Donald Trump’s presidency has the potential to generate profound changes in the United States thanks to the majority that Republicans obtained in the Senate and the House of Representatives. Control of Congress will be key so that Trump can begin to deploy his entire agenda as soon as he reaches the White House and, in addition, he will have a Supreme Court with a conservative majority that will act as arbitrator.
The presidency alone gives Trump great decision-making capacity in American foreign policy and in relations with other countries, especially in the Ukrainian and Palestinian conflict. Just as Trump instigated his congressmen to block aid to Ukraine for months, now as president he will have veto power, which gives him the ability to further obstruct the approval of measures. The North American administration will also be exposed to profound changes once Trump takes office, especially after ensuring that he will carry out a purge of the civil service.
With control of all three bodies, Trump will have a much easier time turning many of his proposals into law and also dismantling much of the legislation that Democrats have carried out during this term. Trump’s big bets for this legislature are to advance the conservative agenda and apply important tax cuts, as well as implement the “largest in the history” of the country.
When Trump became president in 2017, he also did so with a trifecta during the first two years in office. Thanks to this, he was able to approve a tax reform that reduced corporate taxes from 35% to 21%, in addition to lowering some individual taxes. A good part of these cuts expire in December 2025 and one of the most repeated promises this campaign by the magnate is that he will extend the 2017 tax cuts, something that seems to be more than guaranteed with the Republican majority in the legislature.
An analysis of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policya nonpartisan organization, concluded that extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts would disproportionately benefit higher-income households. By 2026, the highest-income 20% of Americans would have already received nearly two-thirds of the tax benefit generated, compared to just 1% for the lowest-income 20%.
Fear that Congress will approve the abortion ban
Also under the radar is fear that Congress could pass a federal ban on abortion. Trump’s constant changes in his position on abortion give very little credibility to his promise not to abolish it. The Republican began the campaign by taking pride in the repeal of the sentence of Roe v. Wadewhich protected the right to abortion, thanks to the conservative judges he appointed to the Supreme Court. Behind the president-elect and the Republican party there is an important lobby conservative who continues to work and push to completely nullify women’s reproductive rights.
On November 5, seven states approved constitutional amendments to protect the right to abortion following the repeal of roe. Still, if Congress dictates a ban at the federal level, these state protections would fall and would depend on the extent to which each state was willing to enter into a court battle with the federal government. Within the history of United States constitutional law, there is the possibility that a state could nullify or invalidate a federal law that it considers unconstitutional in relation to the Constitution. Since the US Constitution says nothing about the right to abortion, it would probably be the Supreme Court that would have to mediate the case. The same high court that overturned roe.
One of the measures that Trump has promised to apply from the first day he steps foot in the White House is the mass deportation of migrants. The appointment of his “border czar”, Thomas D. Homan, to manage the border, is already a sign that the tycoon will get to work as soon as he takes charge of the executive. Homan was one of the architects of the policy that separated migrant families at the southern US border. More than 5,500 minors were separated from their parents at the border with Mexico under its “Zero Tolerance” policy.
Now, the border czars are useless without a budget line to mobilize all the agents and resources necessary for a great plan such as the “largest deportation in the history” of the United States. With control of Congress, Trump could also manage to allocate funds to his project to deport millions of undocumented migrants. In a recent interview on NBC, Trump assured that his plan to pursue migrants and expel them would have “no limits in cost”: “It is not a question of cost. “We really don’t have a choice.” “When people have killed and murdered, if drug lords have destroyed countries, they will return to those countries because they will not stay here.”
The trans community will also suffer from the conservative agenda
Another group that will suffer from Trump’s conservative agenda will be the trans community, especially young people and minors. During his campaign, Trump promised to impose sweeping restrictions and roll back civil rights protections for trans students. His administration can quickly begin a major change: excluding trans students from Title IX protections, which affect school policies on students’ use of pronouns, bathrooms and locker rooms.
However, the Republican also encountered problems passing certain regulations during the first two years of his first presidency, in which he also had control of the Congress and Senate. For example, his plan to repeal Obamacare failed when a senator from his own party, John McCain, refused to vote for it. He was also unable to pass an infrastructure bill, as he had promised.
The tight majority that the Republicans have in both chambers, 53 seats out of 100 in the Senate and 218 out of 435 in the House of Representatives, may once again hold surprises for Trump in this legislature. Especially if he encounters wayward congressmen again. Those who belong to swing states and tend to have more moderate positions in order to please voters from different spectrums in their own district, could be the most susceptible to not following the tycoon’s line.
In this scenario, the certification of the appointments that Trump has recently made for his new cabinet, such as the ultra Matt Gaetz for attorney general, or the anti-vaccine Robert F. Kennedy, will be a test to check to what extent the Republicans will be loyal to the president and they will obey your wishes. The new leader of the Republican majority in the Senate, John Thune, despite being an institutionalist, assured on Fox that he was committed to ensuring that Trump could fulfill his campaign promises. “If we don’t deliver on President Trump’s priorities, we will lose his support.” [el de los votantes]” Thune said: “They have entrusted us with their votes. “Now we have to roll up our sleeves and get to work.”
In the House of Representatives, given that the current speaker Mike Johnson has been able to preserve the Republican majority, very possibly he will repeat his term as speaker of the lower house. Johnson has become one of Trump’s main allies and will undoubtedly also collaborate to move his agenda forward. The only precedent that could call this loyalty into question is when he brought to a vote the military aid for Ukraine that Trump had so instigated to block. A gesture that cost Johnson criticism from the most radical Republican caucus.
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