The Record of Donald Trump's first year in office: Few Achievements, but much Division, Destruction and Aggression
By Prof. Rodrigue Tremblay, Emeritus professor of economics, Université de Montréal
"It is important... that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism."
George Washington (1732-1799), Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving (1789-1797), (in 'President George Washington's Farewell Address', published on Sept. 19, 1796).
"[Jeffery Epstein] is a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side... Donald Trump (1946-), in a phone interview, as reported in the article, "Jeffery Epstein: International Moneyman of Mystery", published by New York Magazine, Oct. 28, 2002.
"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
John Dalberg-Acton (1834-1902), English historian and moralist, (in a letter to an Anglican bishop, 1887).
How can one evaluate the record of the Donald Trump administration 2.0 when, over the past year, the American president has violated many national and international laws and treaties, and rejected every precedent, every convention, every custom and has upended everything!
I- Since his inauguration on January 20, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump (1946-) has displayed a predatory and unstable character and a questionable judgment
Donald Trump seems to lack the qualities that most people in a democracy value in a leader: competence, moderation, honesty, trust, judgment, compassion, humanism, empathy, responsibility, stability, and respect for human life and the rule of law.
Since Donald Trump does not seem to have any of those qualities, his violent predatory character, his excessive egocentrism, his lack of ethics or morality, his ignorance and his incompetence make him an extremely dangerous politician.
Over the years, he has gained a reputation among many psychiatrists and psychologists for being a narcissistic person, tyrannical and with an unstable personality—that is, someone who is self-centered and "who takes pleasure in exercising power or authority over people in an unfair or cruel way."
What makes him a dangerous politician, as his chief of staff told Vanity Fair magazine, is that her boss has an "alcoholic's personality", that is, someone who is not fully aware of all the consequences of what he says or does. Mr. Trump also seems to be so insecure that he has developed a childish and constant hunger for praise. And he is continually congratulating himself and lying.
· Trump's alleged involvement in Jeffery Epstein's international sex scandal involving minors
Donald Trump has been accused of sexual depravity including accusations of rape. He entertained a long-standing relationship with Jeffery Epstein, his friendly Floridian neighbor and a sexual criminal who was convicted in the case of a large scale international ring of sex-trafficking.
Once he became president, Mr. Trump was accused of a cover-up, because he refused to publish the Justice Department's millions of pages of the so-called Epstein Files, (despite having promised to do so during his last election campaign). Such a release could shed light on his alleged role in Jeffery Epstein's international system of soliciting minors for prostitution.
The American people are therefore entitled to know all the truth about this important politico-moral scandal, and above all, what had been D. Trump's participation in such a perversion, which ruined the lives of some 1,200 American and European mainly teen-aged girls.
A federal law, passed by Congress, called the 'Epstein Files Transparency Act', was adopted on November 18, 2025. It required that the Trump administration release the totality of the documents in the Epstein files one month later, but with little success.
Despite the law passed by Congress, there is a strong chance that Donald Trump's involvement in the scandal will never be formally known. The Trump Administration 2.0 could destroy the evidence or withhold it indefinitely, while simultaneously launching wars abroad to create a diversion.
II- Trump's abuses of power and state censorship of free speech
President D. Trump has abused his power as president in many areas, especially concerning the independence of the Department of Justice. For instance, he named his personal lawyer as deputy attorney general in the DOJ.
He has weaponized the U.S. legal and judiciary system and the entire U.S. government with arbitrary charges against perceived 'political enemies', to exact revenge and retribution, at taxpayers' expense.
Donald Trump has also been abusing the presidential power to pardon. He extended it to hundreds of convicted supporters, some of whom are political donors, while some others are very close to the financial interests of his private business organization and of his immediate family enterprises. (N. B.: He made more than 1,500 reversals of court sentences by decree in one year, an all-time record.)
· On the issue of immigration, while it is true that a country has the right to select its immigrants, the way the Trump administration has launched cruel pursuits of people already living in the U.S. raises eyebrows.
Indeed, to have people arrested by the U.S. Immigration Police (ICE) armed masked goons and having them placed in cages that serve as concentration camps, at home or abroad, can be considered cruel, befitting of a police state. Some Americans have even been killed in a horrible fashion.
It is worth noting that many features of D, Trump's radical political agenda and the use of authoritarian and bullying tactics were outlined in the so-called 'Project 2025', (also known as the 2025 Presidential Transition Project). This is a 920-page political plan to profoundly upend the U.S. federal government.
Indeed, the central objective of the plan is "building a governing agenda, not just for next January (2025) but long into the future."
True to his self-centered and authoritarian approach to politics, and contrary to previous American presidents, President D. Trump does not consider himself to be the president of all Americans, but only of those who support him. In so doing, he has stirred up division, hatred and fear in his country.
Moreover, while ignoring the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, he has often attempted to suppress free speech for his political adversaries.
Furthermore, one must also mention his repeated hostile remarks and insults, and constant 'ad hominem' mafia-like threats against anyone, including journalists, intellectuals, artists and television presenters who dare to criticize him or his team, thus negating their fundamental right to free political speech.
This is particularly the case of court vendettas or other pressures and threats by an ego-driven Trump administration against American media outlets, some related to public licenses to operate, to incite them to fire stand-up comics who make comments on some of D. Trump's behavior or statements, in order to intimidate and silence them.
III. D. Trump's attacks against the U.S. Constitution and his political corruption
The United States has an excellent constitution, so designed as to prevent despots, tyrants and special interests from taking over the government. This was done by enshrining in the constitution the principle of the separation of powers and a system of checks and balances.
However, since his January 2025 inauguration as U.S. president, D. Trump has ignored such constitutional protections and has centralized most important levers of political power in the White House.
In so doing, D. Trump has demonstrated that he has no intention to respect his oath of office to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
· Donald Trump and his record level of political corruption
The New York Times conducted an investigation into the extent of Donald Trump's political corruption. For instance, the newspaper analyzed how some 346 of D. Trump's post-election donors received benefits from the new Trump administration in 2025, in exchange for more than half a billion dollars in contributions.
Everything seems to indicate that politician Trump is the most corrupt president in U.S. history.
IV. How the U.S. Supreme Court has contributed to the decline of democracy in the United States
In June 2008, January 2010 and July 2024, a majority of judges on the U.S. Supreme Court issued three important constitutional decisions.
a- In the first case, the decision concerned a limited personal right to bear arms in public, in order to be able to "join a well-regulated militia." Indeed, the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads as follows: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
However, in the June 26, 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, a 5-4 Republican majority interpreted the individual right to keep and bear arms as a nearly absolute right. In effect, the Republican majority substituted the objective of "self-defense within the home" for the objective of being able to join a "well-regulated militia", thereby significantly expanding the right to keep and bear arms.
b- In the second case, in a judgment rendered on January 21, 2010, again by a majority of 5 judges against 4, Citizens United v. FEC, the decision dealt with the right of corporations and unions to spend almost unlimited amounts of money in elections, based on the argument that 'spending money' was a "form of expression". This right should not be uniquely the attribute of citizens eligible to vote, but must, according to the Court, be extended to legal organizations. However, in politics, money is much more than an 'expression', it is above all a means to gain political power and influence elected officials.
In the third instance, on July 1st, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a landmark decision, which was most favorable to the current occupant of the White House.
Indeed, a divided 6-3 Court ruled, in the case of Trump v. United States, that an American sitting president has a broad immunity from prosecution for criminal acts committed in the course of his official duties, thus violating the ancient rule that 'no man is above the law'. And let's not forget that Donald Trump is the only former or sitting U.S. president who has been convicted of criminal charges.
[N. B.: Among the nine current judges on the U.S. Supreme Court, six (Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett) were nominated by a Republican president and three (Kagan, Sotomayor, Brown) were nominated by a Democrat president.]
V. Trump's economic policies based on isolationism and protectionism against other countries
In terms of international economic policy, the current U.S. president has undertaken to rely on the blunt force of regulation and of unilateral and arbitrary import taxes. His objective seems to be to dismantle the 80-year-long, post WWII multilateral economic system, since 1945, and to replace it with a self-serving unilateral and isolationist American system.
To put such a vision in practice, on February 2, 2025, President D. Trump launched a global trade war against most of the trading nations of the world, including neighboring countries that had long standing trade agreements with the U.S. He uses many pretexts and justifications for the unilateral imposition of high and whimsical tariffs on imports from a host of countries and to circumvent existing domestic laws by decrees.
VI- Trump's illegal military attacks against sovereign countries
In the area of military affairs, on September 6, 2025, President D. Trump signed a decree to change the name of the U.S. Department of Defense to the Department of War. Such an aggressive designation would seem to be more in line with his personal belief that "might makes right" and might better suit his military deployments at home or abroad.
On January 3, 2026, D. Trump used the U.S. military to launch an illegal and undeclared war against Venezuela. The goal was to create chaos and rob Venezuela of its oil reserves, the largest in the world, and also to prevent China from buying Venezuelan oil, a casus belli.
This makes seven countries that the Trump administration bombed illegally in only one year: Somalia, Nigeria, Iran, Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Venezuela.
D. Trump sees the world through the eyes of a 19th-century potentate, when a handful of militarized empires relied on extortion to divide the world among themselves, at gunpoint.
It's not surprising that the United States has now fallen to near the bottom of the Global Peace Index of countries, according to a recent report by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP).
Conclusions
It should be obvious by now, after a first year of a second term more extremist and chaotic than the first, that Donald Trump is an out-of-control, impulsive and irresponsible individual who would seem to be unfit to hold a high position of authority and decision-making as head of a government.
Indeed, after one full year in office, Donald Trump, with his de facto one-man U.S. federal government in his image, has been an agent of division at home, and of chaos and destruction abroad. His actions have negatively affected the lives of millions of Americans and of citizens in other countries. Some have paid with their lives.
Under Trump, the U.S. government seems to have fallen into a state of moral decay. This ranges from the establishment of concentration camps to illegal military interventions against other countries, in order to intimidate them and to seize through force their natural resources. That amounts to a predatory behavior and in morality, that is just sheer robbery.
In politics, for the first time in its history, the United States has an occupant in the White House who openly professes to disregard the letter and spirit of the American Constitution, which he took an oath to respect and preserve. This could be enough to disqualify him to be President.
In economics, the D. Trump regime policies have been most chaotic, since January 20, 2025. They are interventionist, isolationist, imperialist and colonialist. Many of them are improvised, misguided and disruptive.
Therefore, the general conclusion is that under the autocratic regime of Donald Trump, the American federal government and its policies have de facto become a serious threat and a danger to the democratic American people and to the civilized world.
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International economist Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay is the author of the book about morals "The code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles" of the book about geopolitics "The New American Empire", and of his recent book, in French, "La régression tranquille du Québec, 1980-2018".
He holds a Ph.D. in international finance from Stanford University.
Please visit Dr. Tremblay's site or email to a friend here.
Posted Wednesday, January 14, 2026.
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