The First 100 Days of a Steve Daines Presidency: What the Record Suggests

Hero image: 01 Montana State Capitol Rotunda — via Wikimedia Commons.

01 The scenario: the China-shuttle senator who already shaped drug law

This is a scenario analysis, not a prediction that the person will become president and not an endorsement or criticism of the person. This article does not predict that Steve Daines will become president. It examines how the Montana Republican's documented positions and record could translate into executive priorities if placed in presidential office.

Daines announced on March 4, 2026 that he will not seek re-election — a datum that reshapes any 2028 speculation but does not change what his record suggests about executive instincts. His signature work is the China-fentanyl file: he was the first senior Trump-allied senator to visit Beijing after the 2025 inauguration, meeting Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and urging Xi Jinping to “stop the flow” — “not slow it down” — of fentanyl precursors. His HALT Fentanyl Act is already law. A reasonable inference from these positions is a first 100 days built around executive-led trade-and-enforcement statecraft rather than a domestic legislative program.

The record below draws on his official releases, AP reporting, and accountability records. Where the evidence runs out, this article says so.

02 The record: who Steve Daines is

Daines has represented Montana in the Senate since 2015 and is serving his second term. He is a chemical engineer and business executive: six years in China working for Procter & Gamble, later a U.S. manager there, then an executive at RightNow Technologies, the Bozeman cloud-software firm. He was Montana's at-large congressman (2013-2015) and chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee for the 2024 cycle — when Republicans flipped the Senate — from 2023 to 2025. His 119th-Congress committees: Finance; Foreign Relations; Energy and Natural Resources; Indian Affairs, with no chair or ranking positions.

His documented 2025-2026 record: the Beijing trip (March 2025), the HALT Fentanyl Act passing the Senate March 14, 2025 and signed May 2025, a Yes vote on H.R. 1 the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (July 1, 2025), the BABES Enhancement Act signed Dec. 3, 2025, the Crow Tribe Water Rights Settlement Amendments Act passing the House, and the March 4, 2026 retirement announcement.

03 China and fentanyl: the statecraft a president already holds

In March 2025, Daines met Vice Premier He Lifeng in Beijing — the first senior Trump-allied senator to do so after the inauguration — delivering what his office called “President Trump's America First message” and urging Xi Jinping to “stop the flow” of fentanyl precursors to Mexican cartels, which he said kill “nearly 100,000 Americans every year.”

Every lever in this file is executive: pressure on Beijing, tariff linkage to fentanyl enforcement, and Treasury/OFAC designations of traffickers can be pursued by a president through executive orders and existing authorities — and the digest notes Daines has explicitly framed fentanyl as a “drug war” the president can fight via tariff leverage. A reasonable inference from these positions is a first 100 days of China-fentanyl statecraft conducted almost entirely from the White House: tariff threats as negotiating tools, sanctions designations, and his own Beijing channel repurposed as presidential diplomacy.

04 The HALT Fentanyl Act: the law that would precede him

Daines was the Senate sponsor of the HALT All Lethal Trafficking of Fentanyl Act, permanently classifying fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances as Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act. It passed the Senate March 14, 2025 with bipartisan support and was signed into law in May 2025.

For a first-100-days exercise this inverts the usual problem: his signature drug policy is already statute, so no new executive action is needed for it to operate. The remaining question is enforcement posture — how Justice and Treasury prioritize Schedule I enforcement and precursor interdiction — which is executive. A reasonable inference is day-one enforcement directives aligned with the law he wrote.

05 Energy: hydropower and the all-of-the-above portfolio

Daines's energy credo, in his own framing: “Energy security is national security... I'll continue to support an all-of-the-above energy portfolio.” On March 12, 2025 he led a bipartisan, bicameral bill letting FERC approve six-year extensions for pre-2020 licensed hydropower projects, with Sens. Cassidy, Kennedy, and Fetterman as cosponsors; he had earlier led major hydropower licensing reform in 2023, billed as the largest bipartisan hydropower permitting reform in two decades.

The permitting agenda is mostly statutory — his bills require Congress or FERC statutory change — though FERC can act on pending licenses administratively. A reasonable inference from these positions is an energy first-100-days that pairs FERC administrative action with legislative permitting packages sent to his former Energy and Natural Resources committee.

06 Forests, tribes, and the Montana flank

Daines pushed amendments to “reduce frivolous lawsuits on forestry projects,” which passed the Energy and Natural Resources Committee in July 2024, alongside active forest management and wildfire prevention work. His Crow Tribe Water Rights Settlement Amendments Act (S. 240) passed the House. The BABES Enhancement Act — TSA guidance on hygienic handling of breast milk and formula, introduced with Duckworth, Cruz, and Hirono — was signed into law Dec. 3, 2025.

All of these are statute-side items. A reasonable inference from these positions is a first 100 days in which forest-management emphasis shifts to agency directives the law already allows while legislative items go to Congress — with Native affairs, a Montana priority, treated as a trust responsibility rather than a bargaining chip.

07 Tax and trade: the Finance seat

As a Finance Committee member, Daines's stated priorities are “pro-growth, pro-family, and pro-America tax policies, competitive trade policies that put Montana small businesses first, and greater access to lower cost prescription drugs.” He voted Yes on H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, on July 1, 2025.

Tax policy, trade agreements, and appropriations all require Congress — but tariff actions sit with the executive under existing authorities like IEEPA and Section 301/232, and his Beijing trip positioned him as a congressional channel for, not an obstacle to, executive tariff policy. A reasonable inference from these positions is a presidency that leans on tariff authority early while sending tax and trade bills down the Finance pipeline he knows.

His personal stance on specific China tariff levels versus Trump's is not documented in the digest; this article does not claim one.

08 What the record cannot tell us

Daines's digest is deep on China, fentanyl, energy, and Montana constituencies — and thin on the regulatory frontier. There is not enough public evidence to determine his position on AI or tech regulation; the research pass found none, and this article does not assume one.

Why he chose retirement is reported only in press accounts, not in his own published reasoning. His committee seniority is rank-and-file — Crapo chairs Finance — so the record cannot tell us how he would run the machinery he would suddenly command.

What the record suggests is a presidency of executive-first statecraft: a president who has already sat across from He Lifeng, whose flagship drug law is already on the books, and whose remaining agenda — permitting, forestry, taxes — is congressional work he knows from the inside. The first 100 days would likely begin in Beijing's direction, not Washington's — and how far the tariff-fentanyl linkage can be pushed by one branch alone is exactly where the record runs out.