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President Donald Trump signs an executive order on TikTok in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington. (AP)
It’s been a week since President Donald Trump took office and began issuing a flurry of executive orders aimed at keeping his 2024 campaign promises.
PolitiFact is tracking 75 campaign promises Trump made for his second term using our new MAGA-Meter. We’ve previously tracked promises from former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as well as Trump in his first term. We do this to inform readers how well elected officials carry out their agenda.
PolitiFact defines a promise as a prospective statement of an action or outcome that is verifiable. We rate campaign promises based on those verifiable outcomes, not on intentions or effort.
Most of Trump’s executive orders don’t keep his promises on their own. In some cases, his orders direct government agencies to start the process of fulfilling a promise; in others, the orders are likely to be challenged in court or require cooperation from Congress or foreign governments.
Here are the 17 MAGA-Meter promise updates we’ve tracked so far, broken down by their current status. You can find all of our updates here.
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Pardon people convicted of crimes related to the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021: Trump issued a proclamation pardoning and commuting the sentences of people convicted for crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riots. About 1,583 defendants have been federally charged with crimes associated with the attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to a Jan. 6, 2025, Justice Department update.
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Leave the Paris climate accord (again): Trump ordered the United States to leave the Paris climate agreement, an international accord negotiated by almost 200 countries almost a decade ago that aims to curb climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. His decision to pull the U.S. from the agreement will take at least a year to become official, but given Trump's consistent calls over the years to exit the pact, there's no reason to believe that it won't happen.
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Commute the sentence of "Silk Road" website operator Ross Ulbricht: Trump pardoned Ulbricht, exceeding an initial declaration to commute his sentence that he made in May at the Libertarian National Convention. Ulbricht received a life sentence without the possibility of parole in 2015 for creating Silk Road, an online marketplace that sold illegal drugs such as cocaine and heroin. Libertarian activists have spent years since his conviction advocating for Ulbricht's release.
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Sign law recognizing two genders, assigned at birth: Trump signed an executive order declaring it "the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female," which are defined based on a person's sex "at conception." An executive order is not legislation passed by Congress; the order directs his director of legislative affairs to "present to the President proposed bill text to codify the definitions in this order" within 30 days.
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Finish the border wall: On his first day in office, Trump declared a national emergency at the southern U.S. border, although immigration officials have encountered fewer immigrants trying to enter the U.S. over the past few months. The declaration directs the Homeland Security and Defense secretaries to "take all appropriate action … to construct additional physical barriers along the southern border."
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Eliminate federal goals for electric cars: Trump's executive order overturned Biden's goal (not a "mandate") to have electric vehicles comprise half of all new vehicle sales by 2030. Doing so brings a new round of rulemaking uncertainty, which, along with the likelihood of court challenges, could take time to resolve.
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Revoke federal initiatives on diversity, equity and inclusion: Trump's administration set a deadline of 5 p.m. Jan. 22 to place on leave federal workers in diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, known as DEI, one part of his effort to end all federal involvement in such programs. This could prompt lawsuits, and the outcome may be unknown for months or years.
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Reinstate the military's transgender ban: Trump revoked a 2021 order by Biden allowing transgender service members to openly serve, paving the way for his administration to reinstate a ban on transgender people serving in the military.
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Restore Remain in Mexico program: Trump ordered reinstating the Remain in Mexico program, which sent certain migrants seeking asylum to Mexico to await their U.S. immigration court proceedings. The order could begin diplomatic negotiations with Mexico, but it does not immediately restart the program. We rate this In the Works.
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Save TikTok: Trump issued an executive order to pause the TikTok ban for 75 days. The order is a first step to keeping his promise to save TikTok, but we will monitor to see whether it withstands legal challenges.
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Designate drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations: Trump's executive order began the process for designating cartels and other transnational groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, but doesn't on its own designate them. That process requires action from several federal agencies.
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Create a "government efficiency commission" to find fraud, improper payments: Trump established what he called the Department of Government Efficiency, launching an effort led by Elon Musk to officially recommend ways to slash federal spending. We will monitor whether it survives court challenges and finds fraud.
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Withdraw from the World Health Organization: Although Trump has begun the process for the U.S. to leave the WHO, it's unclear if congressional approval is also required. Even if Trump can withdraw the U.S. from the WHO on his own, it will be at least a year before that process is complete.
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End offshore wind energy development: By immediately stopping new permits, Trump's offshore wind executive order advances his promise to end offshore wind energy development. But the result won't be certain until the second Trump administration ends.
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Approve liquefied natural gas terminals: Trump ended a Biden administration pause on liquefied natural gas export projects that had not already been operating or approved. It will take time for new LNG projects to get regulated, and once they're approved, to be built and begin operating. But Trump's action removes an obstacle to starting that process.
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End birthright citizenship: Trump issued an executive order his first day in office declaring that future children of people in the country illegally will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship. On Jan. 23, a federal judge blocked the order for 14 days, calling it "blatantly unconstitutional." As Trump campaigned on this promise in 2024, legal experts told us that attempts to end birthright citizenship would prompt a court battle over the long-standing interpretation of the 14th Amendment and could require a constitutional amendment.
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End the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours: Trump's promise to end the war within 24 hours as president did not come to fruition. If Trump can help end the war during his term, he could still end up with a Compromise rating, which is applied to promises where the president accomplishes substantially less than the pledge but still achieves something significant consistent with the original promise's goal.
PolitiFact’s Louis Jacobson, Amy Sherman, Maria Ramirez Uribe, Samantha Putterman, Maria Briceño, Grace Abels, Gideon Hess, Andy Nguyen and Ellen Hine contributed to this report.
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