Washington, United States – From unleashing a fleet of flying cars to executing drug dealers, Donald Trump has not been coy about his unorthodox vision for America as he seeks to retake the White House.
The former president and frontrunning Republican candidate for 2024 – sometimes accused of lacking a clear political philosophy – has explained in speeches and a series of “Agenda 47” policy videos how he would govern.
Often thin on detail, the eye-catching pronouncements form the backbone of a platform that Trump says will “make America great and glorious again.”
Critics say it spells out why he should never be allowed to return to the Oval Office as the country’s 47th president.
‘The Jetsons’ revisited?
One of Trump’s more striking proposals is a competition to design up to 10 state-of-the-art “freedom cities” — roughly the size of Washington — on federal land.
Built around cutting-edge “hives of industry” brimming with factories, these innovation hubs would represent a “quantum leap in the American standard of living.”
Trump envisages commuters darting about in flying cars in an echo of “The Jetsons,” the space-age 1960s cartoon about a family living in an automated, push-button future.
Year-long birthday bash
Trump has proposed a “Salute to America,” honoring the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, with “an entire year of festivities across the nation” from Memorial Day 2025 through July 4, 2026.
“I will work with all 50 governors, Republican and Democrat alike, to create the Great American State Fair, a unique one-year exhibition featuring pavilions from all 50 states,” he said. “It’ll be something.”
An American utopia
Trump wants to launch “a great beautification campaign” to improve US cities, making the streets more pleasant for ordinary Americans.
The Republican, whose Las Vegas hotel was named one of the world’s ugliest skyscrapers by Architectural Digest, says he wants to replace grotesque buildings with “magnificent” classical architecture.
Streets would be renamed in honor of “great American patriots” while the homeless, on threat of arrest, would be sent to tent cities on “large parcels of inexpensive land.”
A new war on drugs…
The former president has vowed to designate Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and to impose the death penalty on drug dealers and people traffickers.
The former president pardoned multiple dealers during his time in the White House and struggled to grasp the apparent contradiction during a Fox News interview in mid-June.
He boasted of pardoning a convict who had been in prison for 21 years for involvement in a cocaine ring, and became flustered when the network pointed out that she would have been executed under his new policy.
…But pardons for rioters
Trump has promised to issue pardons to “a large portion” of the rioters jailed after the deadly 2021 assault on the US Capitol.
More than 600 of his supporters have been convicted over the worst attack on the seat of US democracy in two centuries — with some 140 police wounded with flag poles, baseball bats and pepper spray.
The charges have ranged from trespassing to obstructing the government and seditious conspiracy.
Mandatory stop-and-frisk
Trump says he would require police to enforce “stop-and-frisk,” the practice of detaining and searching civilians for weapons and drugs.
Declared unconstitutional by a federal court in 2013, the tactic is widely criticized for discriminating against racial minorities.
Trump says he would also deploy the National Guard “to restore law and order” in liberal cities and would investigate “radical Marxist prosecutors” refusing to punish disorder.
Culture wars
Trump has weighed in on most of the so-called “culture war” issues that polarize Americans, from abortion, transgender rights and gun control to the teaching of America’s racist history.
The candidate says he would crack down on doctors providing gender-affirming care to minors and “pink haired communists” pushing critical race theory or “inappropriate” political material in schools.
Trump would also create a new tax credit, he said, to reimburse teachers for concealed carry firearms and training, as the country copes with a torrent of mass shootings.
Immigration
After years of unfulfilled promises, there has been no more talk of “the most gorgeous wall you’ve ever seen,” stretching 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) across the southern frontier and paid for by Mexico.
But a second-term Trump would “fully secure” the border, he says, ending mass unskilled immigration.
The 2017-21 Trump administration built around 440 miles of fencing — more than any other president in history — but fewer than 50 miles of new wall where there was none before.
Trump also announced in May he would issue an executive order ending a longstanding policy of granting citizenship to US-born children with undocumented parents.