Trump’s one-year anniversary: promises kept and records shattered

Tuesday marks the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump's return to office for his second term, and the country is nearly unrecognizable from the way it looked under his predecessor, former President Joe Biden. 

Mortgages then and now

The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate right now is at roughly 6.02%, down from about 7.04% a year ago in January, when Biden was still in office. However, that's three-quarters of a point down from the rate in October of 2023, when the 30-year fixed mortgage rate reached 7.79%. Average rates were roughly 2.5 times higher than when Biden took over following Trump's first term.

In an effort to supercharge America's buying power for home purchases, Trump is directing federally mandated and backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase $200 billion in mortgage bonds to push rates lower, which briefly dropped them below 6% following the announcement, while also pausing a 50-year mortgage plan and exploring options such as penalty-free 401(k) withdrawals for down payments.

Gas prices cratering

As of January 2026, the national average price for regular gasoline is roughly $2.82 a gallon, down from around $3.08 in January 2025 under the end of the Biden administration.  
 

The highest national average gas price during the Biden presidency skyrocketed to roughly $5.02 a gallon in June 2022, driven largely by self-inflicted refining capacity constraints. 

Biden in response drained the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to reduce the pain at the pump, lowering prices an estimated 17 to 42 cents per gallon. The reserve, which is stored in salt caverns across Louisiana and Texas, currently holds 413.68 million barrels of crude oil, about 60% of its full capacity. 

During Trump's second term, he is pursuing an aggressive "energy dominance" agenda – including record domestic oil production, deregulation and resuming LNG exports – which has contributed significantly to lower prices now at multi-year lows, with households projected to save billions in 2026 compared to prior years.  

Egg-cellent prices

Right now, the national average retail price for a dozen Grade A large eggs is about $2.71, down from around $4.15 in January 2025 at the end of the Biden administration.  

The highest egg prices under Biden hit roughly $4.82 per dozen, in early 2023, and spiked again in 2025 (reaching $8.17 in some retail locations in March) mainly due to avian flu outbreaks that forced massive flock culling.  

By contrast, Trump’s agriculture agenda – including a $12 billion USDA biosecurity and compensation plan, deregulation and faster flock rebuilding – has driven the sharp price drop to multi-year lows, delivering major savings for consumers.

Bidenflation no more

The annual U.S. inflation rate (taken from the federal government's monthly Consumer Price Index report) now sits at 2.7% for the 12 months ending December 2025, unchanged from the prior month and down from around 3% at the end of Biden's term in January 2025.  

In what came to be known as Bidenflation, the highest rate during the Biden presidency peaked at 9.1% year-over-year in June 2022, the highest in over 40 years, with cumulative inflation totaling a staggering 21.5%.   

Adhering to many of his campaign promises, Trump is advancing supply-side policies – including sweeping deregulation to boost productivity (potentially lowering inflation by up to 0.5% annually), tax cuts for working families, energy abundance initiatives, and tariff adjustments – which are credited with helping stabilize and gradually cool inflation toward the Fed's 2% target while supporting real wage gains for American workers.

GDP growth 

The latest BEA (Bureau of Economic Analysis) numbers show real domestic Gross Domestic Product grew at a solid 4.3% annualized pace in the third quarter of 2025 (July–September), and the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow is now pointing to roughly 5.3% for the fourth quarter of 2025 – up substantially from the roughly 2.4% annualized growth in fourth-quarter 2024 toward the end of the Biden administration.

Trump’s “America First” agenda – including deregulation to spark business investment, energy dominance to keep costs down, extensions of tax cuts and tariff moves to bring production back home – is powering this faster growth seen now at multi-year highs, with forecasts calling for continued strong expansion in 2026 that should result in higher wages and more jobs and  prosperity for U.S. workers.

Immigration and foreign population remaining in country 

Following aggressive deportation operations throughout last year, the U.S. foreign-born population is now estimated to be at 51.5 million – a decline of about 1.8 million from January 2025 due to negative net migration and heightened enforcement. 

Trump closes out his first year with border crossings down 95%.

This drop includes the illegal-alien population, which fell by an estimated 576,000 amid over 622,000 reported deportations and reports of 1.9 million self-deportations.

Under Biden's administration, the foreign-born population grew to a peak of 53.3 million by January 2025. The illegal-alien population reached a record 14 million in 2023 before beginning to stabilize or slightly decline in late 2024, contrasting with the sharp contraction in 2025 as Biden-era deportations focused more on border encounters rather than interior enforcement.

Peace deals signed 

In just one year, Trump has brokered several international peace deals, including the Armenia-Azerbaijan agreement signed in August 2025 at the White House; the Democratic Republic of Congo-Rwanda Washington Accords in December 2025; the India-Pakistan ceasefire in May 2025; the Israel-Iran ceasefire in June 2025, the Thailand-Cambodia Kuala Lumpur Peace Accord in October 2025; and the Egypt-Ethiopia resolution over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. 

Additional efforts include the proposed Russia-Ukraine ceasefire in March 2025 and the Gaza peace plan signed between Israel and Hamas in October 2025, marking at least eight significant accords aimed at reducing global conflicts.

While Biden pursued initiatives such as rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement and supporting Ukraine against Russia, his record reveals only two advancements for peace, the 2021 Israel-Hamas ceasefire and the 2024 Lebanon ceasefire involving Israel and Hezbollah, neither of which held.

FBI most wanted captured

In the first year of the president's second term, the FBI has caught 5 of the 10 most wanted fugitives in the country. FBI Director Kash Patel said the record was a result of Trump's laser-focus on restoring the proper role of the agency to focus on crime. In contrast, the Biden administration captured 4 of the top 10 most wanted individuals during its four-year entirety.

Middle class tax cuts

The tax reforms in Trump's signature One Big Beautiful Bill will result in an estimated 15% tax cut for middle-income Americans, those making $30,000 to $80,000, an official analysis by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation concluded.

The White House called the bill, which also included reforms such as eliminating taxes on tips and overtime and boosting the child tax credit, "the largest tax cut in history for Working and Middle-Class Americans."   

Record tariff revenues

One year in, the president's tariff policies, which he has long said are aimed at rebalancing trade between the U.S. and the rest of the world and restoring U.S. manufacturing, have resulted in record tariff revenues in 2025. In his first year, the U.S. Treasury collected $264.05 billion as a result of the import duties. Data from the Commerce Department also shows that over the same period, the U.S. trade gap narrowed to its lowest point since 2009.

Amanda Head is the White House correspondent at Just The News. Follow her on X.