Topline
Former President Donald Trump vowed Friday to impose the death penalty on human traffickers—his latest in a series of campaign promises as he looks to maintain his grasp on the Republican party amid a slew of challengers in the run-up to the 2024 presidential primaries.
Former President and 2024 GOP candidate Donald Trump proposed a series of policies under a platform … [+] called Agenda 47.
Key Facts
Human Trafficking: Trump vowed in a video praising the surprise anti-trafficking hit movie The Sound of Freedom that, if elected, he will urge Congress to pass legislation to institute the death penalty for human traffickers who carry women and children across the U.S. border, pledging to combat “the evil of child trafficking”—Trump had previously pushed for the death penalty for drug dealers and smugglers, a controversial position in violation of international human rights laws.
Title 42: Trump also pledged in the video to reinstate Title 42, a Covid-era border policy that allowed authorities to turn migrants away at the U.S.-Mexico border for public health purposes, after the policy expired in May, sparking heavy pushback from the right over warnings of an influx of migrants at the southern border—which did not materialize.
Tariffs: Ahead of a campaign stop in Iowa last month, Trump’s campaign team said the 2024 candidate will pass the so-called Trump Reciprocal Trade Act if elected in an effort to “knock down barriers for American farm products”—a pledge he also made as president, which raised criticism at the time 0ver cherry-picking certain products over others—saying the tariffs will target “India, China, or any other country” that imposes a 100% or 200% tariff on the U.S.
Birthright Citizenship: Trump promised to issue an executive order ending the longstanding practice of offering citizenship to U.S.-born people with undocumented parents, calling the policy a “reward for breaking” U.S. laws—reiterating a pledge he made as president based on a heavily questionable legal theory that the 14th Amendment does not guarantee automatic citizenship for children born to undocumented migrants.
January 6 Pardons: In September, Trump promised to issue pardons and a government apology to many rioters at the deadly January 6 insurrection on the Capitol building, telling conservative radio host Wendy Bell, “I mean full pardons,” though he later said at a CNN town hall earlier this month he hopes to pardon a “large portion” of rioters convicted for their involvement in the insurrection.
Mandatory Stop-and-Frisk: Trump also said he would require police departments nationwide to implement a controversial policy called “stop-and-frisk,” a police tactic of detaining and searching civilians for weapons and contraband items, even though the tactic was deemed unconstitutional by a federal judge in New York in 2013 and faces widespread criticism for discriminating against people of color, following up on a campaign promise he made as a then-candidate in 2016.
Gender Affirming Care: Trump said he will call on Congress to pass legislation to punish doctors who provide gender-affirming care to minors—a GOP-backed initiative decried by Democrats and LGTBQ organizations, after a slew of states enacted laws restricting gender-affirming care for trans children or banning trans children from using bathrooms that match their gender identity.
Critical Race Theory: Trump also pledged in January to cut federal funding for schools that teach critical race theory, gender identity or “inappropriate” political, racial or sexual material, after Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), Trump’s biggest 2024 rival, signed controversial restrictions on classroom instruction on sexual orientation, gender identity and race.
School Discipline: In addition to restricting classroom instruction, Trump vowed to push the Justice Department and Department of Education to overhaul federal standards on school discipline and “end the leftist takeover of school discipline” (while in office, Trump rescinded an Obama-era policy to ensure students of color were not disproportionately disciplined).
Baseline Tariffs: Trump said in March he plans to implement universal baseline tariffs on most foreign products, amid worsening tensions between the U.S. and China and a push to stem outsourcing to foreign countries (Trump imposed 25% tariffs on Chinese exports during his presidency).
Death Penalty for Drug Offenses: Trump has also proposed instituting the death penalty for drug dealers, smugglers and traffickers, even though he had pardoned multiple people convicted of selling drugs during his time in the White House.
Freedom Cities: In perhaps his most unusual policy proposal, Trump outlined a plan to create so-called freedom cities on federal land, holding a contest to design as many as 10 new cities built around “hives of industry” and futuristic vertical-takeoff vehicles, calling the initiative a “quantum leap in the American standard of living.”
Tangent
One subject Trump has been evasive on is abortion, following the Supreme Court’s decision last June to strike down Roe v. Wade and leave abortion access up to individual states. Earlier this month, however, the former president signaled he might not be as supportive of abortion bans as many of his GOP colleagues when he suggested Florida’s ban at six weeks into a pregnancy is “too harsh”—though he later took credit for the Supreme Court’s decision because he appointed three justices who formed the court’s majority opinion. In a similar vein, Trump slammed DeSantis’ Covid policies as unnecessarily strict (Trump lauded DeSantis, his former GOP ally, as doing a “spectacular” job managing the pandemic).
Key Background
Trump announced his campaign after months of speculation in a speech from his Mar-A-Lago resort last November, saying: “We will soon be a great nation again.” Recent polls have pegged him with a double-digit lead over other GOP candidates, including DeSantis as well as former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, though he faces steeper odds in a hypothetical match-up at the general elections against President Joe Biden, who announced his re-election campaign last month. A Quinnipiac University poll released last week found Trump maintains a 31-point lead over DeSantis among likely Republican voters, though he’s down by just two points to Biden in a hypothetical general election.
Further Reading
Trump Promises To End Automatic Citizenship For Children Of Undocumented Immigrants (Forbes)
Trump Avoids Definitive Stance On Abortion—But Suggests DeSantis’ 6-Week Ban Is ‘Too Harsh’ (Forbes)
