When people think of the United States government, they should think of a well-run and stable institution. The federal government has a massive budget of trillions of dollars and administers numerous departments, programs and policies, many of which directly impact the American people. Being in charge of the United States government should be a very serious and important job, yet President Donald Trump’s leadership and management have been erratic, disorganized and overall embarrassing. The two primary examples of this are the tariffs that Donald Trump has imposed, and the actions of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk.
Starting with tariffs, President Trump has been inconsistent and confusing with his policies. According to PBS news, Trump implemented a 10% tariff on imports from China, and a 25% tariff on imports from Mexico and Canada. This was done on Feb. 1. Only two days later, on Feb. 3, there was a 30-day pause on the tariffs for Mexico and Canada. On March 4, the tariffs went into effect; however, Canada’s tariff was limited to 10% for energy. China’s tariff was doubled. The next day, Trump issued a “one-month exemption on his new tariffs impacting goods from Mexico and Canada for U.S. automakers.” The day after that, on March 6, “Trump postpones 25 percent tariffs on many imports from Mexico and some imports from Canada for a month.”
The execution of these tariffs has been exceptionally confusing. There were delays, exceptions and changes. What was lacking across the board was stability, especially given the huge impact that these tariffs have on the economy. These three countries are particularly important, as in 2022, they were the top three countries the United States imported goods from. The product of this economic uncertainty and bad policy is an economic disaster. The S&P 500 has dropped almost 11% in just the past six months.
Another example of the erratic nature of the Trump presidency is DOGE, a department that is meant to make the government more efficient and cut spending. A large part of this work has involved the firing of federal employees. Yet, many of these employees are being rehired shortly after. Forbes reports that over 26,000 federal employees fired by DOGE are likely to return. This is highly embarrassing for the United States government, as well as inconsiderate of federal workers. To fire and then immediately rehire someone means that mistakes are being made, Abd these are not isolated incidents. They’re being made to the tune of 26,000 jobs, showing that DOGE is simply doing its own job poorly.
Many of the employees that DOGE has fired are people central to the work the government does. According to Forbes, “The Department of Agriculture said in February it mistakenly fired ‘several’ employees working on the federal government’s response to the bird flu outbreak that caused egg prices to spike.” Even Elon Musk has admitted, “with USAID, one of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was Ebola prevention.” This certainly isn’t an accident, given DOGE knows what it is cutting funding to; the department simply seems to choose not to do any due diligence, and instead is making mistakes and correcting them later.
The nature of the Trump presidency is truly one of chaos. Through tariff policy and DOGE, one can see a lack of professionalism, standards and clear decisions. Rather, the work being done is reactionary and without any due diligence. It is embarrassing for Donald Trump and his entire administration.