President Donald Trump promised America and its citizens that he would lower the prices of groceries, but as the price of eggs rises significantly among other increasing costs, America arrives at the undeniable conclusion that politicians will run their campaigns on pledges that they cannot control.

Following the hollow promise to lower grocery prices, Trump also stated directly that the price of gasoline would go below 2 dollars a gallon. According to energy analysts, however, there seems to be no way for the president to fulfill this. With Trump’s decision to apply tariffs on Canadian and Mexican oil, American consumers may see a rise in gas prices soon enough.
Earlier this month, Trump increased the tariffs on Canada and Mexico by 25% and by 10% more on China imports. While Trump claimed that more taxes on trade wouldn’t be a cost to the US, many economists say otherwise. Experts say the cost of tariffs is expected to be passed to consumers rather than being carried by companies who are producing abroad.

However, Trump is not the only president who was unable to go through with all that he vowed. Former president Joe Biden was also called out on broken promises of his own during his campaign and presidency. In 2020, he pledged to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. However, this bill was not passed, and the wage remains $7.25. This broken promise left citizens agitated, though he followed up by restoring the Affordable Care Act, something he was persistent on upholding.

Even the Affordable Care Act in 2010 was unable to include everything that it was supposed to benefit, but that wasn’t the biggest commitment that former president Barack Obama had not sustained. In 2008, Obama promised in his campaign that he would have a bill for immigration reform, which would have included a legalization plan for many undocumented immigrants in the United States. Although he set this goal for his first year of presidency, a comprehensive reform bill was never actually endorsed.

When policies that politicians advertise are the reason they are elected, it makes sense for them to follow through with the promises they make upon election. While there is no saying what Trump will do in the next four years of his presidency, there is suspicion because he failed to follow through in his earlier presidency. 

President Trump has made controversial promises for what he plans to do about immigration, one of them being that he would launch the “largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out” of the U.S. on his first day of presidency. While part of this was true, as he did enable such a program to start, Trump was unsuccessful in his first attempt at mass deportation of said “criminals.”

Not only have there been instances for matters to fall out of the president’s control, but some of Trump’s wishes for America are not able to come true from them simply being against the law.

“We’re going to let them do their job, and I’m going to give them immunity. We’re going to protect them because they do things, and they end up getting sued.” This is what Trump said last October, as he claimed Democrats did not support the police. It sounds somewhat similar to pardoning another group of people who gave their support to Trump, or even an immunity on himself as a person with several lawsuits against him. Either way, it would be up to Congress to change the immunity standard, not the president. One would hope that the leader of the country had enough insight to where their powers ended, however, that does not seem to be the case.

But this wasn’t the last time he assumed he had that much power over the law. Some of his other promises were labeled upfront as unconstitutional.

Trump also promised to end birthright citizenship, which is the 14th amendment in the constitution that grants any person born in America citizenship and equal protection under the law. So far, two federal judges have blocked this plan to remove birthright citizenship, one of the judges stating that it was “blatantly unconstitutional.”

It is not only the laws of the people Trump is pushing but laws of the land. More specifically, land that does not even belong to the U.S.

Trump has discussed retaking the Panama Canal and claiming it for U.S. control. One of many issues about this is that the U.S. relinquished control of the Canal to Panama in 1999. Panama’s president has since rejected this vow and denied free American ship passage through the canal as Trump said there would be.

Now, voters are coming forward and admitting they regret voting for Trump and that they only voted for him because of what he’s promoted. Unfortunately, it is too often that presidents’ promises go unkept, a cycle which is repeating itself currently. But if citizens collectively hold presidents to those promises and do their research on running candidates beforehand, then the cycle can be broken at last, and voters will be content.

While the decisions of presidential candidates on what they advertise to do is out of the hands of the American people, it is key for them to evaluate how possible these promises are to fully understand the candidates.