MILWAUKEE — Former President Donald Trump’s selection of JD Vance as his running mate vaulted the political newcomer to the role of the MAGA movement’s would-be standard bearer.
But the selection didn’t just elevate the first-term Ohio senator and designate him as Trump’s preferred successor; it also further solidified a faction of the party that embraces an isolationist, “America First” approach to the world stage.
There may be some exceptions to that approach — take U.S. support of Israel, for example, which is continuing its war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.
But when it comes to Ukraine, Vance during his brief time in the Senate has already made his opposition to sending American aid to Kyiv a central focus.
Vance joined with 14 other GOP senators to oppose a $95.3 billion supplemental package to aid Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan — though he previously backed a standalone Israel funding package.
He has championed legislation to bolster oversight of the Pentagon’s end-use monitoring program for weapons sent to Kyiv since the war with Russia began in February 2022. And he has said repeatedly that Europe needs to play a greater role in its own security.
“For three years, the Europeans have told us that Vladimir Putin is an existential threat to Europe,” Vance said in a March floor speech, referencing the Russian president. “And for three years, they have failed to respond as if that were actually true.”
John Conway, the director of strategy for the advocacy group Republicans for Ukraine, said in a statement that Vance’s addition to the ticket “is a huge disappointment to all Republicans who want to see Ukraine win, Russia lose, and Putin defeated.”
“The establishment of the Republican Party cannot continue to ignore the millions of Republicans who value American national security and understand that Ukraine is America’s friend and Putin is America’s enemy,” he added.
The Republican Party’s new platform, its first since 2016, does not mention Ukraine or Russia specifically. It instead commits to broadly “restoring Peace to Europe” while backing Israel and supporting “Strong, Sovereign, and Independent Nations in the Indo-Pacific, thriving in Peace and Commerce with others.”
Much of the platform’s focus is trained on homeland defense, calling for the creation of a made-in-America Iron Dome missile defense system over the entirety of the U.S. — an idea, based on the cooperative program for Israel, that Trump has promoted on the campaign trail.
And while it pledges to make investments in advanced military technologies and resources, as well as prioritize higher pay for U.S. troops and support the revival of the domestic industrial base, the framework notably doesn’t make the case for increasing overall spending for defense.
That stands in strong contrast to the 2016 platform, which called for lifting the cap on military appropriations at a time of budget constraints that included sequestration triggers. Nearly a decade later, spending on defense and nondefense accounts in fiscal years 2024 and 2025 is hemmed in by funding levels laid out in last year’s debt limit deal.
Vance, a 39-year-old former Marine who left the corps in 2007 at the rank of corporal, is the first veteran to appear on a major party’s ticket since John McCain in 2008. And one group, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, touted his standing as the first of the post-9/11 generation of veterans to be on a presidential ballot.
But his military service doesn’t mean he’s an automatic “yes” vote on the annual must-pass defense policy bill.
He was one of six Republicans to vote against the final fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act in December 2023. And before that, he opposed passage of the Senate’s version of the legislation when it reached the floor last July, citing in a statement at the time the plan’s commitment “to years of additional military aid for the war in Ukraine.”
“It’s disappointing to me that these significant priorities that would benefit Ohioans have been bogged down with such deeply problematic foreign policy proposals,” he added.
Although Vance’s track record when it comes to Ukraine is clear, some sought to downplay concerns that a second Trump administration would opt to halt aid to Ukraine completely.
“I think it’s going to be a discussion,” House defense authorizer Rich McCormick, R-Ga., said in an interview Wednesday at the Republican National Convention. “I think, in the end, we collectively have to decide that. The legislative branch is a co-equal part of the leadership of this country. It’s not just the president who gets to decide what we do … I think we as a nation have to decide where we’re willing to draw the line.”
Still, the message coming from the convention floor Wednesday, in the form of red and white signs placed on delegates’ seats, was clear: “Trump will end the Ukraine war.”
Israel, China
President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war and his broader approach to the Middle East has already emerged as a punching bag at the RNC.
On Tuesday night, House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik of New York knocked the administration’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which she described as “our most precious ally.”
“President Trump will bring back moral leadership to the White House, condemning antisemitism and standing strong with Israel and the Jewish people,” Stefanik said from the convention’s stage to cheers from the crowd.
In a brief interview Wednesday, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., rejected the notion that there’s any tension between the embrace of an “America First” agenda and a stated commitment to Israel.
“First of all, every nation on earth, and leaders of those nations should put their nation and their citizens first,” said Johnson, who voted with Vance to oppose the national security supplemental package. “If they did that, they’ll help create peace and stability around the world as well. So there’s nothing subtractive about putting your nation first; you can still help out the rest of the world.”
A Trump-Vance approach to China, however, may be more difficult to predict.
Trump in a Tuesday interview with Bloomberg Businessweek said that Taiwan should be paying the U.S. for its defense, adding that the self-governing island “doesn’t give us anything.” (Two GOP senators outside the Fiserv Forum said they hadn’t seen Trump’s comments when asked about them.).
Vance, meanwhile, has talked about the need to shift resources to the Indo-Pacific region. In a Monday Fox News interview, he called China “the biggest threat” facing the U.S. and dismissed Ukraine as a distraction.
Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., a member of his Armed Services Committee, noted that Vance’s “emphasis has always been: ‘We can’t defend everything, so we need to focus on China.’” But he stopped short of calling Vance pro-Taiwan, likening Vance’s focus on the Indo-Pacific to that of Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.
“The reality is that it gets back to prevention; we’re so much better if we can make these investments, big investments, project the strength and prevent China from invading Taiwan, than waiting to see what to do about it after the fact,” Cramer said. “I think we’re all of the same sort of mind on that.”
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