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On Friday this column surmised that the phenomenon of bullish equity investors in the face of costly tariff fights and negative first-quarter GDP growth had a lot to do with President Donald Trump’s regulatory restraint. At the risk of ruining his media reputation as an authoritarian, Mr. Trump now appears to be setting a modern record in avoiding telling Americans what to do. Specifically his administration appears to be imposing far fewer rules than its recent predecessors. What’s more, even when Mr. Trump does issue a directive, it’s often simply to tell Americans that they no longer have to
follow another directive previously issued by someone else. “Trump’s Deregulation Score: Mid-Year Federal Rules Tally Is The Lowest Ever Recorded,” is the headline today on a story from Wayne Crews in Forbes. Mr. Crews explains that the “federal regulatory landscape has undergone a dramatic transformation” and adds: After years of relentless compounding of federal rules and regulations and Federal Register pages–capped by Joe Biden’s self-proclaimed “whole-of-government” executive actions on the
likes of DEI, ESG, net-zero and the “care economy”–… federal regulation as we have known it has largely stopped… The trajectory seems clear–2025 is on pace to sport the lowest rule count of all time at an estimated 2,510 (that’s just a straight-line projection). That would best Trump’s own record for the all-time low rule count of 2,964 back in 2019. The takeaway seems to be that Trump’s one-in, ten-out executive order is having real effects, as the gross counts are the lowest ever seen, and largely deregulatory in character besides. Mr. Crews is referring to a January executive order from the president. The White House noted at the time: The Order requires that whenever an agency promulgates a new rule, regulation, or guidance, it must identify at least 10 existing rules, regulations, or guidance documents to be repealed.
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