What regulatory measures did Trump take during his second term
Executive summary
President Trump’s second term launched with a sweeping deregulatory agenda that combined a formal regulatory freeze, a “10-for-1” regulatory budget requiring agencies to eliminate ten rules for each new rule, and hundreds of executive orders, memoranda, and proclamations aimed at reversing Biden-era actions and expanding presidential control over agency rulemaking (see White House fact sheet and Yale compendium) [1] [2]. By late 2025 the Federal Register and trackers show the administration had issued over 200 executive orders and used mechanisms such as Congressional Review Act rollbacks, targeted revocations, and unified OMB-directed review to push broad rescissions and procedural constraints on agencies [3] [4] [5].
1. A day-one regulatory freeze and revocation campaign
On January 20, 2025 the administration imposed a “regulatory freeze pending review,” halting rulemaking in progress while it reviewed Biden-era actions; simultaneously it began revoking and replacing prior executive orders to reinstate deregulatory frameworks from Trump’s first term [6] [2]. Legal and policy trackers note this was accompanied by mass issuance of executive orders that rescinded or amended prior guidance and shifted agencies’ priorities [3] [7].
2. The 10-for-1 regulatory budget — unprecedented quantitative constraints
The White House announced a formal directive requiring agencies to eliminate ten existing regulations for every new regulation issued and to make the total incremental cost of rules “significantly less than zero” for FY2025, a far more aggressive metric than the earlier “two-for-one” approach [1] [8]. OMB was tasked to standardize cost measurement and implement the regulatory cap, creating a centralized mechanism to force rescissions and reprioritize agency rulemaking [1] [8].
3. Institutional changes: OIRA, independent agencies, and the “Unified Regulatory Agenda”
Executive actions extended Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) review to tax regulations and asserted more White House control over independent agencies, while directing OMB to produce a “Unified Regulatory Agenda” to identify regulations for repeal or modification — a structural effort to steer which rules survive [2] [5]. Legal analysis in professional outlets emphasized that these moves dovetailed with Supreme Court trends giving critics more avenues to challenge agency rules [5].
4. Volume and variety: executive orders, memoranda, proclamations
Public registries and trackers recorded a very large number of presidential actions in 2025: federal listings count over 200 executive orders (EO 14147–EO 14359 reported) and Ballotpedia tallied hundreds of EOs, memoranda, and proclamations through November 2025, indicating sustained use of unilateral instruments to change policy across immigration, trade, environment and other domains [3] [4]. Law firms and policy shops kept annotated charts and trackers to help clients manage the rapid changes [9].
5. Targeted policy areas: environment, immigration, trade, and competition
Multiple sources document concrete priorities: rollbacks of Biden-era environmental rules (including Congressional Review Act actions aimed at EPA methane rules), strengthened immigration screening and vetting directives, and a renewed focus on tariffs and trade measures — including executive orders and proclamations adjusting reciprocal tariffs and import duties — along with EOs aimed at reducing “anti‑competitive regulatory barriers” [10] [11] [12] [7]. Analysts flagged energy and environment as especially vulnerable to deregulatory reversals [6].
6. How critics and allies frame the agenda
Supporters and conservative policy groups portray the effort as restoring economic freedom and efficiency, even aiming to expand prior “regulatory budget” tools into a more expansive 10-for-1 program [13] [1]. Legal and regulatory commentators warn the approach centralizes power in OMB/OIRA, may disrupt pending protective regulations, and could face legal and practical constraints — for example, that some rollbacks require statutory or notice-and-comment processes and that CRA repeals are limited in scope and timing [5] [13].
7. What reporting and trackers emphasize about pace and impact
Think tanks and major trackers (Brookings, Yale J. on Regulation, Holland & Knight, Ballotpedia) turned the administration’s outputs into searchable datasets and spreadsheets, noting both the rapid pace of orders and the uneven practical effect: many actions are procedural (freezes, instructions to OMB), some revoke prior orders, and others begin long rulemaking processes whose ultimate regulatory effect can be delayed or litigated [14] [2] [9].
8. Limits, legal risks, and what available sources do not settle
Sources repeatedly note legal and administrative limits — some rules can’t be repealed solely by executive action and CRA or judicial challenges can constrain rollbacks — but available sources do not comprehensively quantify the net regulatory burden change across all agencies or document final outcomes for every named repeal [5] [10]. Independent, consolidated estimates of long‑term economic or public‑health impacts from the full set of actions are not provided in the cited materials (not found in current reporting).
Sources cited: White House fact sheet (10-for-1) and implementation pieces [1]; Yale J. on Regulation compendium [2]; OMB/OIRA and Unified Agenda reporting [5]; Federal Register EO listing [3]; Ballotpedia counts and EO lists [4] [7]; Brookings and policy trackers [14] [6]; GovExec and legal analyses on CRA and EPA rollbacks [10]; Holland & Knight tracking [9]; trade EO reporting [12]; analysis of deregulatory posture [13] [8].