting Israel’s retaliation against non-state terrorist organizations in the Middle East.

g) Bombing ISIS into Oblivion:
–Achieved only a small success by dropping one large, non-nuclear bomb on ISIS’s (Islamic State of Iraq & Syria) stronghold in Afghanistan. At which time President Trump announced that ISIS was largely defeated. ISIS remains a terrorist threat today.

h) Moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
–Achieved. With Jerusalem being a divided city claimed by both Israelis and Palestinians, moving the US embassy (in Israel) to Jerusalem appeared to signal that the US supported Israelis over the Palestinians – an appearance the US government has always stayed far away from for political reasons.

i) Cutting Up to 70% U.S. Federal Regulations to help business grow.
–Achieved. Trump slashed through regulations on everything from labor through the environment.
Several days after taking office, he mandated that any federal department proposing a new regulation had to drop two already-existing regulations (a 2 for 1 proposition). This mandate was without regard to what the regulations actually said. Some regulations that were slashed were ones protecting wetlands and streams while others made changes to the National Environmental Protection Act.

j) Since 2013, Trump Has Said That No U.S. Troops Should Be Overseas.
— Achieved mostly although as president, Trump sent an additional 3,000 troops to Afghanistan in September 2017. In December 2018, he withdrew about 2,000 troops from Syria. President Trump initiated a peace agreement with the Taliban (viewed as a terrorist organization) on 29 February 2020. The Afghan government was not included in any of these talks as demanded by the Taliban. Under this agreement, Trump agreed that the US would withdraw from Afghanistan by decreasing its troops from 13,000 to 8,600 in a few months following the signing of the agreement. The rest of the US troops
would be withdrawn within 15 months but only if the Taliban fulfilled its agreed conditions. These conditions included cutting ties with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Trump’s own officials criticized the removal of overseas troops including his Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, who then resigned. Trump set the date of 1 May 2021 for the withdrawal of all remaining US troops with the idea that once he announced his ‘success’ in Afghanistan he would be able to regain the presidency in November 2020. The Taliban did not follow through and, among its breaches, welcomed al-Qaeda terrorists into the Taliban leadership. This did not deter Trump from continuing to state his success. (See, Biden 1.g) for more details of leaving Afghanistan.)

k) Complete Ban on Muslims Entering the US
— Achieved somewhat by country but not by religion as Trump wanted. On the Trump’s Administration’s third try, it managed to ban citizens of four countries: North Korea, Iran, Libya and Venezuela.

l) Reversing the Obama Administration’s Move to Thaw Relations with Cuba.
— Achieved mostly by re-imposing some trade and travel restrictions on Cuba and limiting the ability of organized tours and cruises to stop in Cuba. The poor relationship between the US and Cuba has existed since 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis (between the US, the Soviet Union and Cuba) until the Obama presidency.

m) Clearing the National Debt of Some 19 Trillion Dollars Within 8 years (i.e., 2 terms of office)
–Definitely Not Achieved: Instead, the Trump administration greatly added to the US National Debt by its tax cuts. Trump increased the National Debt Ceiling in 2017 (this does nothing to the debt except excuse a larger debt); by October 2020 the U.S. National Debt had ballooned from $19,000 Trillion to $27,000 Trillion. (See, 3. below: “US Taxes & the National Debt”)

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*Trump also raised the inheritance tax baseline from $5 million to $11 million per person (i.e., the threshold before any tax must be paid to the federal government on assets held at the time of death). In 2024, the inheritance tax baseline went up to $13.61 million per person. Note, in the US there are two taxes: a federal estate tax and an inheritance tax affecting property.
** ”This (exiting from the JCPOA) has been an increasingly costly blunder” for the US and the world.
(See, “Trump Promised a Better Deal”, Responsible Statecraft, 7 May 2024.