What Trump’s Done—or Undone—for Business in 100 Days

By Shannon Pettypiece and David Ingold

April 28, 2017

President Donald Trump came into office with big promises for turbo-charging the economy and unleashing American business, promoting an agenda of tax cuts, lightened regulatory burden and 4 percent economic growth.

Weeks before his election, he went to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to offer a “contract” with American voters on what he would achieve in his first 100 days. Among the terms, removal of regulatory restrictions on energy production, a tougher stance on trade and a promise to win passage of a spate of legislation. He wants massive tax cuts, a tariff on U.S. companies that lay off workers to move production offshore, a $1 trillion infrastructure package and the repeal and replacement of Obamacare. All completed by April 29.

As he reaches the 100-day mark on Saturday, Trump hasn’t been shy about celebrating his record. He says no president has done more in that period. Well, in the same span, Franklin Roosevelt won passage of key parts of the New Deal. Barack Obama had passed his economic stimulus and expanded health insurance coverage for children. Despite an election recount that delayed his transition, George W. Bush had at least introduced the education legislation that became his No Child Left Behind Act.

So, what has Trump accomplished? His biggest early achievement could have consequences for decades: nomination and confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, who had a record of ruling in favor of businesses as an appeals court judge. Beyond that, what he’s undone may be more important than what he’s done.

Using the Congressional Review Act, a little-known law signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, Trump and the Republican-led Congress have reversed recent Obama regulations ranging from pollution limits to internet privacy safeguards.

Thirteen Acts Signed by Trump to Roll Back Regulations

Sources: The White House, BGOV, Bloomberg reporting

That makes up 13 of the 28 pieces of legislation Trump has signed—the White House says that’s the most in the period since Harry Truman. But despite Republican majorities in the House and Senate, he hasn’t yet signed into law any of his major policy priorities. He’s signed eight laws that have been ceremonial or procedural, such as renaming a clinic or appointing a board member. His most consequential legislation continues a program allowing veterans to use private medical facilities under certain circumstances.

When he couldn’t wipe out a regulation with the stroke of a pen, he’s used executive orders to delay their start and begin the opening stages of rolling them back. By Saturday, Trump will have signed more than 30 executive orders, more than any president at this point since Franklin Roosevelt, the White House says. Some of them have far-reaching effects, others simply order his administration to begin studying a problem.

Sources: The White House, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Bloomberg reporting

Those moves have the potential to save the economy more than $18 billion per year in complying with regulatory costs, according to the American Action Forum, a conservative-leaning think tank. An executive order calling for two rules to be rolled back for each new one created could go even further.

Trump’s given one of the biggest boosts to the energy industry by unilaterally dismantling some of the broad government-wide architecture Obama built to combat climate change and by ordering his agencies to begin unwinding other environmental rules. His State Department reversed the Obama administration’s rejection of TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL pipeline.

Trump’s also boosted his pro-business image by hosting 14 meetings in his first 100 days with 84 chief executive officers at the White House to solicit their advice on how to stimulate the economy. Some of that has already turned into action, like an executive order encouraged by the auto industry to give them more time to dispute the fuel-mileage and emissions standards set by the Obama administration.

Trump’s stance has boosted the confidence of investors and corporate CEOs. The S&P 500 is up 11.7 percent since his election.

The impact on the rest of the country has been mixed. The economy has been adding jobs at an average rate of 178,000 per month so far this year, about the same as the 187,000-per-month pace last year. The economy grew at a 0.7 percent rate during the first quarter, slowing from the 2.1 percent pace during Obama’s final quarter to the weakest performance in three years. But in the manufacturing sector, quarterly gains in factory jobs from January through March were at the greatest level since 2014.

Trump has picked much of the low-hanging fruit that he can on rolling back regulations and issuing executive orders. Now comes the hard part.

To tackle a tax overhaul, replace Obamacare, renegotiate trade deals and get the funding he wants for infrastructure, he’ll need Congress’s help, and there he has yet to prove he can succeed. With Democrats firmly aligned against him and the Republican Party divided, investors have begun growing nervous, and gains in the S&P 500 have stalled.

That’s a recurring pattern across several economic indicators—initial investor optimism after the election has diminished, as some of Trump’s policy goals come to seem out of reach.

You can see it in investor confidence that Trump will be able to slash corporate tax rates this year. After the election, investors piled into shares of the most-taxed companies. Small-cap companies rallied, too, as investors counted on growth opportunities for companies that have been less likely to shelter profits overseas. Both surged past the broader market rally, but their gains have since leveled out.

Perhaps no other group reflected the market’s optimism after Trump’s election more than lenders. Investors figured banks stood to benefit from lower taxes, fewer regulations, rising interest rates and increased demand for loans—and sent shares surging 26 percent through March 1. In the six weeks since, things look less rosy. Taxes remain unchanged, regulations largely are in place and loan demand has fallen off, rather than picked up. Bank shares are down almost 6 percent. The second chart confirms how investors have expressed more caution, as the spread between short and long-term bond yields—an important metric for the profitability of bank’s lending businesses—has fallen back to November levels.

The pattern is the same with inflation expectations. The spread in yields between two- and 10-year Treasuries widened after the election, only to stall during Trump’s first 100 days in office. It’s worth watching this relationship as Trump moves ahead with tax and regulatory reform, as the dynamics in the world’s biggest debt market also helped shape the winners and losers in U.S. equities.

The Mexican peso is another great example of how perceptions of Trump have changed. It posted the world’s biggest losses after the election, weakening more than 15 percent on concern Trump would make good on his threat to dismantle Nafta and build a border wall. But little has come of Trump’s tough campaign rhetoric towards Mexico, and investors have responded. For the first time in two years, futures contracts show bullish bets for the peso outnumbering bearish wagers.

Attempts to make good on promises to overhaul the tax code haven’t necessarily excited investors. When Trump’s top economic advisers unveiled a plan on Wednesday to offer massive corporate tax cuts, the S&P 500 index halted a two-day rally after the plan left unanswered questions about how the proposal would be paid for and whether it could pass Congress.

On the energy front, despite the fanfare, most of Trump’s early activity has yet to show results. While he’s set in motion rollbacks of regulations seen raising the costs of oil production and discouraging the use of coal to generate electricity, the real work of undoing those rules will fall to bureaucrats and could take years.

Trump has aimed many of his energy changes at the beleaguered coal industry, promising to help revive mining jobs lost to automation, environmental rules and a broad market shift toward cleaner-burning natural gas. But that’s a hard pledge to fulfill, and analysts have been skeptical that Trump’s policy changes will provide any durable boost to the coal industry.

For the financial industry, the most concrete impact of Trump’s election is that the pain has stopped. After eight years of added regulatory burdens and charged rhetoric aimed at Wall Street, Washington is once again welcoming.

Concrete policy wins are likely to come in the future—as far as two years down the road, some executives predicted—once Trump fills regulatory agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission with his own appointees. New officials can eliminate regulations via a rule-making process at their agencies, which most experts see as an easier path than pushing wholesale changes through a divided Congress.

His first 100 days weren’t everything Trump promised they’d be when he stumped in Gettysburg, but one fact should put him at ease: He still has 1,360 days to go.

What Trump’s Done—or Undone—for Business in 100 Days

Thirteen Acts Signed by Trump to Roll Back Regulations

Trump’s CEO Meetings