Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946, in Queens, New York) is a Republican politician, real-estate developer, and television personality who became the 45th president of the United States after defeating Hillary Clinton in the November 2016 election. He took office on January 20, 2017, lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, and won a non-consecutive second term in November 2024, taking office again on January 20, 2025, as the 47th president.
His first-term foreign policy was marketed under the slogan "America First" and emphasized bilateral deal-making over multilateral institutions. Notable actions included:
- Withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement on climate change (announced June 2017; formal exit November 2020) and from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran in May 2018.
- Renegotiating NAFTA into the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), signed 2018 and entered into force July 1, 2020.
- Brokering the Abraham Accords (September 2020), normalizing relations between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain, later joined by Sudan and Morocco.
- Holding three meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (Singapore 2018, Hanoi 2019, DMZ 2019).
- Initiating a tariff-driven trade conflict with China and ordering U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization in 2020 (reversed by Biden).
Domestically, his first term included the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the appointment of three Supreme Court justices (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett). He was impeached twice by the House — in December 2019 (Ukraine) and January 2021 (incitement of insurrection after the January 6 Capitol attack) — and acquitted by the Senate both times. In 2024 he became the first former U.S. president convicted of felonies (New York business-records case, May 2024) before returning to office.
Example
In September 2020, President Donald Trump hosted the signing of the Abraham Accords at the White House, formalizing normalization between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain.
Frequently asked questions
Twice by the House of Representatives — in December 2019 over the Ukraine affair, and in January 2021 for incitement of insurrection following the January 6 Capitol attack. He was acquitted by the Senate in both trials.
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