Turns case.

When President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, many tribal leaders took a wait-and-see approach, given his poor record on Indigenous affairs. Four years later, Indian Country has weathered a failed pandemic response, budget cuts and diminished environmental regulations.

Over the span of his administration, many leadership positions in the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Interior Department were left empty or filled by appointees never vetted by Congress. The annual White House Tribal Nations Conference, held by President Barack Obama for eight years, ceased. Trump’s three Supreme Court justices include one with a solid understanding of federal Indian law and the U.S government’s responsibility to tribes, as well as one whose judicial perspectives are actively harmful.

In the first year of his administration, Trump made his priorities clear with a series of memos and executive orders repealing protections for land and wildlife. His “America First” energy plan expedited controversial projects like the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines, which faced monumental, sustained opposition by Native nations and their allies. He reduced the newly established Bears Ears National Monument by 85%, a monument whose creation had been Indigenous-led and centered. “Trump took the position against Native people first thing in office,” said Matt Campbell, staff attorney at the Native American Rights Fund and enrolled member of the Native Village of Gambell. “So, I think that set the tone early on for the relationship.”

Trump’s policy directives also reduced environmental protections. Federal laws like the National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act enable tribes to give input on large-scale projects on their ancestral lands. Under Trump, these were weakened. “The total onslaught of federal rule rollbacks under environmental laws was like nothing we’ve ever seen. It was dizzying,” said Gussie Lord (Oneida Nation of Wisconsin), managing attorney of tribal partnerships at Earthjustice. “It resulted in not only a weakening of substantive environmental protection, but was also a real attack on public participation and access to information.”

And then, the pandemic: As Senate aides told the Huffington Post, tribal nations were not initially included in the first COVID-19 relief package. Even when $10 billion was allocated to tribal nations, distribution was held up for months, withholding critical aid for personal protective equipment, financial aid and testing. “This administration’s record is one of repeated failures for Native communities,” said Sen. Tom Udall, vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, in a statement. “The truth is the White House is actively undermining Tribal sovereignty across the country and mishandling a once-in-a-century pandemic that is disproportionately hurting Native communities.”

The ramifications are still being felt in the current wave of COVID-19 infections and deaths. Nationwide, thousands are dying daily. The Navajo Nation, which saw a devastating rise in COVID cases and deaths in the summer, has begun to see the numbers go up again, according to reporting by the Navajo Times. Meanwhile, the CARES Act funding deadline of Dec. 30 looms.

“Tribes have been pushed aside by this administration,” said Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez during a speech to the Democratic National Convention in August, saying the difference between the Trump and Obama administrations was “night and day.” Even so, at the Republican National Convention, Navajo Nation Vice President Myron Lizer spoke in support of Trump.

Many of the decisions over the last four years will have a lasting impact on Indian Country no matter how quickly the new Biden/Harris administration works to reverse them:

The border wall: What started as a campaign-rally promise has resulted in 423 miles of steel walls cutting through the borderlands landscape. The vast majority of those miles already had some kind of barrier, but those newly-added came at a high cost. In Guadalupe Canyon, Arizona, a five-mile stretch that required blasting through rock cost $41 million per mile. Tribal nations like the Tohono O’odham have been clear about their opposition to the construction, which has damaged important natural and cultural sites with no consultation process. “The Trump administration’s reckless disregard for our religious and constitutional rights is embodied in the dynamite and bulldozers now rumbling through our original homelands,” wrote Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Ned Norris Jr. in High Country News.

Tribal lands: Although Trump signed two bills that federally recognized a total of seven tribal nations, his Interior Department also withdrew a legal opinion meant to help tribes regain ancestral lands, and sought to disestablish reservation lands of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. A federal judge called the legal memorandum written by Interior in Mashpee’s case “incomprehensible” and described it as “one of the worst written documents I’ve ever read from any government agency.”