[This is another segment in which I analyze the giant list of things the Trump Administration claimed as great successes just before leaving office.]
Trump “Accomplishments”
Brought jobs, factories, and industries back to the USA.
This section might be a difficult one to corroborate or challenge because the way that jobs, companies, factories, industries, and dollars are tabulated varies greatly based on how things are categorized and defined.
Created more than 1.2 million manufacturing and construction jobs.
I wish I knew what sources Trump is using to create this number. But right off the bat I want to point out that at one point—while in my home city, in fact—Trump promised to make ten million jobs in ten months. Guess he should have added a timeline for the start of his timeline because he never reached one million per any month between then and leaving office. The number checks in quite a bit higher than the 700,000 jobs he touted in the weeks before the election. And even that was too high. Official sources only showed about 450,000, and even that excludes losses brought on by the pandemic.
Trump also liked to give himself credit for jobs “created” simply from an announcement of new developments. He awarded himself thousands of jobs secured in asserting that Foxconn was opening a plant in Pennsylvania (a project that had started in 2013, before Trump was president) and another in Wisconsin. Those jobs did not materialize. Likewise, claims about Carrier, Alibaba, and General Motors also fell through.
Put in place policies to bring back supply chains from overseas.
To top it all off, President Donald “trade wars are good and easy to win” Trump dropped tariffs on China (and Mexico) that were intended to drive companies who had “offshored” in China to come back to the U.S. and to make a better deal for that would close the trade deficit. Trump got none of those things. Companies remained overseas, the trade deficit grew higher, American exports suffered, Americans paid more for goods from China without China needing to reduce their prices for goods at all, and fell behind China in GDP growth. Trump’s economic BB gun ended up shooting America’s eye out instead.
Small business optimism broke a 35-year old record in 2018.
This is absolutely true. And to make the Trumpites even more giddy, in January post-inauguration small business optimism dropped precipitously. And to really trip out Cult45, in March of 2009, two months into Obama’s presidency, small business optimism hit a historic low (see previous NFIB link). Republicans are free to do a touchdown spike or dab or whatever it is they might want to look stupid doing to celebrate. BUT, here’s the thing. All this stat measures is feelings. How confident businesses feel. And we all know where the Trump Train stands on feelings
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Plus, a large portion of those feelings come from the narrative on the right that asserts that Republicans are good for business and Democrats are bad for business. And while they’ve got you on the line, they think you should really know about how Democrats are going to take all your guns, socialism your Happy Meals, and send everyone to the gulag who is found eating meat. In other words, what these people are afraid of is utter bullshit. Despite the possibility of added regulations, or new taxes, or refusing to validate Jeff Bezos’ parking, Democratic presidencies ultimately turn out to be pretty good for business. They just never get any credit for it.
Hit record stock market numbers and record 401ks.
The DOW closed above 20,000 for the first time in 2017 and topped 30,000 in 2020.
I’ll take these two together because they’re pretty much saying the same thing, but one with specifics. The first thing to say right off the bat, that people don’t seem to fathom, is that the stock market is not the economy! The DOW and other stock-focused metrics only have an impact on subsections of Americans—a little over half of Americans have some skin in the game (and in disproportionate racial breakdowns). And the stock market has ways of profiting on pain and misery, posting high marks during a pandemic and its economic crises. But that aside, the stock market will keep growing, and will post newer highs throughout Biden’s presidency as well. The current all-time high happened on the day of his inauguration.
The S&P 500 and NASDAQ have repeatedly notched record highs.
Same thing here. The S&P has basically been a rising ramp since the beginning, and neither Trump’s nor Biden’s presidencies will have an impact. Of course, as a result, the S&P has already risen above the Trump era’s highest numbers. Likewise, the NASDAQ has already topped 40,000 for the first time ever. Should Biden call that a win for himself? No.
Rebuilding and investing in rural America.
I’m curious to know what the Trump administration is rebuilding rural America from. I’m guessing they’re just making a sort of general gesture over toward the 2018 Farm Bill, the passing of which occurs on regular 4-5 year cycles and will be due again around 2022. Obama’s 2014 one was just shy of a trillion dollars invested in agriculture.
Signed an Executive Order on Modernizing the Regulatory Framework for Agricultural Biotechnology Products, which is bringing innovative new technologies to market in American farming and agriculture.
A very fancy way of saying “we gutted regulations regarding genetically modified products and let the respective companies involved in that practice monitor themselves.” Anyway, you can read it here.
Strengthened America’s rural economy by investing over $1.3 billion through the Agriculture Department’s ReConnect Program to bring high-speed broadband infrastructure to rural America.
The ReConnect program was part of the 2018 Omnibus budget proposal and designed to expand broadband access to rural areas that did not have access to any high-speed internet access. It was/is super awesome. It passed in 2018 and managed to improve access to remote learning and telehealth visits for remote rural areas. This implementation became critical in 2020/2021 when the pandemic hit and benefitted thousands of Americans and protected them against COVID. Its awesomeness was probably why Republicans voted against it and Trump threatened to veto it at the time. Of course, now that it’s awesomeness and prescience is known, it behooves Trump to take credit for it.
Author of over sixty children's books, as well writer of textbook materials and standardized exam text. I may have helped teach your children...
Jason Glaser 
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