President Trump pushes on

Some commentators are surprised. The new President is doing exactly what he said he would do. The worldly wise well educated pontificators  who confidently predicted Mr Trump would metamorphose in office to someone more like the various well honed expert politicians he defeated are having to change their minds.

Mr Trump told us he did not accept the idea that the US has to place climate change at the centre of its industrial and economic policies. References to that set of policies and beliefs have been taken down from the White House website. Instead Mr Trump has taken executive actions to make it easier to exploit US hydrocarbons and transport oil to market by pipeline. He understands cheap energy is an essential underpinning of an industrial strategy.

He told us he would get US corporations to invest much more in the USA. There has been a procession of business leaders in to see him to be asked to step up their domestic investment. Doubtless they have been told they will get tax cuts and regulatory changes to make the US more competitive. They will also have seen the reputational damage if they do not make suitable statements about their commitment to US manufacture. The car makers are now planning more capacity in the USA.

He has said he wishes to control inward migration, and to tackle the problem of foreign criminals operating in the USA. He has made some executive orders and is investigating his further options over the Mexican frontier.

He expressed hostility to multilateral trading agreements that he thought were not fair on the USA. He has pulled the USA out of the Trans Pacific Partnership, a complex large agreement which was not ratified by Mr Obama. He has begun the process of renegotiating NAFTA where he thinks Mexico has un unfair advantage. As this is ratified he will need to deal with the Congress on how to proceed.

The critical commentators will probably shift their ground from proposing he will change, to arguing the realities of government  and the limits on Presidential power will now prevent him doing much of what he promised. It is true his tax cuts require action and goodwill by Republican Congressmen and women. Repeal of Obamacare and changes to existing trade treaties will need the approval of the legislature. Mr Trump is at his most powerful in his early days as President, and all the time there is a Republican majority in the Senate and Congress. He may again surprise his critics by being able to cut deals with the legislators to secure tax cuts, Obamacare change and other important items in his manifesto.

Mr Obama came to office promising to shut Guantanamo, pull out of Afghanistan and press for peace in the Middle East. He got wobbled off all of those and defined his Presidency by securing a deeply unpopular healthcare reform. Mr Trump needs to make sure when he spends his political capital with the legislators he buys something worth having which makes them and him more popular.  Tax cuts might well do just that. The replacement for Obamacare may prove more divisive and difficult.