“Eleven months ago, I inherited a mess, and I’m fixing it,” President Donald Trump triumphantly declared last week. “In a few short months, we went from worst to best.”

I covered that speech at the time, but as we close out 2025, it seemed like a good idea to bullet point Trump’s work so far this year. I could complain about a few things, but I’ll refrain and instead focus on what he checked off his to-do list.

• Inflation: The annual inflation rate recently hit 2.7%, down from a high of 9.1% under Joe Biden. Cumulative inflation across Biden’s disastrous tenure was nearly 25%, and it will take time to declare victory. But the next few bullets deal with actions he took for that purpose.

• GDP: The government just released its latest report on the economy this morning: “Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 4.3 percent in the third quarter of 2025 (July, August, and September), according to the initial estimate released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the second quarter, real GDP increased 3.8 percent.”

• Regulation: Trump has moved to deregulate the federal government at a pace even faster than during his first term — 10 removed for every one implemented instead of two for every one. He blocked all unfinalized Biden regulations and rolled back many that were already in place. Repealing the EV mandate alone will have a considerable impact. Regulations are taxes, so removing them will slow the rise in the price of goods and services.

• Tax cuts: The One Big Beautiful Bill Act made permanent the tax rates enacted in Trump’s first term. Those tax cuts benefited every tax bracket, so if you pay federal income taxes, you pay a lower rate than you did under Barack Obama. Republicans also added a number of new items, like no taxes on tips, overtime, or Social Security income.

• Foreign investment: Trump is a businessman at heart, and he has used tariffs to wheel and deal with other nations. Tariffs are not a panacea, and they do cost American consumers, but Trump has secured trillions in promised investment in America from foreign countries. That will create jobs and wealth in our nation.

• Healthcare and prescriptions: Trump and the GOP have pitched alternatives to ObamaCare that could help rein in the exploding price of healthcare created by Democrats. One of Trump’s big moves was on prescription drugs. His Most Favored Nation plan will help reduce prices, and TrumpRx will allow for lower negotiated prices on many popular medications. There are 20 new VA clinics since Trump took office, too, helping Veterans with access to the care they need.

• Energy: The Trump administration reinvigorated the first-term policies that led to an energy boom. Biden emptied our Strategic Petroleum Reserve when his policies led to record-high gas prices; Trump has done the opposite, and gas prices are back down to four-year lows. Overall, Trump’s energy policies will create a boom that will help us well into the future.

• DOGE: The Department of Government Efficiency didn’t make the wholesale changes many folks hoped for, but it did begin reining in the bureaucracy and some wasteful spending. USAID is effectively gone, and so are roughly 271,000 government jobs. The Washington Post has a year-end retrospective on “The year Trump broke the federal government.” I’m not saying every bureaucrat is a bad person or does a poor job, but the federal apparatus was badly in need of breaking. The Post’s complaint should be a compliment.

• DEI: The Trump administration has eliminated many of the “diversity, equity, and inclusion” policies that race-obsessed Democrats implement all over the federal government. America and its government should be merit-based, not skin-color-based.

• “Transgender” issues: The administration moved to withhold Medicaid funds from states and hospitals that conduct gender-mutilation experiments on minors. They are protecting “trans” kids. The administration also barred “transgender” individuals from military service.

• Border security: More than any other issue save inflation, Biden’s open border created a humanitarian crisis that required hard work to fix. Biden lied, claiming his hands were tied without Congress. Trump proved that to be a lie by effectively closing the border to illegal alien entries and working at an accelerated pace to remove people who shouldn’t have broken our laws to get here. As Trump put it last week, “We inherited the worst border anywhere in the world, and we quickly turned it into the strongest border in the history of our country.” We didn’t need a new law. All we needed was a new president.

• Foreign policy: Trump takes credit for a list of achievements, saying, “I’ve restored American strength, settled eight wars in 10 months, destroyed the Iran nuclear threat and ended the war in Gaza, bringing for the first time in 3,000 years, peace to the Middle East, and secured the release of the hostages, both living and dead.” American leadership has been restored in the world.

Obviously, this isn’t a comprehensive list of everything Trump has done this year, but he has been, to put it mildly, a busy man. 2025 presented numerous challenges, but Trump never shies away from meeting them.

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