A prominent American daily has laid out what it describes as the “20 best things” President Donald Trump did in 2025, arguing that the scale of his actions in the opening phase of his second term goes beyond a conventional year-end accounting.
A Washington Post column, written by Marc A. Thiessen and published under the banner “The 20 best things Trump did in 2025,” says Trump has had “such a consequential start to his second term” that “my normal list of 10 could not capture the full scope of what he accomplished.”
At the top of the list, the author writes that Trump “obliterated the Iranian nuclear program,” asserting that “only Trump took decisive action to halt it,” and describing the launch of “Operation Midnight Hammer” as “the most important and courageous foreign policy decision any president has made in the past half-century.”
Another major foreign policy claim highlighted in the column is that Trump “forged one of the greatest peacemaking records in US history.”
The piece says he made progress toward peace in conflicts involving “India and Pakistan,” the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, Cambodia and Thailand, and Armenia and Azerbaijan, while also helping bring an end to the Israel-Iran war and brokering a deal to end the Israel-Hamas conflict.
On security alliances, the column states that Trump “got NATO allies to meet and raise their defense spending promises,” noting that allies are on track to spend 2 per cent of GDP on defence this year and agreed to raise that to 5 per cent by 2035. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is quoted as writing that this was “something NO American president in decades could get done.”
Domestically, the author credits Trump with driving illegal migration “to a virtual halt,” saying border encounters are at “record lows,” and with creating “Trump Accounts” to give every American child a trust fund, with the federal government putting $1,000 into a tax-advantaged account for each eligible child.
Other items on the list include adding $156 billion to the defence budget, shutting down the US Agency for International Development as an independent agency, fixing what the column calls a military recruiting crisis, and using tariff threats to strike new trade deals with the European Union and several Asian countries.
The column concludes that “love him or hate him, this is an objectively stunning string of accomplishments,” adding, “I can’t think of a president in my lifetime who has accomplished so much in such a short period of time.”
Trump returned to the White House after winning the 2024 election, securing a second, non-consecutive term. His first presidency, from 2017 to 2021, was marked by sharp political polarization, major tax cuts and a confrontational approach to trade and alliances.
The early months of a second term have again drawn intense scrutiny in Washington and abroad, with supporters and critics closely tracking how his policy moves reshape US domestic priorities and its role on the global stage.
