By Jeff Mason and Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump and his administration this week will highlight the accomplishments of his first 100 days in office, while looking toward the next 100 days with a focus on trade deals and peace talks, White House officials said.
After a pace of changes that have thrilled allies and stunned adversaries, including in social policy areas such as transgender rights, one official said Trump has “torpedoes” in store but did not explain what those were.
Trump has enacted sweeping changes on a wide range of U.S. domestic and foreign policy priorities since taking office on January 20. He has upended the world economic order with tariffs, slashed the federal government with job cuts and done away with diversity programs in the public and private sector.
He has also attacked academia, law firms and courts.
This week, Trump plans to travel to Michigan for a rally to commemorate the 100-day milestone. The White House intends to highlight his economic vision, ejection of undocumented immigrants, changes to foreign policy, and work by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to purge the federal bureaucracy and cut what it sees as waste.
Celebrating those moves will be part of a broad victory lap around Trump’s second-term launch that the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, described to reporters as a conservative’s fantasy.
“Every morning I wake up, it’s like living in a dreamscape,” he said.
While Trump officials laud the speed and breadth of his efforts to remake American society, critics say Trump has trampled on the rights of citizens and non-citizens, alienated allies and threatened U.S. supremacy in the world.
The president has withheld funding from universities for what his administration considers tolerance of anti-Semitic behavior; cut back on transgender rights; and done away with diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in the federal government and with federal contractors. This has had a broad knock-on effect throughout U.S. society.
The official said there is more to come, with lots of “torpedoes under the water.”
That includes more executive action, a hallmark of Trump’s first 100 days, which the official said would continue like a “snowball rolling downhill.” He said the administration was still working on a travel ban for citizens from multiple countries.
Courts have stymied some of Trump’s actions, drawing scorn from his allies and White House rebukes that those judges are thwarting the will of the head of the executive branch and the people who elected him.
While Trump will continue to wage war with the courts and a government bureaucracy that his team views as too bloated and out of line with his world view, another official said he would put more focus in his next 100 days on trade deals and peace talks.
The president launched an all-out trade war on numerous countries this year before putting reciprocal tariffs largely on hold to allow for negotiations with individual nations. His administration hopes to secure agreements within 90 days.
Experts say that is extremely unlikely, noting that Trump has not yet secured a single deal. His rhetoric about talks, particularly with China, has often been at odds with what the other country says is true.
The president will take an extended trip abroad next month, visiting Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, and continue to push for peace in Russia’s war with Ukraine.
Trump had promised to solve that conflict on “Day One,” but peace has been elusive. The president conceded on Saturday that Russian President Vladimir Putin may not want to stop the war.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Steve HollandEditing by Colleen Jenkins and David Gregorio)
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