Donald Trump’s second presidential term has already seen a whirlwind of activity — but not to the benefit of the working-class Americans who elected him in hopes of a greater, more affordable America. Instead of fighting for workers, Trump has been consumed with catering to billionaires.
President Trump’s cabinet picks and closest advisers are stacked with billionaires, none more prominent than Elon Musk. Trump has given the richest man in the world access to the protected financial information of millions of Americans. He’s let Musk slash funding for agencies that oversee Musk-owned SpaceX and X and even functionally shut down one agency that investigated Musk-owned Tesla for breaking the law.
Trump has proposed a government-run investment fund that, commentators worry, could place taxpayer money in risky assets or possibly those that would enrich Trump and his allies the most. The administration eliminated safeguards on how big tech companies can use artificial intelligence.
Since Trump took office, he has issued more than 65 executive orders, which has already provoked a constitutional crisis about whether Congress or the president controls federal spending. Amid all the power grabs and corruption, the Trump administration hasn’t done much of anything to help the millions of workers who voted for him. There have been no executive orders to raise wages or increase unionization, for example, and prices continue to rise under Trump, exacerbating the cost of living crisis that many workers are facing.
Trump might defend himself against claims of failing workers by pointing to the tariffs he’s threatened and issued. While properly designed tariffs can help workers, the administration’s tariffs will do little to revitalize manufacturing, create jobs, increase wages, or improve working conditions and much to harm workers by raising costs.
Tariffs help a broad swath of workers only when they’re part of a larger strategy to produce high-quality jobs and make American industry competitive. Trump has no effective jobs strategy and instead used tariffs like a bargaining chip to extract concessions out of Canada and Mexico to address drug trafficking, but not to support high-quality American jobs. The steel and aluminum tariffs he announced are recycled policies from his first term that reduced manufacturing jobs by increasing costs on inputs for American manufacturers.
Worse, the administration has taken several actions that intentionally impose significant harm on workers.
Trump shuttered the National Labor Relations Board, which enforces workers’ union rights. Meanwhile, the Justice Department is dropping its defense against a lawsuit by SpaceX that questions the constitutionality of this nearly century-old agency. That means if a company illegally fires a worker for trying to form a union, the company can likely get away with it while the board is not operating.
Musk’s companies have been accused on many occasions of union-busting and will now have free reign — as will the many other billionaires in Trump’s Cabinet.
The Trump administration also closed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which prevents banks from ripping off consumers. The administration is advocating for a bill that would give those with incomes in the top 1 percent tax cuts nearly four times bigger than those of working families while rolling back targeted incentives for American companies to create good jobs in emerging industries.
On top of everything, the Trump administration has harassed and fired federal workers. Whether you politically support the agencies that employ them or not, federal workers depend on their jobs for a paycheck, just like private-sector workers. Much of what federal employees do — ensuring clean water, enforcing laws, promoting cancer research, maintaining national parks and responding to natural disasters — is popular with the working class.
So far, Trump’s presidency has been nothing more than catering to billionaires at the expense of workers. Even with all the chaos that surrounds Trump, the working class will eventually notice that he’s not making America greater for them like he promised.
