Trump Broke Our Parks. Now He Wants Credit for Fixing Them.
Trump’s Hollow Promise to "Make America Beautiful Again"
On July 3, 2025, the Trump administration unveiled a sweeping‑sounding initiative called “Make America Beautiful Again” (MABA), an executive order that promises to restore and enhance the nation’s public lands.
What the Plan Claims to Do
According to the White House, the order creates a new Make America Beautiful Again Commission, chaired by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and tasked with expanding access to national parks and public lands for Americans.
The stated goals include:
Improving maintenance and infrastructure on federal lands.
Expanding recreational access, from hiking and climbing to hunting and fishing.
Reducing red tape for visitors and local businesses in park communities.
Funding these improvements by raising fees for foreign visitors to national parks and lowering fees for U.S. citizens.
In announcing the order, Trump called it “a big, beautiful plan to make our parks great again”, promising that visitors would see “cleaner, safer, better parks than ever before.”
Proponents hailed the plan as a boon for rural economies and outdoor recreation. The National Shooting Sports Foundation and some hunting & fishing groups praised the administration for “prioritizing access and economic growth.”
At first glance, it appears to be a patriotic, pro-parks effort, promising to invest in America’s crown jewels while ensuring that U.S. residents benefit the most.
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What it Doesn’t Do: Ignoring the Real Problems
But when you scratch beneath the shiny slogan and the photo‑op, Make America Beautiful Again starts to look less like a solution and more like a distraction.
The administration touts a “beautiful” future for public lands, but it fails to address the real crises facing our parks, forests, and wildlife refuges, crises that have only deepened under Trump’s own policies.
Silent on Climate
At a moment when record wildfires, drought, and biodiversity loss threaten ecosystems nationwide, the plan doesn’t even mention climate change. There’s nothing about reducing greenhouse gases, preparing for more frequent and severe fires, restoring degraded habitats, or cleaning up pollution. Without tackling the root cause of environmental decline, MABA’s promises ring hollow.
Ignores Staffing & Funding Cuts
Equally glaring is the administration’s refusal to repair the damage it has already inflicted on the agencies tasked with maintaining our parks. Since January 2025, the National Park Service has lost nearly a quarter of its permanent workforce, with more than 1,000 rangers and scientists fired or forced out.
Seasonal hiring was a disaster this year, filling barely half of the needed positions. Trails are overgrown, restrooms are filthy, and visitor centers are understaffed. Rangers and biologists report being pulled off their core work to clean bathrooms and work entrance booths just to keep parks functional during the busy summer season.
Underfunded & Overstretched
The funding picture is just as bleak. Trump’s own FY 2026 budget slashes more than $1 billion from park funding, even as visitor numbers surge. Raising entrance fees for foreign visitors, the plan’s main funding gimmick, won’t even come close to closing the gap, and it signals a troubling shift: treating public lands as profit centers, not shared treasures. As foreign tourism tanks due to aggressive ICE raids targeting tourists and visitors, such a plan is even less plausible.
Celebrates Destruction
Perhaps most cynically, MABA ignores and even celebrates the ongoing industrial assault on public lands. Since returning to office, Trump has opened millions of acres of wilderness to oil drilling, coal mining, logging, and road‑building. These activities scar the landscape, fragment habitats, and release massive amounts of pollution, the very opposite of “making America beautiful.”
In short, the administration is promising beauty while enabling destruction — all without addressing the chronic underfunding and understaffing that have left parks and public lands in crisis.
Who & What Caused These Problems?
If the problems in our parks seem urgent, that’s because they are. But just as urgent is this question: who broke them in the first place?
A Deliberate Gutting of Agencies
From his first weeks back in office, Trump made clear that America’s public lands would be treated not as a trust to be protected but as an asset to be stripped and sold. In early 2025, his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) launched an unprecedented wave of layoffs and buyouts at the very agencies tasked with caring for these lands. Thousands of rangers, biologists, and firefighters were sent home. Budgets were slashed. Scientific programs were canceled.
The motives were not subtle. In Trump’s words, these moves were about “cutting waste” and “freeing up land for productive use.”
Opening the Door to Industry
While public servants were purged, the administration fast‑tracked leases for drilling, mining, and logging across millions of acres, including previously protected wilderness and wildlife refuges.
By the time MABA was announced, the damage was already done. Agencies were hollowed out. Parks were overwhelmed. Wildlife habitats were fragmented and polluted.
A Failed Land Grab
Even Congress balked when Trump tried to write public land sales directly into law, stripping his “One Big Beautiful Bill” of its most aggressive privatization provisions after a public outcry.
These weren’t accidents. They were deliberate policy choices, choices that made America’s public lands less beautiful, less accessible, and more vulnerable to corporate exploitation.
See our previous reporting on the administration’s attacks on national parks and the environment here:
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It’s Not Beautiful. It’s a Con
The Trump administration broke the agencies that care for America’s public lands. It cut their budgets, fired their people, sold off their protections, and handed millions of acres to drillers, miners, and loggers.
Now, it wants credit for fixing the mess it made without restoring staff, without protecting ecosystems, without addressing climate change, and without stopping the industrial plunder of public land.
Don’t be fooled. Make America Beautiful Again isn’t conservation. It’s a con.
However, you can take action.
Take Action
Call the Congressional Switchboard: (202) 224‑3121
Demand your Senators and Representatives oppose any further budget cuts, staff reductions, or land sales — and push for full restoration of park funding, climate protections, and scientific oversight.Sample script:
"Hi, my name is [Your Name], and I’m a constituent from [City, State]. I’m calling to urge [Senator/Representative] to oppose any further cuts to the National Park Service and other public land agencies and to reject Trump’s so‑called ‘Make America Beautiful Again’ plan unless it restores funding, staffing, and environmental protections. We need real stewardship, not PR stunts. Thank you."
Support Grassroots & Watchdog Groups
Organizations such as the National Parks Conservation Association, Earthjustice, the Sierra Club, and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) are fighting daily to protect public lands and hold this administration accountable. Donate, volunteer, or amplify their work.Join or Organize Peaceful Protests
Many parks advocacy and climate groups are planning summer rallies and demonstrations near national park entrances and state capitols. Show up and make your voice heard. The public owns these lands, and it’s up to us to protect them.
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Bibliography:
Executive Office of the President. Establishing the President’s Make America Beautiful Again Commission, Executive Order, July 3, 2025.
Executive Office of the President. Making America Beautiful Again by Improving Our National Parks, Executive Order, July 3, 2025.
Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Establishes Make America Beautiful Again Commission, White House, July 3, 2025.
“How This Group Got Trump to Sign a Pro‑Environment Executive Order.” Washington Post, July 3, 2025.
“Trump Signs Executive Order Calling for Foreign Tourists to Pay Higher National Park Fees.” CBS News, July 3, 2025.
“Research and Restrooms: Summer Staffing Crunch Hits National Parks after Trump Cuts.” Reuters, June 8, 2025.
“Texas’ Big Bend National Park Is Already at Half Staff amid Trump Cuts.” Houston Chronicle, July 1, 2025.
National Parks Conservation Association. Staffing Crisis at National Parks Reaches Breaking Point: New Data Shows 24% Drop in Permanent Workforce. Washington, DC: NPCA, June 2025.
“‘America First’: Tourists Hit with Price Hike as Trump Orders Higher Fees at US National Parks.” News.com.au, July 2025.
“Trump’s Pollution Rollback Rewards Wealthy Plant Owners — at the Expense of Americans’ Health.” The Guardian, June 12, 2025.
“Turmoil, Resignations and ‘Psychological Warfare’: How Trump Is Crippling US National Parks.” The Guardian, May 28, 2025.
“US Issues Expedited Permit for Proposed Tennessee Coal Mine.” Reuters, July 8, 2025.
Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “TRCP Applauds Order Establishing Make America Beautiful Again Commission.” July 7, 2025.
Inside Climate News. “Public Land Sale Stripped from Senate Bill, but Federal Land Assault Continues.” June 24, 2025.
“Mike Lee’s Proposed Public Lands Sale Blocked by Senate Parliamentarian.” Axios, June 24, 2025.
“GOP Plan to Sell More than 3,200 Square Miles of Federal Lands Found to Violate Senate Rules.” AP News, June 24, 2025.
American Progress. “Inside Trump’s Plan to Sell Out America’s Public Lands to Mining.” Washington, DC: Center for American Progress, June 24, 2025.
“Visiting a National Park This Summer? Here’s What to Expect.” Condé Nast Traveler, July 2025.
Inside Climate News. “Public Land Sale Stripped from Senate Bill, but Federal Land Assault Continues.” Brooklyn: Inside Climate News, June 24, 2025.
National Parks Conservation Association. “Staffing Crisis at National Parks Reaches Breaking Point: New Data Shows 24% Drop in Permanent Workforce.” Washington, DC: NPCA, June 2025.
“‘America First’: Tourists Hit with Price Hike as Trump Orders Higher Fees at US National Parks.” News.com.au, July 2025.
“What Budget Cuts and Reduced Staffing Could Mean for the National Park Service.” WTOP News, July 2025.
MABA is cruel. The public lands are not for sale. It was a disaster.
It’s insidious to first destroy and then claim gratitude for the reconstruction. But, as you write, without looking at the whole picture (climate change). And most people won't recognize that. Then it's like bread and circuses.