The first hundred days of the new administration have come and gone; the explosive energy of President Donald Trump’s first crush of executive actions and appointments has dissipated, and the hard work of actually implementing a program has become the defining theme.

One of the very first orders of business: reversing the unprecedented and astonishing tide of immigration lawlessness of the Biden presidency. A recent government survey found that over 15 percent of America’s current population is foreign-born. In our cover feature, Bradley Devlin examines the brass tacks of the plan to bolster deportation efforts and asks whether Trump and his congressional allies, so far from being the wild men portrayed in the mainstream press, have been radical enough in their goals. 

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Securing American prosperity—“the Golden Age of America”—is another item high on the Trump 47 agenda. Jeremy Shane takes a deep dive on the administration’s efforts to reduce prescription drug prices and hints at some more effective approaches to the issue. Evie Solheim interviews a CEO working on the cutting edge of nuclear power development in the U.S. and the world. Jude Russo finds some clues about how the Trump development agenda may work in a surprising place: the Federal Communications Commission. Luke Nicastro uses a book about reviving the American defense-industrial base as a point of departure to discuss what a developmental policy that actually serves the American national interest would look like.

Of course, action can be taken only in the context of place and time. Geography and history condition even the most ambitious plans. Spencer Neale and Sumantra Maitra bring portentous dispatches from abroad, the former from Singapore, the latter from Europe. Joseph Addington runs the magnifying glass over Chinese encroachments in Latin America and how American policy can best respond to them. In our Arts & Letters section, Daniel McCarthy reviews Sam Tanenhaus’s biography of the late William F. Buckley, whose influence still shapes American politics, while Andrew Day takes on the failures of modern British grand strategy. 

The United States has been afforded a brief opportunity to reorient itself toward a better future. Let’s hope we can take it.