The 45th President: The Top 5 Surprising Accomplishments of President Trump
(that you probably didn’t know about)

It is undeniable that President Trump received a lot of attention from the media. News outlets headlined articles with, “sexist”, “homophobic” and “racist” among many others. But what accomplishments occurred during Trump’s time in office that PCHS students might have missed? Here are the top 5 surprising accomplishments of Donald Trump’s Presidency.

President Trump Presided Over the Signing of Peace Agreements in the Middle East
Between August 13 and December 11, 2020, Trump arranged historic peace agreements between Israel and Sudan, an agreement between Israel and the Kingdom of Morocco, an agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, as well as an agreement between Israel and Bahrain. For that reason, Trump was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for the fifth time as of October 26, 2020. Despite the complex relationship between the countries in the Middle East, the leaders of the countries listed above chose to coexist peacefully with their neighboring countries. Those peace agreements recognized Israel’s right to exist, in addition to opening trade and tourism routes. This will likely give an economic boost to all participants. Those agreements signify a chance for a new, peaceful, beginning in the Middle East after thousands of years of division and conflict. Trump stated that thanks to this policy “the region will become more and more stable, secure, and prosperous,” and that “Thanks to the great courage of the leaders of these countries, we take a major stride toward a future in which people of all faiths and backgrounds live together in peace and prosperity.”

President Trump Took Major Steps Toward Protecting and Repairing Our Environment
On October 13, 2018, Trump signed the Save Our Seas Act bill into law. The Save Our Seas Act provides $10 million per year to clean our oceans from tons of plastic and garbage.
Trump proposed and signed USMCA, a trade agreement between the United States, Mexico, and Canada which allows for collaboration and free-trade between these three countries. USMCA is the trade agreement with the most extensive and the highest-standard chapter on the environment of any trade agreement. This environmental chapter includes core obligations for parties to maintain high levels of environmental protection and robust environmental governance. The chapter is committed to enforcing environmental laws with transparency, accountability, and public participation.

President Trump’s Support of Same-Sex Marriage and Minorities
During his time in office, Trump launched a global effort to end the criminalization of homosexuality, a sexual minority. In February 2020, Trump appointed the first openly gay cabinet member, Richard Grenell to Director of National Intelligence.
Since Trump took office, he appointed 5 openly gay ambassadors to represent the United States abroad.
On February 19, 2019 Trump sent Grenell to lead the initiative targeted at the 70+ countries still punishing homosexuality.

Support For HBCU’s
On September 18, 2017, Trump created the position of executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. This is something that HBCUs always wanted but no other president did it for them.
President Trump gave more funding to Historically Black Colleges and Universities than any other president in history. On December 19, 2019, Trump provided more than $250 million a year to the nation’s historically black colleges and universities, along with dozens of other institutions that serve large shares of minority students.

Trump’s Positive Changes Related To Healthcare
Trump started a program providing HIV prevention drugs for the uninsured. One of Trump’s major goals was to eradicate HIV in America by 2030. According to HIV.gov, the government’s leading source for information about HIV, the drugs he was providing, prevented the transmission of HIV through sex, by over 90%.
On October 10, 2018, Trump signed bills lifting “gag clauses” on drug prices. It gave the patients the right to know which drugs are more affordable and freed pharmacists to talk about which competitive drugs are less expensive.
On November 15, 2019, Trump followed up with an executive order forcing all healthcare providers to disclose their prices so Americans can compare providers.
On December 18, 2019, Trump took another stab at the pharmaceutical industry which is known to have taken advantage of people in need of life-saving medicine. He pushed to accept more affordable prescription drugs from Canada to increase competition and force American pharmaceutical companies to make their prices more affordable. Thanks to this, generic drug prices are becoming more affordable than ever before and pharmaceutical companies were forced to freeze or reverse their plans for price increases.

Trump’s Criminal Justice Reform
While President Trump and the Republican Party are known for seeking and enforcing law and order, Trump’s acts aided in giving people second chances.
On December 21, 2018, Trump signed and approved the First Step Act. The act is responsible for enacting reforms to make our criminal justice system fairer, help reduce recidivism and successfully reintegrate former inmates back into society.
The legislation also expanded access to rehabilitation programs. Regarding this, Trump stated, “Our roaring economy has, for the first time ever, given many former prisoners the ability to get a great job and a fresh start. This second chance at life is made possible because we passed landmark criminal justice reform into law.”
Trump’s administration is working to expand government subsidies to provide education and training to inmates prior to release, helping them secure family-sustaining jobs post-release.
Trump also launched a “Ready to Work Initiative” to help connect employers directly with former prisoners and expand employment opportunities.

Concluding Info: Trump’s Legacy In the Eyes of Wake County Students
For the purpose of this article, there was a poll conducted testing the average student’s awareness of Trump’s accomplishments. The questions were formatted in the following way, stated accomplishment followed by 3 multiple choice answers. The answers included 3 names of recent presidents. The students selected a president who they believe was responsible for the stated accomplishment.
The results are the following:
34 students took the poll (30 minimum for statistical significance)
Of all (12 in total) accomplishments listed, the majority did not attribute any of them to Trump
The most commonly credited president was Obama
The only negative change (which was untrue) was attributed to Trump
Students not aware of Trump’s accomplishments: 62% – 88% or on average: 75%

We also interviewed Panther Creek Students to learn more about how they view the Trump administration.
When asked, “as a whole what are your thoughts on the Trump administration?”
A self-identified centrist student responded: “I tend to lean to disliking the Trump administration. I tend to think that the words of the Trump administration are bad and their fallacies are worse. I don’t think Trump was the worst president in the country’s history, certainly not, but he certainly wasn’t great in my view.”

A self-identified conservative student responded: “As a whole, I like what the Trump administration did for this country. Before Covid, the economy was at record heights. Many people say that he is racist and needs to improve his relationship with minorities, but in the 2020 election, no republican has achieved his support with minorities since Nixon when he achieved the largest landslide in US history.”

When asked, “What are things you think the Trump administration did correctly?”
A self-identified centrist student responded: “I think he handled covid fine. He left it up to the states, which is correct because a plan for New York would not work the same as a plan for Montana. Of course, the economy was great.”
A self-identified centrist student responded: “I am sure they have done a few things correctly. I think they signed some bill on autism. I think they were right to get more tough on China. I don’t think they executed that very well but I think in theory it was a good idea. I will say a lot of the money that we have in NATO that Trump has criticized, I think that’s an adequate criticism, I just think that he didn’t really think it through because a lot of his ideas were not amazing per se but not god awful. It’s just that he couldn’t execute them very well. It didn’t at least seem like he knew what he was doing or really cared about the ideas he had advertised.”

When asked, “What do you think Donald Trump’s legacy is? What will he be remembered for?”
A self-identified centrist student responded: “I think, well, half the country currently remembers him, like, fondly. I’m not sure how he will be remembered long term. I think, in general, long term, he will be remembered very harshly.“
A self-identified conservative student responded: “His legacy is dependant [sic] on what happens in the next 7 years or so. If things keep going the way they are now he will be written about as a mix of Stalin, Moa, and Hitler in one. Trump could also spark a movement in the right where people are sick and tired of being ignored and rolled over. ”
Despite political differences, both sides agree on this: Our country is extremely divided at the moment. Will we ever become more united? What are ways we can help create unity in the U.S.?
Here are some answers we received:
“At this point, the only way for unity is a major crisis. Something to relieve the pressure and tension.”
“There are a lot of ways to create unity, like statistically speaking, I hear there’s a lot of polls suggesting that Americans actually agree on most economic policy issues. Where Americans differ is mostly on social issues and the parties have a distinct motivation to polarize us and pull us apart so unless that underlying motivation and the profit motives in media change this will only get worse.”

Although all Presidential administration are inevitably flawed, these accomplishments were overall beneficial for the American people and PCHS students.

Sources:
Middle East
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-peace-deals-israel-bahrain-uae-middle-east
Environment
https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/save-our-seas-20-act-passes-senate-unanimously
Trump’s support of the LGBTQ community:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2020/08/20/donald-trump-lgbtq-lgbt-gay-rights-republican-equality-column/5605491002/
https://apnews.com/article/c4834e48841d97c5a93312b1bf75302a
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-administration-launches-global-effort-end-criminalization-homosexuality-n973081
HBCU Funding:
https://www.wusa9.com/mobile/article/news/verify/verify-has-trump-given-more-money-to-hbcus-than-any-other-president/65-543185506
Healthcare
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/trump-administration-unveils-program-provide-hiv-prevention-drugs/story?id=67498264
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-signs-bills-lifting-pharmacist-gag-orders-drug-prices-n918721
https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2019/11/15/trump-administration-announces-historic-price-transparency-and-lower-healthcare-costs-for-all-americans.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/prescription-drugs-from-canada-trump-administration-takes-step-forward-on-prescription-drug-import-proposal/
Criminal Justice
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/give-trump-credit-for-the-first-step-act–but-not-for-much-else-on-criminal-justice-issues/2020/07/01/f87533de-bb0f-11ea-86d5-3b9b3863273b_story.html