{"id":126623,"date":"2025-07-14T11:03:39","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T19:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/07\/14\/admit-it-trumps-done-a-few-things-right\/"},"modified":"2025-07-14T11:03:39","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T19:03:39","slug":"admit-it-trumps-done-a-few-things-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/07\/14\/admit-it-trumps-done-a-few-things-right\/","title":{"rendered":"Admit It:\u00a0Trump\u2019s Done A Few Things Right"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
(Photo by DON EMMERT\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As regular readers of this column know, I\u2019m no fan of Donald Trump\u2019s.\u00a0But even a stopped clock is accurate twice a day.<\/p>\n

Can we admit that Trump has achieved at least a couple of worthwhile things?<\/p>\n

First:\u00a0The border.\u00a0For reasons that I don\u2019t understand, Joe Biden and the Democrats didn\u2019t mind having a ton of undocumented people enter the country.\u00a0Trump\u2019s stopped that.\u00a0Good, right?<\/p>\n

You might disagree with having the military join in the deportation effort, or having masked ICE agents round people up on the streets, or deporting people who have been living upstanding lives in the United States for years, or deporting people legally entitled not to be deported, or deporting people to countries with which they had no previous contact,\u00a0or \u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wait!<\/p>\n

I was supposed to be giving the devil his due.<\/p>\n

Closing the border is good. It\u2019s only the surrounding details about which reasonable people might differ.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to give Trump credit, and then I\u2019m going to shut up.<\/p>\n

What else has Trump done that\u2019s undeniably good?\u00a0Causing our NATO allies to commit to spending 5% of their gross domestic product for defense.<\/p>\n

The United States has been bearing a disproportionate share of the cost of defending NATO for decades.\u00a0The United States and many presidents before Trump have been urging the other NATO countries to contribute more, and those countries have simply ignored us.\u00a0 They\u2019re not ignoring us anymore; instead, they\u2019re committing to coughing up in their own defense.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s good.<\/p>\n

Again, you might not agree with Trump\u2019s methods.\u00a0I\u2019m not sure that basically threatening to abandon NATO to get the alliance\u2019s attention was a great idea.\u00a0But anything short of threatening abandonment didn\u2019t seem to have worked.\u00a0Thus, you might disagree with Trump\u2019s methods, but his result \u2014 having NATO allies commit more resources to the cause \u2014 is a good one.\u00a0Right?<\/p>\n

Right.<\/p>\n

Anything else?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lifting sanctions on Syria may prove to be a good idea, and that\u2019s probably a uniquely Trumpian achievement.\u00a0Any other administration would have insisted on months of study before lifting sanctions on Syria.\u00a0Trump didn\u2019t care about governmental niceties; he just acted.\u00a0And the world may ultimately benefit from that action.\u00a0We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m starting to struggle now.<\/p>\n

Let me probe deep into the recesses of my mind.\u00a0Did Trump do anything else that was good?<\/p>\n

In the first term:\u00a0Operation Warp Speed, which resulted in the COVID vaccine, was a great success, even if the Republican Party now appears to be abandoning vaccines generally.\u00a0The Abraham Accords, establishing diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain, were a good start.\u00a0We\u2019ll see where they go.<\/p>\n

Uh-oh.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m running out of ideas, or imagination, or breath.<\/p>\n

There are many, many things that Trump has done, before and during his second term, that are illegal, loathsome, or harmful.\u00a0The pardons, tariff policy, cutting funding meant for medical research, threatening Panama and Greenland, shoot \u2014 don\u2019t get me started.\u00a0I\u2019ve done that before.<\/p>\n

But now, for the sake of civility, I\u2019m giving Trump credit where it seems to be due.<\/p>\n

Can we at least agree about that?<\/p>\n

\n

Mark\u00a0Herrmann\u00a0spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>The Curmudgeon\u2019s Guide to Practicing Law<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(affiliate links). You can reach him by email at\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>inhouse@abovethelaw.com<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Admit It:\u00a0Trump\u2019s Done A Few Things Right<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
(Photo by DON EMMERT\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As regular readers of this column know, I\u2019m no fan of Donald Trump\u2019s.\u00a0But even a stopped clock is accurate twice a day.<\/p>\n

Can we admit that Trump has achieved at least a couple of worthwhile things?<\/p>\n

First:\u00a0The border.\u00a0For reasons that I don\u2019t understand, Joe Biden and the Democrats didn\u2019t mind having a ton of undocumented people enter the country.\u00a0Trump\u2019s stopped that.\u00a0Good, right?<\/p>\n

You might disagree with having the military join in the deportation effort, or having masked ICE agents round people up on the streets, or deporting people who have been living upstanding lives in the United States for years, or deporting people legally entitled not to be deported, or deporting people to countries with which they had no previous contact,\u00a0or \u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wait!<\/p>\n

I was supposed to be giving the devil his due.<\/p>\n

Closing the border is good. It\u2019s only the surrounding details about which reasonable people might differ.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to give Trump credit, and then I\u2019m going to shut up.<\/p>\n

What else has Trump done that\u2019s undeniably good?\u00a0Causing our NATO allies to commit to spending 5% of their gross domestic product for defense.<\/p>\n

The United States has been bearing a disproportionate share of the cost of defending NATO for decades.\u00a0The United States and many presidents before Trump have been urging the other NATO countries to contribute more, and those countries have simply ignored us.\u00a0 They\u2019re not ignoring us anymore; instead, they\u2019re committing to coughing up in their own defense.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s good.<\/p>\n

Again, you might not agree with Trump\u2019s methods.\u00a0I\u2019m not sure that basically threatening to abandon NATO to get the alliance\u2019s attention was a great idea.\u00a0But anything short of threatening abandonment didn\u2019t seem to have worked.\u00a0Thus, you might disagree with Trump\u2019s methods, but his result \u2014 having NATO allies commit more resources to the cause \u2014 is a good one.\u00a0Right?<\/p>\n

Right.<\/p>\n

Anything else?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lifting sanctions on Syria may prove to be a good idea, and that\u2019s probably a uniquely Trumpian achievement.\u00a0Any other administration would have insisted on months of study before lifting sanctions on Syria.\u00a0Trump didn\u2019t care about governmental niceties; he just acted.\u00a0And the world may ultimately benefit from that action.\u00a0We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m starting to struggle now.<\/p>\n

Let me probe deep into the recesses of my mind.\u00a0Did Trump do anything else that was good?<\/p>\n

In the first term:\u00a0Operation Warp Speed, which resulted in the COVID vaccine, was a great success, even if the Republican Party now appears to be abandoning vaccines generally.\u00a0The Abraham Accords, establishing diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain, were a good start.\u00a0We\u2019ll see where they go.<\/p>\n

Uh-oh.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m running out of ideas, or imagination, or breath.<\/p>\n

There are many, many things that Trump has done, before and during his second term, that are illegal, loathsome, or harmful.\u00a0The pardons, tariff policy, cutting funding meant for medical research, threatening Panama and Greenland, shoot \u2014 don\u2019t get me started.\u00a0I\u2019ve done that before.<\/p>\n

But now, for the sake of civility, I\u2019m giving Trump credit where it seems to be due.<\/p>\n

Can we at least agree about that?<\/p>\n

\n

Mark\u00a0Herrmann\u00a0spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>The Curmudgeon\u2019s Guide to Practicing Law<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(affiliate links). You can reach him by email at\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>[email\u00a0protected]<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Photo by DON EMMERT\/AFP via Getty Images) As regular readers of this column know, I\u2019m no fan of Donald Trump\u2019s.\u00a0But even a stopped clock is accurate twice a day. Can we admit that Trump has achieved at least a couple of worthwhile things? First:\u00a0The border.\u00a0For reasons that I don\u2019t understand, Joe Biden and the Democrats […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":126604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/trump-yelling-GettyImages-624424334-hmcJB5.jpeg?fit=1024%2C697&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}