What laws and bills did trump past in hist first term
Executive summary
Former President Donald Trump signed dozens of laws, hundreds of executive actions, and major legislation in his first term (2017–2021), most notably the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (signed December 22, 2017) and the bipartisan First Step Act (December 2018) while issuing roughly 220 executive orders and dozens of proclamations and memoranda [1] [2] [3]. Available sources list comprehensive rolls of acts by the 115th Congress and catalog executive orders and regulatory rollbacks from that period but do not provide a single compact list of every bill he signed in office [4] [5] [3].
1. Legislative punch: tax overhaul and criminal justice reform
The largest statutory achievements of Trump’s first term were the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed by Congress and signed on December 22, 2017, which restructured corporate and individual tax rules and was widely analyzed as reducing corporate tax receipts [1], and the First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal-justice reform bill signed in December 2018 that aimed to reduce recidivism and change sentencing rules [2] [6].
2. How many laws were signed and where to find them
Congressional records and government compendia document the laws enacted while Trump was president; the 115th Congress acts list identifies public laws enacted during the period Trump first held office and subsequent enactments signed by him [4]. The official record of “Acts Approved by the President” and public-law numbers is maintained on govinfo and White House archives for those seeking an item-by-item catalog [7].
3. Executive action was the dominant tool
Trump relied heavily on executive orders and other presidential actions. Public summaries show approximately 220 executive orders in his first term and hundreds of proclamations and memoranda; one compilation lists executive orders EO #13765–13984 for 2017–2021 and counts roughly 220 executive orders and 570 proclamations in that period [3] [8]. Regulatory rollbacks and agency directives were tracked by scholars and legal shops noting dozens of deregulatory steps [9] [5].
4. Policy focus and outcomes: what the laws changed
Major themes from sources: tax policy (the 2017 tax law), criminal-justice reform (First Step Act), healthcare policy disputes (repeated attempts to repeal/replace the Affordable Care Act and administrative actions around subsidies), immigration restrictions and changes to Temporary Protected Status, and wide deregulatory efforts particularly affecting environmental and administrative rules [1] [10] [6]. White House summaries emphasize Medicare Part D actions, deregulatory savings claims, and international women’s empowerment legislation among accomplishments [11] [12].
5. Political balance and legal scrutiny
Several executive actions and regulatory rollbacks faced litigation and were blocked or criticized as exceeding legal authority; compilations of his executive actions note that courts blocked some orders and commentators documented repeated clashes with courts and Congress over executive reach [8] [13]. Analysts also documented that many early executive actions mirrored conservative policy blueprints such as Project 2025 [14].
6. What sources agree on — and what they don’t
Sources consistently identify the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the First Step Act as hallmark legislative achievements [1] [2]. Sources diverge or add nuance on effects: tax-law critics pointed to reduced corporate receipts and contested whether cuts “paid for themselves” [1]; other White House materials highlight deregulatory savings and specific health and judicial initiatives [11] [12]. A single, exhaustive list of every bill signed during the term is available in congressional and government archives but is not compiled into a short narrative in the provided sources [4] [7].
7. How to verify specific bills you care about
For a definitive, itemized accounting of statutes signed in Trump’s first term consult the 115th Congress acts list and the “Acts Approved by the President” compilations on govinfo and White House archives; for executive orders and proclamations check the Federal Register and the comprehensive lists of Trump’s executive actions [4] [5] [3].
Limitations: This overview relies only on the supplied sources and summarizes the most-cited statutes and patterns; available sources do not mention an all-in-one short list of every bill in narrative form, but they point to official records where every public law, executive order, and proclamation is recorded [4] [7] [3].