Immigration, abortion, taxes and democracy: What is Donald Trump proposing in 2024?

Key proposals and positions as the former president makes his third run for the White House

Donald Trump is hoping to expand his “America First” agenda as he makes his third run for president, this time against Democratic rival Kamala Harris.

When he was defeated in the 2020 presidential election, the US was in the midst of a deadly pandemic, and he left the White House on the heels of a violent attack on the Capitol fueled by a false narrative of his loss.

Trump has campaigned on a theme of “retribution” to return to an office he wrongly believes was “stolen” from him, and he has broadly embraced reshaping or eliminating federal regulations and agencies while opening the door to staffing the government with a politized federal workforce to do what he could not in his first administration.

The former president has distanced himself from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 agenda for the next Republican administration, though the policies he has publicly supported largely mirror the expansive document.

Here are some of those proposals, based on his public statements and limited policy documents.

Immigration

The first two points on Trump’s 2024 agenda, which consists of 20 all-caps single sentences and phrases, are “SEAL THE BORDER AND STOP THE MIGRANT INVASION” and “CARRY OUT THE LARGEST DEPORTATION OPERATION IN AMERICAN HISTORY.”

Trump has repeatedly promised the “largest deportation operation in American history,” which would rely on a defunct, centuries-old and likely unconstitutional law infamously used to detain Japanese Americans during the Second World War.

His invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 would target foreigners for removal, without a hearing or due process, based solely on their place of birth or citizenship.

Trump would direct his administration to deploy federal resources to use local law enforcement to arrest, jail and deport people living in the country without legal permission — a plan that would be swiftly met with legal challenges. The operation would also require the construction of “vast holding facilities” — detention camps — to hold people marked for removal.

People who have been removed from the country under that plan would face an “automatic 10-year sentence in jail with no possibility of parole” if they return, according to Trump.

Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, has also said the administration would end programs that grant tens of thousands of immigrants legal permission to live and work in the US, which he has derided as “mass parole” — suggesting that immigrants who are granted Temporary Protected Status could be required to find other legal pathways to stay in the US or face deportation.

Trump also vowed to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, after the Supreme Court blocked his first attempt in 2020.

Abortion

Trump has celebrated the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v Wade, which was made possible by his appointment of three justices during his time in office. At the end of his presidency, Trump had appointed 28 percent of all active federal judges, which radically reshaped the judiciary with ideologically like-minded jurists who now wield significant influence over abortion laws that have been taken to court.

He now says that he does not endorse a national “ban” on abortion care, and he denies that he would sign legislation from Congress that would enact such a ban. But Trump opposes abortion past 15 weeks of pregnancy, and he does not support Florida’s constitutional amendment that would enshrine a right to abortion care in the state, effectively voiding the state’s six-week ban.

Trump has repeatedly defended the Supreme Court’s decision as returning the issue back to individual states to decide. Yet his running mate JD Vance has endorsed proposed Senate legislation for a national ban on abortion past 15 weeks of pregnancy, which would override any state-level abortion protections.

In 2022, Vance said he wants abortion to be “illegal nationally,” and he supported “eliminating abortion” on his campaign website up until Trump tapped him as his potential vice president.

The Republican Party platform, which Trump prompts on his campaign website, endorses the idea of fetal personhood, which would grant full constitutional rights to fetuses under the 14th Amendment. He has also repeatedly falsely accused Democrats of supporting “after birth” abortion.

Trump has said he supports abortion protections for pregnancies from rape and incest and to protect the life of the mother.

Economy

Trump has proposed a 20 percent tariff on all imported goods, including 60 percent tariffs on goods imported from China, a 100 percent tariff on goods from countries that have shifted away from trading with the dollar, and a 2,000 percent tariff on vehicles built in Mexico.

He has also floated an improbable idea to potentially eliminate all federal taxes and rely solely on tariffs to support the nation’s multi-trillion dollar annual budget.

Trump also wants to lower the corporate tax rate to 15 percent for companies that manufacture goods in the US, part of his pledge to turn the US into a “manufacturing superpower.”

His economic agenda has taken aim at China, and has promised to “completely eliminate” US dependence on China “in all critical areas,” including electronics, steel and pharmaceuticals.

His 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act lowered the top personal tax rate rate from 39.6 percent to 37 percent and the top corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. Republican lawmakers are hoping to expand that plan before it expires at the end of 2025.

Trump’s platform pledges that he would not make any cuts to Medicare or Social Security, though he has repeatedly said that his administration could make cuts to so-called entitlements.

His “no taxes on tips” plan is more of a slogan, though his proposal would likely match proposed Republican legislation that would exempt the tips that workers receive from income taxes and payroll taxes.

Trump also routinely denigrates union labor, has praised Elon Musk for firing striking workers, and says he “hates” paying overtime.

LGBT+ rights

Republicans have spent more than $120 million in anti-trans attack ads since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, making it the biggest target in Trump’s ad dollars thus far.

Trump has repeatedly falsely stated that children’s genitals are mutilated in schools and relied on the popular right-wing slogan to “get men out of women’s sports,” which falsely characterizes the sidelining of transgender women and girls from school and collegiate sports.

Trump has promised to revoke federal policies that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, which could radically impact how LGBT+ Americans navigate employment, housing, education and healthcare or access other federal programs. His administration also could rely on federal law to override state and local protections for LGBT+ people.

His campaign has pledged to use the federal government to “stop” gender-affirming healthcare for transgender minors, a range of care that includes mental health treatment as well as nonmedical services. He has called gender-affirming care “child abuse” and “child sexual mutilation.”

Trump also plans to direct the Food and Drug Administration to study the effects of gender-affirming healthcare and so-called “trans ideology” on mental health and “violence,” and has announced that he would direct the Department of Justice to investigate doctors and pharmaceutical companies.

Foreign policy

Trump has cast doubt on bipartisan support for Ukraine in Russia’s war and repeatedly claimed that he would solve the war quickly after entering office, suggesting that Ukraine should make concessions to Russia.

He has also threatened to leave NATO as he complains that European countries are not contributing enough money to the alliance.

Trump’s 2020 “peace plan” for Israel-Palestine proposed redrawing boundaries to incorporate Israeli settlements in Palestine that are considered illegal under international law, handing control of Jerusalem to Israel, demilitarizing the state of Palestine, and denying Palestinian refugees a right of return.

In 2019, he recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which Israel had seized from Syria in 1967.

Trump repeatedly accuses Jewish voters who vote for Democratic candidates of “hating” Israel while he pledges to “deport pro-Hamas radicals” when speaking about anti-war protests.

After Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, Iran began ignoring limitations on its nuclear program, and Trump has now said he would deploy military force if Iran produced a nuclear weapon. In 2020, he authorized the assassination of Islamic Revolutionary Guard leader Qasem Soleimani, and he has routinely taken credit for defeating ISIS.

Climate

Trump has called the climate crisis a “hoax,” and his administration rolled back or undermined more than 125 rules intended to protect the environment and lower planet-warming emissions while in office. In his rally speeches, Trump jokes that American homes will merely get more “waterfront property” as sea levels rise.

After dropping the US from the Paris Climate Accords, which Biden later re-joined, Trump has said he would once again withdraw from the agreement. He also would strip climate protections from Biden’s Inflation Reduction Action, including policies supporting electric vehicle production.

He said he would be a “dictator on Day One” of his administration, only to “close the border” and “drill, drill, drill,” as he pledges to “unleash American energy” and rely on US fossil fuel production.

Education

Trump supports dissolving the Department of Education, a longtime target of right-wing vitriol over “woke” government agendas. While state and local governments administer education, the federal agency enforces civil rights laws protecting students and faculty and administers billions of dollars in grant funding, among other duties.

Trump has also pledged to eliminate school policies that support diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and has touted the creation of his 1776 Commission, a presidential advisory committee that was created during his administration to instill “patriotic education in schools.”

Crime and criminal justice

Trump’s administration oversaw more executions than any other administration in 120 years, including more executions in a one-year period than every state combined. He now wants to expand the number of crimes punishable by death — including people convicted of drug trafficking — and speed up executions for people imprisoned on death row.

His campaign also has promised to “indemnify” officers accused of misconduct and to rescind “every” Biden-era policy intended to curb the proliferation of high-powered firearms.

Trump also wants to end the “weaponization” of government, which is how he characterizes state and federal criminal cases against him, and he’s vowed to “fire” special counsel Jack Smith on his first day in office, if elected.

The former president also has promised mass pardons for criminal defendants who participated in the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

Democracy and elections

Trump opposes restoring the Voting Rights Act and wants to mandate same-day voting and require voters to present ID and proof of citizenship to cast their ballots.

He has suggested deploying the military and local law enforcement to monitor elections.