As former and future U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to take the oath of office Jan. 20, Rice University has a variety of experts available to speak about his proposed economic, immigration and foreign policy plans.
"Trump's economic policies offer promise and risk," said John Diamond, the director of the Center for Public Finance at Rice's Baker Institute for Public Policy. "Policies to reign in the growth of government, increase efficiency and cut regulations have the potential to move the budget towards a sustainable path and increase long-term growth."
Diamond said extending the 2017 tax cut package and adding in new tax cuts will likely increase deficits but also increase incentives to work and invest if structured correctly.
"The net effects will depend on the specifics of the policies," he said. "The proposed tariff increases are most troublesome as the general effect of reducing tariffs and increasing trade is positive, while increasing tariffs tends to raise prices. Either way, we know tariff policies will create winners and losers. However, using tariffs as a bargaining tool, as a response to unfair trade practices abroad or as a way to maintain the production of goods that are vital to national security are legitimate reasons to consider imposing tariffs."
Diamond's current research focuses on the economic effects of corporate tax reform, the economic and distributional effects of fundamental tax reform, taxation and housing values, public sector pensions and various other tax and expenditure policy issues.
Mark Jones is a professor of political science at Rice and an expert on Texas politics. His expertise and scholarly work has been widely cited by local, state and national media as well as numerous political campaigns.
Jones said with Trump as president, relations between the Texas state government and the federal government will transition from being primarily adversarial to primarily cordial with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and other Texas Republican leaders largely in sync with Trump on a wide range of policy issues ranging from immigration and border security to the oil and natural gas sector to transgender athletes and diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
"During the first 100 days of Trump's presidency, Texas Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate will play an especially influential role in the drafting and passage of the budget reconciliation legislation," said Jones, who also serves as a fellow at the Baker Institute. "This will serve as the principal vehicle to pass Trump's legislative agenda, given the inability to pass much of his agenda in a standalone fashion due to the combination of strident Democratic opposition and the continued presence of the institution of the filibuster in the U.S. Senate, which would require Trump to gain Democratic support to pass legislation outside of the budget reconciliation process."
Kenneth Medlock, senior director of the Center for Energy Studies at the Baker Institute, has published numerous scholarly articles in his primary areas of interest that include: natural gas and electricity markets, energy commodity price relationships, transportation, national oil company behavior, economic development and energy demand, energy use and the environment and various energy transitions topics ranging from engineered and nature-based carbon capture to hydrogen to the economic drivers of technology adoption. He has testified multiple times on Capitol Hill on U.S. energy exports and electricity market evolution, has spoken at OPEC and is frequently asked to speak about global and domestic energy issues.
"While market forces such as price, economic growth and innovation will continue to be the primary driver of energy market developments, the margins can be sculpted by shifts in both domestic and foreign policy," Medlock said. "There have been lots of strong statements, but regarding what the incoming administration may be able to actually do, uncertainty reigns supreme."
But Medlock says we won't have to wait long for the fog to clear.
"Actions in the first 100 days will impact every part of the energy sector and potentially set the stage for even larger policy actions," he said.
Medlock also teaches advanced courses in energy economics and supervises doctoral students in the energy economics field.
Tony Payan is director of the Center for the U.S. and Mexico at the Baker Institute. Payan's research focuses on border studies, particularly the U.S.-Mexico border. He examines daily life in liminal spaces, cross-border flows - both legal and illegal - and border governance issues. He also explores various topics affecting the U.S.-Mexico relationship and said the incoming Trump administration is likely to bring with it one of the most challenging landscapes for that relationship.
"The agenda is also likely to be much broader than it was under the first Trump administration," Payan said. "It will include important topics such as immigration, which will continue to affect the binational relationship; drug trafficking, in particular the issue of fentanyl which is drawing increasing attention in the U.S.; and the review and likely revision of the (U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement) at the end of 2025 and 2026."
Payan said additional issues that will also emerge include China's economic activities in Mexico in the face of increasing geostrategic competition between the U.S. and China and Mexico's realignment of its foreign policy with Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, which the State Department will pay more attention to under Marco Rubio, Trump's choice for secretary of state.
"Mexico will remain a key piece of U.S. geostrategic interest, but it is also under a much more nationalistic administration under the direction of Claudia Sheinbaum, who has nonetheless promised close cooperation with the incoming Trump administration," Payan said.
David Satterfield is director of the Baker Institute and head of the institute's Edward P. Djerejian Center for the Middle East. He has more than four decades of diplomatic and leadership experience, including service as special envoy for the Horn of Africa, assistant secretary of state, National Security Council staff director, ambassador to Lebanon and Turkey and chargé d'affaires in Iraq and Egypt. From October 2023 to May 2024, President Joe Biden appointed him U.S. special envoy for Middle East humanitarian issues to lead U.S. diplomacy in addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
