A year of Donald Trump's rule. Trump's promises versus seven charts
The problem of rising prices and the condition of the American economy was one of the central topics of the 2024 election campaign. It was also one of Donald Trump's strongest program points. After four years of Joe Biden's presidency, marked by the post-pandemic price crisis, voters associated Trump's first term with a much better economic situation.
— During my administration we will reduce energy and electricity prices by half within 12 months, to a maximum of 18 months – Donald Trump declared in August 2024. Today we know that average electricity prices for households have not decreased, but increased.
According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, between January and October this increase was nearly 13 percent. Data for November and December have not been published yet, but FRED data, covering only urban areas, shows that electricity prices did not drop in these months either.
The promise to cut electricity prices in half seemed unrealistic from the start, but Trump couldn't even stop them from rising. This is undoubtedly a defeat for the president on one of the most important fronts for voters.
— We will get gas prices below two dollars a gallon – Trump announced in September 2024. This is a promise that would require a massive economic crisis and a collapse in demand for oil to fulfill.
The average retail price of gasoline in December 2025 was $2.89. per gallon (approx. PLN 3 per liter), so it was lower than in January 2025, when it reached $3.08. per gallon. We cannot talk here about the literal fulfillment of the promise, but this statistic certainly looks better for Donald Trump.
— A vote for Trump means cheaper groceries — this was Trump's repeated promise. For a huge number of voters it was the most important of all.
According to data from the Department of Labor, grocery prices have increased on average by about 2 percent over the past year. The growth rate does not differ from that in the second half of Biden's term.
Prices of individual products often rose much faster, for example orange juice or beefwhich is a hot topic for the media and is reflected in voters' opinions, often even with irrational force.
After a year in office, Trump's promise on food prices has not been fulfilled. And voters' opinions about the US president's anti-inflation policies continue to deteriorate.
The border is under control
The second most important element of Donald Trump's 2024 campaign was immigration policy. — We will launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country — he said at a rally in North Carolina in October 2024.
If we look at the dry number of deportations today, it does not differ from the data from the last year of Biden's rule. However, the devil is in the details.
The number of attempts to cross the border illegally has dropped dramaticallywhich we will come back to later. This translates into a significant decrease in deportations carried out by the Border Guard.
If we just look at the number of deportations of people detained inside the country by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), we see an almost fivefold increase within a year. In the last year of Biden's presidency, 50,000 were deported. people, and in the first year of Trump's second term it was 230,000. This is much more than in Biden's entire term.
– We will close the border. We will stop the flow of illegal immigrants into our country, Trump thundered at an October rally in Colorado.
As we mentioned earlier, the number of illegal border crossing attempts dropped sharply when Trump became president. And if you just look at the number of attempts to cross the border with Mexico decreased tenfold within a year!
Success in border policy is undoubtedly the greatest achievement of the Trump administration in its first year in office, which is also confirmed by polls.
Elon Musk's savings
During the election campaign, we could also see the conclusion of an unusual alliance. Elon Musk, who had previously been associated with closer ties with the Democratic Party, supported Donald Trump and was to lead the newly established Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE). It was intended to help Trump carry out massive administrative cuts and deeply reform the state in order to save huge financial resources.
There was then a promise to find savings of two trillion dollars. However, it quickly turned out that this amount was unattainable, and Elon Musk left the department after four months. According to DOGE data, the actual savings found are only 11%. original purpose.
First year, first disappointments
The fulfillment of election promises has a direct impact on Americans' opinions about individual areas of Donald Trump's policy. The fulfilled promises regarding the protection of the southern border translate into a positive reception of his presidency in this respect. However, things are not looking so good for him in other areas.
The economy and inflation policy were Donald Trump's greatest strength during his first term, and today, according to a NORC poll for the AP Agency, the number of opponents of his policy in this area exceeds supporters – by 36 percentage points. Immigration policy has long been positively assessed by Americans, but the increasing brutality used by immigration services has made it unpopular today, despite fulfilling the promise of deportations.
