WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office have been unprecedented, featuring an explosion of executive actions aimed at dramatically reshaping the government, the American economy, foreign policy and cultural norms — largely through the consolidation of power.
Minnesota and other states that did not vote for Trump are most vulnerable to the agenda Trump quickly initiated in his first months of his second term. That agenda includes efforts to punish officials who do not cooperate with his massive deportation initiative or his campaign to erase diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, which the president has determined are divisive.
From cuts in medical research and the curtailing of refugee programs to tariffs on agricultural products and threats against “sanctuary cities,” Trump’s first 100 days (which will be reached Tuesday) have touched Minnesotans in myriad and uncomfortable ways.
The whirlwind of change since Trump was sworn in on Jan. 20 was ushered in through Trump’s unleashing of more than 130 executive orders; little change came out of Congress, which has sent just a handful of bills to the president to sign.
“This is one of the most difficult 100 days to grasp,” said Tim Lindberg, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota Morris. “Usually, this is a time to get Congress to push through a president’s agenda, but there have not been any significant bills.”
Former President Joe Biden issued 77 executive orders in his first full year in office — and he was fighting a pandemic. And in 2017, the first year of Trump’s first term, he issued only 55 executive orders.
Meanwhile, former President Barack Obama signed 40 executive orders in 2009, his first year in office.
“The thing that’s so striking about this period is that these things are happening uninterrupted,” said Ross Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University.
Baker said Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is a “continuing story” as they raid federal agencies, laying off workers, canceling grants and contracts and seeking private information about Americans they say will help them find undocumented immigrants.
“Right now, out of the gate, every day, every hour, something happens,” Baker said. “It makes it very difficult for people to step back and sort out individual episodes of great importance.”
Lindberg said “the most impactful aspect of the chaos is the continued polarization.”
He said Trump’s continued attacks on issues that Democrats hold in high esteem — including civil rights and diversity and education and scientific research — are “unprecedented.” Lindberg said those attacks affect “blue” states like Minnesota more than states with Republican majorities who “don’t support or don’t know about or don’t care” about these issues.
Trump has effected so much change in such a short time because he swiftly consolidated his power. He was able to do so because the GOP majorities in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate are loath to disagree with the president, he has a conservative majority on the Supreme Court and he has fired agency officials and watchdogs that could stop or slow his initiatives.
And his demonization of the “lamestream media,” which included the blocking of access to legacy media organizations, including the Associated Press, and the promotion of right-wing outlets and “influencers” has allowed him to successfully broadcast disinformation to the MAGA world, amplified by postings on Truth Social and the help of Musk, who owns X.
Lindberg said thoughtful discourse of any kind is “mostly drowned out by partisanship” and the nation split is “driven by different sources of information.”
‘Faith that this will all go away’
Trump’s tariff policies are likely to impact Minnesota more than other states because Minnesota is heavily agricultural — ranking 5th in the nation as far as cash receipts from farm products.
The state’s farmers are also dependent on export markets — especially China, which is in a full-blown trade war with the United States — for the sale of soybeans, corn and hogs. And Canada, a neighboring country that has been battered by tariff threats and Trump’s desire to make it the 51st state, has joint agreements with many Minnesota farmers and is a key export market.
Related: How Minnesota fits into the bigger global trade picture
Lindberg said the pushback from the state’s farmers to Trump’s tariff policy has been muted because it’s not harvest season and Trump compensated, at least in part, the nation’s farmers for losses after he imposed tariffs on China during his first term.
“You do see some concern in rural areas but there’s some faith that this is going to go away,” he said.
Trump said he implemented his tariff policy to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States, and stop other nations, both friends and foes, from “ripping off” the United States.
But Minnesota is also home to about 20 Fortune 500 companies that are dependent on both imports from overseas and exports to foreign countries. Target’s stock, for instance, has dropped about 11% in the last month and Best Buy’s has fallen more than 17% and Polaris stock more than 22%.
Of course, individual Minnesotans are going to be affected by the stock market’s plunge as the value of retirement plans shrink — along with that of government and labor union pension plans — and the economy weakens.
Trump’s classification of Minnesota as a “sanctuary state” and many of the state’s cities, towns and counties as “sanctuary jurisdictions” has drawn threats of prosecution of state and local officials and claw backs of federal funding.
Meanwhile, the University of Minnesota is under investigation by Trump’s Justice Department for complaints of antisemitism and announced last week that 11 of its international students have had their visas revoked by the Department of Homeland Security.
Foreign students at other state colleges are also having their visas revoked as Trump tries to make good on a campaign promise to deport 1 million foreign-born people in his first year.
The Trump administration is not reporting the number of deportations, but it is believed that, even with the drastic actions the president has taken, which include sending immigrants to a high-security prison in El Salvador, will fall far short of his goal because of detention center capacity constraints and other difficulties.
Yet deportations are up. In the last three months of 2024, there were 565 arrests by the St. Paul sector of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE.) Although ICE has stopped providing monthly numbers on arrests and deportations, anecdotal evidence and panicked calls to immigration attorneys in the state indicate there has been an increase in the number of immigrants in the state who have been detained.
The mass, indiscriminate firings of federal workers and the wholesale elimination of federal agencies — including the U.S. Agency for International Development that purchased Midwestern agriculture products to feed the hungry overseas — has also taken its toll on the state.
So has the pullback of grants that fund nonprofits, local government programs and university research. And the curtailment of federal funding will also affect Minnesota’s ability to craft a budget that will take care of all of the state’s needs.
Earlier this month, Gov. Tim Walz told state agencies that depend on federal funding to “assume it will be cut.”
Trump has reversed himself on some policies — the on-again, off-again imposition of tariffs is one example — and the nation’s federal courts have put a halt, at least temporarily, to others.
Meanwhile, Trump has totally failed in his promise to bring a quick end to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. And on the domestic front the chaos is overwhelming and plans to cut federal safety net programs, if implemented, may eventually more forcefully hit “red” states, which tend to be poorer than “blue” ones.
The 100-day marker is an informal benchmark stemming from the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration, which was eager to showcase its efforts to fight the Great Depression in the 1930s.
Baker said the full effect of Trump’s first hundred days in the Oval Office isn’t likely to be fully felt for a while.
“The first 100 days is the cause and the second 100 days will be the effect,” he said.
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