Graphic by Delaney Gardner ‘26
By Olivia Russo ’25
Staff Writer
President-elect Donald Trump is poised to begin his second term in just under two months, pledging to take action on several key issues. Here is what to expect regarding immigration, tariffs and foreign policy in the Middle East under his administration.
Immigration
While Trump primarily focused on the construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall during his first term, he has now promised the “largest deportation operation in American history,” according to NBC. NPR reported that he has claimed that he will invoke the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to do so. According to The Brennan Center for Justice, this act would allow the president to detain, relocate or deport non-citizens from a country considered an enemy of the U.S. during wartime.
This program would require more officers, detention space and immigration court judges than currently available, Reuters reported. Experts have also said that it would also inflict large economic costs, such as decreasing U.S. employment, increasing inflation, reducing the U.S. GDP and driving down demand, according to The Council on Foreign Relations. As for the lack of detention facilities, Trump’s team has reportedly been reviewing regional capabilities for housing migrants, especially in larger metropolitan areas, according to CNN.
Along with mass deportation, Trump has committed to reinstituting several immigration and travel measures from his first term. according to CNN and The Council for Foreign Relations. This includes his colloquially named “remain in Mexico” program that required asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico until their U.S. immigration court hearing, as well as the suspension of the refugee resettlement program, the usage of Title 42 that allowed border officials to expel migrants on public health grounds during the COVID-19 emergency and expanding his travel ban to include other areas deemed “terror-plagued” such as Gaza, The Guardian and The Council on Foreign Relations reported.
In addition, according to the Council for Foreign Relations, Trump has pledged to end birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants, roll back designations of temporary protected status and attempt again to end DACA.
Another initiative that the President-elect has proposed on his campaign website is a “merit-based” immigration system, as opposed to the current arrangement prioritizing family reunification
Tariffs and Trade
Perhaps the second-most contentious of Trump’s proposals is his plan to increase tariffs. Quoted describing tariffs as “the greatest thing ever invented” in a PBS report, the president-elect has pledged to impose a “universal” tariff on most imports of up to 20%, as well as a 60-100% tariff on imports from China. Trump has also raised the idea of tariffs on Mexico, even vowing to levy tariffs on the country’s goods unless it concedes to halting the flow of migrants to the U.S., according to The Economist.
According to his website, Trump’s proposed tariffs on Chinese imports are intended to “completely eliminate dependence on China in all critical areas,” such as steel, electronics and pharmaceuticals. A key aspect of his plan is ensuring that “essential” medications are only produced in the U.S., which would be supposedly accomplished by the above tariffs and the reinstitution of a 2020 executive order requiring the FDA to buy such medications only from U.S. companies, PBS reported.
Regarding the economic effects of tariffs, the domestic company importing the goods pays the tariff, not the exporting country as President-elect Trump has claimed, according to the Tax Foundation. As for the true economic burden of a tariff, three scenarios are theoretically possible: The domestic company importing the goods can absorb the cost of the tariff and lose out on profits, the foreign exporters can lower their prices by the value of the tariff to keep their U.S. customers, or the domestic company can raise their retail prices to pass the cost of the tariff to consumers, BBC News reported. Historically, the actual economic burden of tariffs has fallen on consumers.
According to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, experts have thus estimated that households will lose thousands of dollars per year due to these proposed tariffs. PBS reported that such tariffs are also likely to cause retaliation from other countries, such as retaliatory tariffs imposed by China due to Trump’s first-term tariffs that hurt farmers. In addition, researchers have also warned that another round of tariffs would risk a spike in domestic inflation, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Foreign policy in the Middle East
The election outcome has many concerned onlookers wondering about its effects regarding U.S. relations with Israel. Trump’s first-term actions — recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and recognizing the state’s annexation of Golan Heights, as reported by The New York Times and Al Jazeera — have proven him to be a staunch supporter of Israel’s claims to land, according to the U.S. Embassy to Israel site. He has previously deemed Israel a cherished ally, and called on Israel to “finish the job” and “get it over with” with Hamas. In addition, his first-term administration closed the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s office in Washington and cut $200 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority, the governing body for the West Bank, according to Al Jazeera and The Guardian.
Recently, the president-elect has heavily criticized pro-Palestinian movements and promised to “set that movement back,” The Washington Post reported. According to The Guardian, he’s also pledged to bar refugees from Gaza by expanding his first-term Muslim travel ban, and his proposed “ideological screening” for immigrants will prohibit those that “sympathize with Hamas and Muslim extremists.”
Trump’s pick for U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, promises an even harsher stance against Palestinians. The self-proclaimed “unapologetic, unreformed Zionist” refuses to refer to the West Bank as anything other than “Judea and Samaria,” its biblical term, and has long maintained that the West Bank belongs to Israel, according to Time Magazine and The Times of Israel. Huckabee has previously declared that “we have a responsibility to respect that this is land that has historically belonged to the Jews,” and that annexation of the West Bank is “of course” a possibility under Trump.
Gemma Golovner ’25 contributed fact-checking.