MILWAUKEE — Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance’s “America First” foreign policy positions are taking the spotlight as he prepares to deliver his first major prime time speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night.
Vance was announced as former President Trump’s running mate on Monday, and since, numerous politicians and media outlets, especially foreign ones, have begun sounding the alarm over what they describe as his “isolationist” policies, warning a Trump-Vance presidency might go so far as to abandon Ukraine amid its war with Russia.
“Trump’s choice of running mate raises fears in Ukraine and EU,” one BBC headline read, with the piece going on to cite a German politician saying Vance is “more isolationist” and “unpredictable” than Trump.
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Sen. JD Vance is shown on the first day of the Republican National Convention at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee on July 15, 2024. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
The Washington Post wrote that Trump picked “a like-minded isolationist on foreign policy,” and Politico wrote that Vance “spells ‘disaster’ for Europe and Ukraine.”
CNN’s Van Jones described Vance as “a horror on the world stage,” warning “Ukrainians are now in deep trouble.”
When Vance talks about his “America First” foreign policy beliefs, the focus often involves Ukraine as well as Israel and China.
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Sen. JD Vance and wife Usha Chilukuri Vance are shown as he is nominated for vice president on the first day of the Republican National Convention at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee on July 15, 2024. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
He has been a vocal critic of the various foreign aid packages, which included assistance for Ukraine: “The problem in Ukraine … is that there’s no clear end point,” he remarked on one occasion.
“The United States has sent tens of billions worth of military aid to Ukraine with shockingly little accountability for where those resources have gone,” he said in another instance.
Vance has largely made support for Israel amid its war with Hamas an exception to his opposition to foreign aid, and he has argued against “micromanaging” their military operations. He’s also called for rooting out Hamas as a military organization and that the world should “empower” Israel to do it.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, attend the Republican National Convention at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee on July 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Vance’s opposition to foreign aid is driven largely by his view that it’s a distraction from China, which he describes as the “biggest threat” currently facing the U.S.
The first-term Ohio senator’s speech is expected to fall fully in line with the night’s “Make America Strong Once Again” theme, and it will, according to one source in his political orbit, be focused “heavily on his bio and incredible life story and how that ties into the America First agenda.”
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His speech will also “connect his life experiences to the Trump policies, folding in his firsthand experience of a tough upbringing that shaped his views on a lot of the biggest issues he is passionate about,” which include “trade, immigration, ending endless wars, fentanyl and drugs, and how inflation hurts the poor the most,” another source told Fox.
Fox News’ Julia Johnson contributed to this report.
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