What to Expect in Donald Trump's First 100 Days

A look at what Donald Trump could accomplish in his first 100 days as POTUS.

ByABC News
January 19, 2017, 6:06 AM

— -- After Donald Trump is inaugurated on Friday as the 45th president of the United States, he will face the first test of his presidency: his accomplishments in the first 100 days in the White House.

In October, when Trump was trailing Hillary Clinton in the polls, the then–GOP nominee released his plans for his first 100 days in office. Titled "Donald Trump's Contract With the American Voter," it included a constitutional amendment imposing congressional term limits, withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and canceling every executive action from President Barack Obama he deemed unconstitutional.

Logistically, it is nearly impossible for Trump to accomplish all these objectives in the first three months, but he definitely intends to shake up the status quo in Washington and roll back Obama administration policies. Here's a look at a few of the big issues to watch in the early days of the new administration:

'Obamacare'

Trump often stated his desire to repeal the Affordable Care Act. In the plan for his first 100 days, he proposed repealing the law and replacing it with health savings accounts.

He and the Republican-controlled Congress are in sync on this issue. On Jan. 12, the Senate passed a measure allowing it to pass ACA repeal legislation with a 51-vote majority, rather than the 60-vote majority usually required for important bills. The GOP has 52 seats in the chamber.

While the law might be repealed within the first 100 days, it remains less clear how long parts of the law will remain intact and what the replacement will be. Trump recently told The Washington Post he wanted the replacement law to include universal coverage but did not reveal any specifics of the plan.

A total repeal could also have implications for midterm elections. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 18 million people could lose insurance if the law is repealed. According to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, 47 percent of Americans oppose a repeal of the law, while 46 percent support it.

Border Security

Trump said that border security is one of his first orders of business and that he will sign an executive order on the matter on his "first day."

"My country, we will get from my first day in office on very secure borders,” Trump said in a joint interview with The Times of London and Germany’s Bild. "One of my first decrees, which I will sign on the first day, so on Monday — not Friday or Saturday, since I do not want to make it between the whole festivities — this decree will turn around safeguarding our borders."

The details of any order to secure the nation's border are not known, but Trump made clear time and again on the campaign trail that securing the nation's border with Mexico is a centerpiece of his agenda.

But before any wall can go up, it will have to go through Congress for approval and appropriations, which will slow the process.

House Republicans and Trump's transition team are considering whether to tie funding for the wall to a broader government-funding measure in April, which could make it difficult for Democrats to oppose appropriating money for the wall, according to a source familiar with the discussions.

Trade

Trump pledged to withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, calling it "a potential disaster for our country," and said he will issue a notification of intent to withdraw early in his presidency.

"Instead, we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores," Trump said in a YouTube video announcing his early priorities.

The TPP, a proposed trade agreement championed by Obama and aimed at promoting investment and trade links among 12 countries on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, was a rare instance of agreement on the campaign trail, with both Trump and Clinton rejecting the deal as candidates.

Before the Brexit vote, Obama warned the United Kingdom that it would go "back of the queue" in any trade deal with the United States if it voted to split from the European Union. Trump called Brexit a "great thing" and said he'll make an agreement with Britain a priority, saying such an agreement will be reached "very fast" after he gets in the Oval Office.

"We will work very hard to get that fast and reasonable — good for both sides," Trump said in a joint interview with The Times of London and Bild.

Energy

Trump also pledged to roll back "job killing" energy regulations and declared himself a friend of clean coal.

"On energy, I will cancel job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy, including shale energy and clean coal, creating many millions of high-paying jobs," he said.

What's unclear is what restrictions he means to target.

Jonathan Adler, the director of the Center for Business Law and Regulation at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, said many of the rules governing the energy industry may be challenging to scrap in the first 100 days.

"The administration will have to either a) get Congress to enact legislation to eliminate these restrictions or b) go through a lengthy administrative process to undo the regulations," Adler said, adding that whatever process the agencies in question went through to adopt the regulations will likely have to be repeated to undo them as well.

Infrastucture

Included in Trump's 100-day blueprint is the passage of the American Energy and Infrastructure Act. The legislation is described as a $1 trillion infrastructure investment over the next decade through public-private partnerships and private investments through tax incentives.

In remarks at the U.S. Conference of Mayors earlier this week, Vice President–elect Mike Pence declared that an infrastructure bill will be a priority for his and Trump's administration, saying, "Tell them we are going to do an infrastructure bill and it's gonna be big."

This initiative could be one of the few that manages to gain bipartisan support. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told ABC News' Jon Karl and Rick Klein that the measure "sounds good to me."

"We're not going to oppose something simply because it has the name Trump on it, but we will certainly not sacrifice our principles just to get something done," Schumer said.

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