The second Donald Trump administration is expected to have a vast impact both domestically and around the world, potentially reshaping everything from the very private – such as abortion access in the US – right through to something as public as the health of the planet itself.
While Trump’s policies and their effects will take time to emerge, we can tell a lot about where things are heading by comparing the status quo to current data trends in six key areas, from migration and war through to climate and vaccine uptake.
‘Drill, baby, drill’ for fossil fuels
Trump is planning a full reversal of Joe Biden’s climate policies, via a swift withdrawal of the US from the Paris climate deal, the downplaying or burying of climate science and the championing of fossil fuel interests.
A primary goal will be to unpick the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature climate bill that Trump has called the “greatest scam in the history of any country”. A rebate for people to buy electric cars will probably be axed, although as most of the bill’s clean energy spending flows to Republican-held districts Trump may find resistance in Congress to a full repeal of the IRA.
An easier target will be pollution regulations on cars, power plants and factories. Trump is set to shrink the Environmental Protection Agency, usher in industry-friendly policies and replace nonpartisan civil servants with political apparatchiks.
“Drill, baby drill” was a repeated Trump mantra on the campaign trail and Doug Burgum, who will oversee 20% of the US landmass if confirmed as interior secretary, will be tasked with throwing open as much federal land as possible for oil and gas production, including sensitive areas of the Arctic put off-limits by the Biden administration.
No country has extracted as much oil and gas as the US under Biden, yet Trump thinks even more should be done. Alternatives such as wind energy, dismissed as “disgusting” by Trump, will be sidelined and support for communities at home and abroad dealing with climate-driven disasters and air pollution will be demolished.
All of this will result in more greenhouse gases, as much as 4bn tonnes more, than if Trump were not president. The US, and the world, will still move towards cleaner forms of energy and chip away at its emissions, but at a slower pace at a time when urgency is crucial.
Conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East
Trump, who is known for his isolationist tendencies, has claimed he will end the war in Ukraine in “one day” and has repeatedly attempted to block aid packages in Congress.
He has given few details of how such a peace would be achieved, although his vice-president, JD Vance, has set out a plan that critics describe as tantamount to a Russian victory, with Moscow keeping de facto control over Ukrainian territory it occupies now and Ukraine left outside Nato.
The Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine are in the south-east, and include partial control of four regions it illegally “annexed” in 2022, the year of its full-scale invasion.
In an interview with the Guardian in May the Ukrainian president, Volodymr Zelesnkyy, told Trump that he risked being tagged as a “loser president” if he allowed Russia to win the war. Zelenskyy added that Vladimir Putin’s track record suggested Moscow would eventually violate any ceasefire deal and push further into Ukraine, making the US president look “very weak”.
Regarding the Middle East, Trump has said he wants the Gaza war to end and has reportedly told Benjamin Netanyahu it should be concluded before he takes office. But the terms on which he would press for an end to the war and what that would mean for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are unclear. At other times Trump has also said Israel should be allowed to “finish the job” in Gaza.
The most immediate consequence of Trump’s win could be the boost given to the annexationist wing of the Israeli far right, with the installation of figures such as the incoming Israeli ambassador, Mike Huckabee, who have been vocal about their beliefs – in defiance of international law – that the occupied West Bank belongs to Israel.
Vaccine collapse
With Trump having nominated the outspoken vaccine sceptic Robert F Kennedy Jr as the secretary of health and human services, and the Covid “herd immunity” proponent Jay Bhattacharya to head the National Institutes of Health (NIH) biomedical research institution, there are fears that vaccine coverage could continue to erode. Kindergartners in the US are required to receive four vaccines to prevent against communicable disease, but the proportion of immunised children fell again in the last academic year, to below 93% for all reported vaccines. By way of example, the World Health Organization says 95% vaccination coverage for MMR is needed to prevent measles from breaking out.
Vaccine uptake in the US has been following a worrying trend among this age group: rates slid in 30 states in the last academic year, while in 40 states (and DC) exemptions grew. In 14 states, exemptions exceeded 5%: in Idaho, for example, where exemption rates have almost doubled in five years, one in seven kindergarteners started school without proof of vaccination.
Inflation
The cost of eggs and other consumer staples soared during the Biden administration, with “egg-flation” cited as a key factor in Trump’s election victory – though as in other countries, much of the inflation was caused by disruptions to global supply chains caused by Covid lockdowns.
Three-quarters of voters interviewed in exit polls across 10 key states (Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin) said inflation had caused them either “severe” or “moderate” hardship over the past year: 74% of the former and 51% of the latter voted for Trump.
Although he has pledged to “quickly” lower prices if elected, experts have said that Trump’s campaign promise to impose tariffs on all foreign goods entering the US could push up inflation in the short term while shrinking the size of the economy by reducing work and investment in the longer term.
Many other countries, from competitors such as China to allies such as the UK and EU, are nervously assessing the possible impact of these proposed tariffs, which may result in tit-for-tat retaliatory price hikes on US exports.
‘Mass deportation’
Though the Biden administration was a high point for the number of deportations over the last decade, Trump has vowed to conduct the largest mass deportation operation in US history – not by returning people who have recently crossed the border to claim asylum, but by kicking out millions of people who have built entire lives in the US.
According to a report from the American Immigration Council, there are about 11 million people living in the US without legal documentation. To deport them all would come with significant humanitarian and fiscal costs, and cost at least $315bn, the organisation wrote.
The scale of such a programme would vastly exceed the combined total of removals (deportations made under a formal court order) and returns (such as when an individual voluntarily leaves when apprehended at the border) that took place under the Obama, Biden or first Trump eras.
There were 5m deportations under Obama, from 2009-16; and 2m deportations from 2017-20 under Trump. The Biden administration has deported nearly 5 million people, most through a public health order known as Title 42, which allowed the US to deny people from seeking asylum.
But mass deportation as Trump imagines it would involve not just refusing asylum seekers, but kicking out people who have lived in the country for years, even decades – and in the case of some children their whole lives. It would require forcibly separating people from their families and communities. And operationally it would mean growing the government bureaucracy, not shrinking it – by hiring more personnel, leasing or acquiring facilities to house people, and expanding the immigration court system.
Abortion access
In the recent election, 10 states held referendums on abortion: seven of them chose to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution, while three – Nebraska, Florida and South Dakota – left abortion bans in place. Somewhat paradoxically, millions of voters engaged in “splitting” – choosing to expand local abortion access while also voting for politicians who oppose it.
One of them is Trump himself, who proudly takes credit for overturning Roe v Wade by installing three conservative justices on the supreme court. Although he has claimed many different things about abortion, including sometimes saying he would veto any national ban that Congress may pass, many of his closest people are very clear that they intend to restrict abortion even further.
Project 2025, the controversial policy manifesto – many authors of which are current and former Trump officials – advocates for the federal government to use a 1873 law called the Comstock Act to go after abortion-related medications such as mifepristone. Project 2025 has also called for the government to conduct surveillance on states that allow abortion. The fight over access to abortion and abortion-related care will only grow over the next four years, including through legal challenges.
