Sadiq S BhatWashington, DC — From the halls of power in Washington to the streets of New York and Los Angeles, 2025 exposed the raw fault lines of a nation under strain.
Political violence, mass protests and sharp shifts in leadership defined a year when voices once pushed to the margins forced themselves back into the centre.
These are the ten stories that came to define the United States in 2025.
Trump strides back to power
Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th US president on January 20, 2025, beginning a rare nonconsecutive second term. Bitter cold forced the ceremony indoors to the Capitol Rotunda, the first such inauguration in decades, as Chief Justice John Roberts administered the oath using the Lincoln Bible.
In his address, Trump declared the day “Liberation Day”, promised a “golden age” and a “revolution of common sense”, and vowed swift, forceful action.
He moved immediately, signing 26 executive orders on day one, a record, and by the end of 2025 had issued 225, far exceeding the 220 from his entire first term (2017–2021) and setting a modern record for volume in a single year.
ICE raids deepen national fractures
Federal immigration raids expanded rapidly through the spring, with masked ICE agents appearing in cities far from the southern border.
Legal scholars warned the tactics risked hardening political divisions rather than resolving them.
“In the long term, the ICE raids are likely to increase the political divisions across America,” Paul Collins, Professor of Legal Studies and Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told TRT World.
Collins pointed to growing unease over due process. “Concerns raised include not giving immigrants due process, stationing masked agents across the country, and tearing apart families, which many people view as un-American.”
Trade War 2.0 hits hard
Trump returned to tariffs with muscle memory from his first term, only heavier.
A flat 10 per cent was imposed on nearly all imports, with rates rising beyond 50 percent for China, Canada and Mexico, pushing the average effective US tariff to around 17 percent.
US imports shifted away from heavily taxed partners, but economists said the measures functioned as a tax increase of $1,200 to 2,400 per household, fuelling inflation, slowing growth to about 1.5 to 2 per cent, and delivering limited, sector-specific reshoring amid continued retaliation from trading partners.
US brokers Gaza Ceasefire
In October 2025, a US-brokered ceasefire took hold between Israel and Hamas over Gaza.
Trump drove the deal, unveiling a 20-point plan at the White House and leaning on US envoys and mediators from Qatar, Egypt and Türkiye.
Phase one delivered most living Israeli hostages and facilitation aid in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and limited Israeli withdrawals, enough to halt the war but not resolve it.
By December, the truce remained fragile and stalled, with accusations of violations by Israel, mounting civilian deaths in Gaza, and Trump publicly pressing Netanyahu while warning Hamas that failure to disarm would bring consequences.
Longest US government shutdown in history
The longest shutdown in US history froze the government (started in November 2025), paralysed public services, closed national parks and left 800,000 federal workers without pay.
Republicans refused to negotiate an extension of expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies, keeping the House of Representatives on extended recess while demanding a clean continuing resolution with no policy additions.
Democrats, in turn, declined to pass Republican funding bills that excluded the health insurance extensions, allowing the stalemate to drag on as the shutdown deepened.
Los Angeles wildfires become costliest in US history
The Palisades and Eaton fires in LA, California, that began in January 2025, tore through affluent neighbourhoods and working-class suburbs alike, destroying more than 16,000 structures.
The fires were fully contained by February 2025. Recovery efforts continue till date, with billions in federal aid, insurance challenges, and rebuilding underway amid ongoing debates over fire prevention and urban planning in high-risk areas.
Insured losses exceeded $60 billion, the most expensive wildfire disaster ever recorded in the US, as climate warnings again went unanswered.
LA riots erupt over mass deportation raids
In June, sweeping ICE raids in downtown Los Angeles sparked days of unrest. Protesters blocked freeways, clashed with police and set vehicles alight.
Trump responded by deploying 700 Marines and 4,000 National Guard troops, the largest domestic military mobilisation since 1992.
“The mass protests in Los Angeles of June 2025 reflected a popular resistance by the people of Los Angeles against the heavy-handed efforts to deport immigrant populations,” said David N. Gibbs, Professor of History at the University of Arizona.
He added that the backlash existed alongside deeper national tensions. “We should remember that a large portion of the US public, including many people of colour, hold a negative view of mass immigration, especially irregular immigration, and the anti-immigrant sentiment played a major role in electing and then re-electing Trump.”
Charlie Kirk's assassination ignites national fury
On 10 September 2025, conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot dead mid-speech at a Turning Point USA event in Utah.
The killing sent shockwaves through the political class and ignited a fierce partisan backlash. President Trump vowed a crackdown on what he called leftist violence.
“Kirk's killing was a big deal, without a doubt,” said Prof David Levine, the Honorable Raymond L. Sullivan Professor of Law at UC Law San Francisco.
Levine said the assassination fed into deeper questions about the Republican future. “It's probably part of the question of who is going to be succeeding Trump, one way or another. Is it going to be somebody in the mould of the Turning Point people? Is it going to be somebody like Vance or Rubio, or is it somebody further to the right of Fuentes?”
Still, he cautioned against false historical parallels. “I'm old enough to have lived through John and Robert Kennedy's assassination, Martin Luther King's assassination, and those were much more dramatic and had much more lasting effect.”
UNGA 2025: Trump's fiery speech and US funding freeze dominate
At the 80th UN General Assembly in September, Trump launched a blistering attack on multilateral institutions.
Dismissing the UN’s role in global diplomacy and framing the organisation as symbolic rather than consequential in addressing international crises, Trump said. "What is the purpose of the United Nations? All they do is write a strongly worded letter."
The US President announced cuts in US funding to UN agencies. The Trump administration has since announced a $2 billion pledge for UN humanitarian aid but warned that agencies must "adapt, shrink, or die" under its overhaul, according to a statement from the Department of State.
Zohran Mamdani's historic win as NYC's first Muslim mayor
In November, 33-year-old democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani stunned the political establishment, winning New York City’s mayoral race against billionaire-backed Andrew Cuomo.
“Mamdani's historic win was hailed as a rebuke to the elite power,” said Prof David Levine. “The opposition of Mamdani never really coalesced around one person. He also caught a moment in New York, because of his relentless focus on particular ideas.”
Levine pointed to Mamdani’s media strategy as decisive. “He was also popular with a lot of people in New York City, and his brilliant use of social media. The equivalent to me would be the way Trump used his rallies in 2015 and 2016, the way he got so much attention on cable TV.”
2025 was a year of rupture and resistance in the US, one that showed how fragile the system has become and how fiercely Americans continue to fight over its future.
