As Washington is abuzz over news of former President Donald Trump's selection of Senator JD Vance (R-OH) as his running mate in the 2024 presidential election, Sputnik takes a look at some of the lawmaker's positions on US foreign policy:
Ukraine
The Ohio Senator has been strongly critical of continued military aid to the Kiev regime, writing in an editorial in The New York Times that “the math on Ukraine doesn’t add up.” Vance claims the US lacks “the capacity to manufacture the amount of weapons Ukraine needs us to supply to win the war.”
The 39-year-old lawmaker also noted the average Ukrainian soldier is older than he is as the Kiev regime struggles to draft enough men to fight the conflict. "Everyone with a brain in their head knows that this is going to end with negotiations," Vance said during a television appearance on CNN, claiming Ukraine lacks the ability to force Moscow out of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics.
Russia
Vance has called plans to seize Russian assets to offset the cost of the Ukraine proxy war “dangerous.” Late last year, he claimed Volodymyr Zelensky should give up claims to newly-Russian territory east of Ukraine and negotiate a deal to end the country’s conflict with Moscow.
These views have put him in conflict with establishment figures in the Republican Party such as Senator Lindsay Graham, who take a strongly anti-Russia position.
Palestine-Israel
The Trump running mate is a staunch supporter of Israel who favors efforts to pursue normalization agreements between Tel Aviv and Arab states. He supports continued aid to the Netanyahu government for its operation in Gaza, which has killed over 38,000, and has claimed the United States’ status as “the largest Christian-majority country in the world” compels the US to support its Middle Eastern ally.
However, he has cautioned against the threat of escalation between the country and its regional foe Iran.
Who is JD Vance?
Ohio Senator JD Vance was elected to Congress during the Republican Party’s “red wave” of 2022.
After graduating from Ohio State University and Yale Law School, Vance worked at Chicago’s Sidley Austin LLP law firm before moving to San Francisco to pursue a career as a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. In 2016 he became a principal in conservative entrepreneur Peter Thiel’s firm Mithril Capital.
Vance’s memoir Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis briefly made him a liberal darling as he reflected on the socioeconomic concerns of rural Appalachia, writing about his family’s background in Kentucky and Middletown, Ohio. The Washington Post declared him the “voice of the Rust Belt” while The New York Times wrote that his account was “one of the six best books to help understand Trump's win” in 2016.
JD Vance was initially highly critical of Donald Trump, calling him “reprehensible” and claiming he was a “never-Trump guy.” Vance changed his views by 2018, claiming Trump “recognizes the frustration that exists” in post-industrial parts of Ohio and other Midwestern US states. He strongly supported Trump’s reelection campaign in 2020 and claimed the real estate magnate lost due to far-reaching voter fraud.
Trump’s selection of Vance as his VP pick provides him with a running mate from a perennial US swing state as the former president seeks to appeal to voters who proved crucial to his 2016 victory in Midwest states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Wisconsin.