When President Donald Trump was re-elected in 2025, he promised radical change in America. In his first year back in the White House, he accomplished a significant number of his goals, from bringing illegal immigration numbers to new record lows to putting tariffs on imported goods. All can agree that Trump has caused a great amount of change in the United States over the past year, but whether his accomplishments are good or bad depends on which political party you belong to.

Inspired by Spotify’s 2025 Wrapped, this article will feature a list of Trump’s Top 5 Actions. Top songs are determined by how frequently you listen to a song. These top five actions were some of the biggest political headlines of 2025. Unlike Spotify Wrapped, his accomplishments are listed in no particular order. 

#1: Tariffs

One of President Trump’s major actions as president was to impose tariffs on imported goods from other countries. Tariffs were introduced in February, paused in April to implement negotiations with China and then reinstated in August.

Trump claimed that tariffs would rebalance global trade in the U.S. after accusing other nations of “ripping off” America for years. Adding a 25% tariff to Canadian and Mexican imports and a 20% tariff to Chinese imports. As a result, the United States’ tariff rate has gone up 18%, which is the highest it’s been since 1934. 

The United States’ highly volatile relationship with China after it put huge limitations on what minerals are allowed to be brought to the U.S. led to tensions rising worldwide. Trump eventually reduced tariffs on every country except for China in order to achieve a trade truce with them. 

Despite his promise that tariffs would encourage a trade boom, nothing has happened so far. The manufacturing sector of factories lost 50,000 workers since Trump was elected and the Supreme Court on Nov.5 seemed skeptical of the tariffs he enacted.

#2: Immigration

Since January, immigration numbers reached new record lows of under 10,000, numbers that have not been achieved in decades. During his re-election campaign and in the four prior years that he served in the White House, Trump made it clear that illegal immigration was on his top list of priorities. He and his administration promised to target immigrants with severe criminal backgrounds; however, most immigrants arrested have had no such records. 

In an attempt to reach his goal of deporting 1 million immigrants, he pressured Mexico to deter immigrant access before they made it to the United States, which, among other things, resulted in the number of legal immigrants (refugees) being cut to the lowest number in history.

Trump signed two bills to increase his efforts; one was a law requiring the detention of migrants entering the U.S. without administration and the other was a law that tripled the budget of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

Despite all that he did, he reached around 500,000 immigrant deportations, not the 1 million he had wanted.

#3: DEI

President Trump is trying to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in schools by cutting federal funding to schools’ teaching material with topics on race or gender. He’s cut billions of dollars from schools and colleges with DEI programs and reduced the number of grants involving “equity” or “racial minority.” 

He signed executive orders that restrict content involving racism and transgender issues that can be taught in classrooms in an attempt to remove references to slavery and racism from schools. 

Trump also accused the Smithsonian Institution of focusing too much on “how bad slavery was” in its exhibits centered on race. In a social media post in August, he wrote, “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad slavery was and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been.” 

#4: Wars

Yet another promise that President Trump made during his election campaign was to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine within 24 hours of his re-election. While he failed to do so, he did accomplish some level of settlement between Israel and Hamas.

A peace deal aiming to end Israel and Hamas’s two-year war was signed on Oct. 9. The United Nations Security Council approved the deal in November, despite violence in Gaza continuing to bring detrimental harm to its citizens. 

Trump often overstates his handle on wars, once claiming that he had ended seven “unendable wars.” But a deeper look reveals that out of those seven wars, few of them, if any, are really over. 

Although he achieved a peace deal between Thailand and Cambodia, fighting persisted afterwards. The same story can be told for the nearly three-decade war between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, despite Trump’s declaration that it was “a glorious triumph.”

Emy Pascual, a freshman at Ida B. Wells-Barnett High School, notes how often the president makes claims like this. “He presents himself as such a good person and he also presents himself as doing all these good things, even though he’s doing the opposite of what he says,” Pascual observes. 

In all the cases of his claims to ending wars, Trump has taken credit for either mediating a peace treaty or a solution or threat to end the war. He said in his inaugural address in January that his “proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier.” Many remain dubious of this claim. 

#5: Power in the Presidency

In the months leading up to his second term, President Trump’s campaign pushed the idea of reshaping the way the White House was run by focusing power on the president. Preceding his election, he fired all democratic workers in the executive branch and created a republican-dominated government. By centralizing government power around himself, any laws that he proposes are easily approved.

Frank Mathews, a modern world history teacher at IBW, reflects on his accumulation of power. “I think the big issue that encompasses all of the issues…is what Trump is doing in terms of amassing power for himself as the president,” he says. “Is that normal in the history of the United States, or is that unprecedented and does it represent an unprecedented threat to our very democratic constitutional ideals?”

Trump used this self-asserted power to introduce tariffs, often legitimizing what he’s doing by referring to Article III, Section I of the Constitution, which states, “The executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America.”

In a recent interview with the “New York Times“, he told interviewers that there was only one thing that restricted his global power: “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”