A look back at the first year of Donald Trump's return to the White House, in images and stories
On January 20, 2025, Donald Trump announced that, during his second term as president, the United States would enter a new "golden age".
A year has passed since he made that pledge on the podium of his inauguration ceremony. And, as his speech foretold, "a tide of change" has indeed swept the country.
Since returning to office, Trump has signed 228 executive orders, issued more than 1,740 acts of clemency, and authorised attacks in seven foreign countries, including Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, Syria and Venezuela.
His administration has also touted the departure of at least 317,000 federal employees over the past year, as Trump seeks to tailor a "smaller, more efficient federal government".
Presidential historians warn that the consequences of so many dramatic changes, taken at lightning speed, may not be felt for years.
Nor will they necessarily guarantee the preeminence that Trump promises with his slogan, "Make America Great Again".
"This will be considered one of the most consequential presidencies in the history of our country," said historian Mark Updegrove, the president of the LBJ Foundation.
"But there's a major caveat there, and that is: Just because a presidency is consequential does not mean that the president will achieve greatness in history. In this case, the two might be at opposite extremes."
Another historian, Russell Riley of the University of Virginia's Miller Center, warned of the "collateral damage" of so many changes.
"It is always hard to know when deploying the wrecking ball so quickly and extensively whether you are hitting load-bearing walls," Riley said.
"This includes concerns about the basic stability of a political system that has withstood many threats over 200 years, but few this acute."
Read on for an overview of how Trump has transformed the US over the past year, in words and pictures.
Trump's second term began with a freeze and a flurry: Temperatures were so cold on January 20 that the inauguration festivities were forced indoors.
But within hours of being sworn in, Trump embarked on a campaign of executive orders to reshape the federal government and roll back his predecessor Joe Biden's policies. The month's top headlines included:
February marked a sea change in US foreign policy, as Trump continued his retreat from US foreign aid commitments.
As Russia's war on Ukraine marked its third year, the Trump administration also signalled that the Eastern European country should be prepared to make significant concessions. And Trump turned his expansionist gaze towards war-torn Gaza. Here are some of the month's top headlines:
The Trump administration faced several legal showdowns over its policy of mass deportation in March, after questions were raised about its failure to abide by a court protection order in one case and a decision to ground two deportation flights in another.
Trump also expanded the administration's deportation dragnet to include student protesters whose views it saw as antithetical to its foreign policy. Here are some of the month's top stories:
Declaring a national emergency to rebuild the US economy, Trump used April to unveil a controversial tariff agenda, which included individualised rates for certain trading partners.
Trump promised the tariffs would help fill government coffers, offset the national debt and reduce the tax burden of citizens. But critics warned that the import taxes could create higher prices for consumers and strain relations with allies. Here are some of April's top headlines:
While Trump briefly left the US in April to attend Pope Francis's funeral, he set out on a full-fledged diplomatic tour in May, the first of his second presidency.
Just as during his first term, his first stop was in Saudi Arabia. While Trump played up the international investments he gathered in each successive country, critics questioned whether the president was engaged in influence-peddling and self-dealing. Here are some of the month's top headlines:
Trump continued to test the limits of his presidential authority in June, which marked the first time during his second term that he called up the National Guard to quell civil unrest.
Normally, such an action would be taken with the consent of the state governor, but in June, it was not. Critics argued that Trump's move violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the military from serving as domestic law enforcement. Here are some of the month's headlines:
Trump notched some of his biggest legislative victories in July, most notably with the passage of his omnibus spending and tax law, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
But the month also saw a Republican-led Congress submit to Trump pressure to claw back funding for foreign aid and public media. Here are some of the month's top headlines:
While Republicans had traditionally advocated for less government intervention in the economy, Trump signalled in August that he would go in a different direction.
He took aggressive action against a governor on the Federal Reserve, the US central bank, and after a dispute with the chipmaker Intel, his administration arranged ownership over a percentage of the company's stock. Here are some of the top headlines:
The long-promised attacks against alleged drug smugglers begin to materialise in September, when Trump kicks off a months-long campaign to bomb boats in international waters.
While previous military action under Trump had been concentrated in North Africa and the Middle East, the boat strikes signal a shift to more aggressive military action closer to home in the Western Hemisphere. Here are some of the month's top headlines:
In October, Trump starts to take an aggressive interest in Latin American elections, telling reporters that the US "would not be generous with Argentina" if its right-wing coalition lost in the upcoming midterm races.
His pressure campaign appears to be rewarded when La Libertad Avanza, the right-wing party, gives a dominant performance at the polls on October 26. Here are some of the month's top headlines:
The Republican Party saw its unity tested in November, amid a tense government shutdown and increasing pressure to release government files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Though Trump had once called Republicans "stupid" for seeking transparency in the Epstein files, he was forced to reverse course when faced with a schism in the party ranks. Still, he cuts his ties with one of his highest-profile supporters, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who subsequently announced she will resign from Congress.
Here are some of the month's headlines:
Tensions with Venezuela continued to heat up in December, as the Trump administration expanded its attacks on alleged drug traffickers to the land and formed a blockade to choke the country's oil exports.
In the US, meanwhile, Trump took a victory lap, hosting his first Kennedy Center Honors and accepting a peace prize from FIFA. Here are some of the month's biggest headlines:
Since Trump's first term, he had led a "maximum pressure" campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. But in January, pressure switched to action. Maduro was abducted by US military forces and brought to the US to face trial.
That attack on Venezuela's government was followed by a series of other threats against countries including Greenland, Iran and Colombia. Here are some of the month's headlines:
