On October 13, 2016, facing electoral defeat, Donald Trump released an ambitious “action plan” for his first hundred days in office. A leaked audio tape had revealed him to be an unrepentant sexual predator, and new victims were coming forward daily. His 'Contract with the American Voter' was a bid to change the subject.

His speech was even more populist in tone than usual. "For those who control the levers of power in Washington, and for the global special interests they partner with, our campaign represents an existential threat. It's a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class.”

Three months into his presidency, what is most striking about the ‘contract’ is not the unfulfilled promises, but the extent to which Trumpism - as a political project defined by economic protectionism - has been abandoned.Trump posed as an outsider rich enough to take on elites, including his own party. “If they can fight somebody like me, who has unlimited resources to fight back, just look at what they can do to you - your jobs, your security, your education, your health care,” he said. In government, he has surrounded himself with a familiar cast of bankers, lobbyists and conservative policy wonks dedicated to protecting and extending corporate power.

A nativist hostility to immigrants remains an animating principle of Trump’s administration, but its other priorities are straightforwardly Republican: cut taxes, deregulate the finance and energy industries, and slash public spending (including welfare programmes Trump swore to protect).

The contract listed ten laws that Trump would seek to pass as soon as he assumed office. Only one bill, a deeply unpopular conservative alternative to the Affordable Care Act, has even been attempted. Other promises included a wall that not a single member of Congress representing a border district supports, an infrastructure proposal that a GOP-controlled Congress will never fund and an immigration ban that courts have twice ruled unconstitutional.

During the campaign, Trump often portrayed his rivals Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton as puppets of Goldman Sachs. On Wednesday, he sent out two former executives of the investment bank, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and economic advisor Gary Cohn, to sell a staggering giveaway to the rich as a tax cut for everyone.

Trump’s cabinet is the richest ever assembled, with an estimated combined wealth of $9.5 billion. Abolishing the estate tax, which currently only applies to inheritances over $5.49 million, would benefit the wealthiest 0.2% of households in the USA. Trump also wants to cut the corporate tax rate to 15% and do away with the alternative minimum tax - provisions that would benefit him personally and drastically inflate the national debt but do nothing for most Americans.

Trump’s ‘contract’ listed “six measures to clean up the corruption and special interest collusion in Washington,” including term limits for members of Congress, a federal hiring freeze and strict new ethics rules. In reality, an Obama-era regulation preventing lobbyists from joining government agencies for two years has been scrapped. The revolving door is turning faster than ever.

Former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson is Secretary of State. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross will determine trade policy for the steel industry in which he made his fortune. Oil and gas company lobbyist Michael Catanzaro can look out for the interests of Halliburton and Koch Industries from inside the White House, where he serves as an energy adviser.

One of the new GOP Congress’s first acts was to repeal the Cardin-Lugar amendment, which required energy companies to disclose payments of more than $100,000 to foreign governments. Cohn has hinted that the administration intends to gut the regulatory regime introduced in the aftermath of the 2007 financial crisis, clearing the way for banks to resume the reckless practices that blew up the economy.

Other than appointing Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, a ‘win’ all but guaranteed by the GOP Senate’s refusal to consider Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland, Trump’s biggest success has been in reducing immigration. Nationwide, immigration-related arrests are up by 32.6% year on year. At the southern border, 67% fewer migrants have been apprehended attempting to make the crossing.

This is all that remains of Trump’s ‘populist’ campaign. He and his strategists are betting that it will be enough to keep his voters on side. Trump is the least popular new president in the modern era, but so far, only around 3% of his supporters say they regret their choice.

Congress will soon be asked to vote on Trump’s first budget. His initial draft (described as “dead on arrival” by GOP Senator Lindsey Graham) proposed ramping up military spending and cutting government almost everywhere else, including environmental protection, after-school programmes for children, Meals on Wheels for the elderly, the winter heating allowance, legal assistance for the poor, job training and arts funding.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, Trump’s chief of staff Stephen Bannon declared his intention to “deconstruct the administrative state.” Of 553 jobs requiring Senate Approval, more than 500 remain unfilled, creating a leadership vacuum in the departments of State, Treasury, Homeland Security, and Defence, among others.

On Tuesday, the White House put out a press release touting the president’s accomplishments so far. “President Donald J. Trump has done more to stop the Government from interfering in the lives of Americans in his first 100 days than any other President in history,” it began. As the consequences of his administration’s anti-government agenda become apparent, the limits of Trump’s so-called ‘populism’ will be tested.