Ideologists, congressmen, former senior officials of Donald Trump’s presidency and candidates for a hypothetical return of the billionaire to the White House are preparing the script for what they consider should be a second Trump presidency. A few months ago, the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation launched an extensive catalog of measures, the Project 2025, to inspire the future presidency. Last week it was the America First Policy Institute that launched its proposals, focused on foreign policy and national security, through a book. Closed support for Israel, conditional support for Ukraine and hostile competition with China are on the menu of a baptized proposal, as is the think tank, like America First, the same one that Trump applied in his first term.
If the former president wins the November presidential elections and returns to the White House on January 20, he will have a script to follow on the Oval Office table. Although the Trump campaign has always indicated that he only assumes and commits to his own proposals, the familiarity of some of these conservative think tanks with Trump and his teams makes his proposals relevant.
The book is critical of the way Trump assumed power in 2016 in what they describe as a “tumultuous transition” that delayed the implementation of his policies. The authors give as an example that before the elections, Democrat Hillary Clinton’s transition team had submitted more than 1,000 names for future security clearances, while Trump’s had only submitted 25. So that this situation is not repeated, the think tank says it has identified approximately 1,200 positions related to national security and urges to fill them from hypothetical day one with Trump loyalists who take an “America first” approach.
The America First Policy Institute’s publication, titled An America First Approach to US National Security (An America First Approach to United States National Security), addresses the international situation and confronts critics who point out that its approach means denying the role of the world’s leading power. “The America First foreign policy is not isolationism. “America First does not mean America alone,” says former Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, former chief of staff and executive secretary of the National Security Council and president of the Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute, using America reductively as a synonym. from the United States.
Closed support for Israel
Edited by Fred Fleitz, Trump’s National Security Council chief of staff, the book addresses the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Hamas’ attack on Israel, and the threat posed by China. He offers brushstrokes, reflections and guidelines, but not always concrete proposals. What there is less doubt about is the closed support for Israel, in line with the positions expressed in public by Trump himself. The former president harshly criticized Joe Biden last week for stopping the shipment of a shipment of high-powered bombs, something that Trump described as “shameful” and for aligning the president with Hamas terrorists, in a new baseless hyperbole.
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The author of the book, Fred Fleitz, advocates a policy on Israel that “honors the United States’ historic commitment to the Jewish state” and is based on the understanding that Israel is the main ally in the Middle East, “one in which the United States “The United States trusts to share intelligence, defense and other technological co-developments and most importantly to preserve the interests of the United States in the region,” he maintains.
Ellie Cohanim, Trump’s former State Department deputy envoy against anti-Semitism, goes into detail and argues that the United States must rush to provide 25 new F-35 advanced fighter jets, a squadron of Boeing F-15 EXs and a squadron of Apache E attack helicopters. In addition, he maintains that Washington should pressure the Arab states to foot the bill for the reconstruction of Gaza and accept that Israel postpone any political talks with the Palestinians pending an indefinite period of “mandatory deradicalization.” ” for the Palestinian people.
There are fewer details about how to put into practice Trump’s proclamation that if he is elected he will end the war in Ukraine in one day. The book is more dedicated to blaming Biden for the conflict. “The war in Ukraine is an avoidable tragedy resulting from President Biden’s incompetence as a world leader and his chaotic foreign policy. The war has divided Americans and the conservative movement over what America’s involvement in this conflict should be and how the war in Ukraine affects European and global stability,” Kellogg and Fleitz write about the war in Ukraine.
The approach, they say, is not isolationist, but it rejects keeping the United States “in endless wars to the detriment of the country, by putting idealistic principles before the interests of the American people.” The role in Ukraine must be through “decisive leadership” in which “bold diplomacy paves the way” toward an end to the conflict. “What we should not continue to do is send weapons into a stalemate that Ukraine will end up having a hard time winning,” he says.
The authors argue that the United States should condition future military aid on Ukraine’s participation in peace negotiations with Russia. The approach seems to be that, without giving up recovering all of its territory, that objective is postponed, “which probably will not occur before Putin leaves power.”
China, “the most pressing threat”
As for China, the goal is to “defeat evil influences,” striving to make “the policies of the Chinese Communist Party largely irrelevant to American life.” The power is described as the most pressing threat to American national security and a tough policy is proposed, especially in economic and technological matters.
It proposes denying Chinese companies access to US markets in the same way that US companies have been denied in China. It also recommends a ban on Chinese citizens from purchasing property within 50 miles of any US government property and visa restrictions on Chinese students. In one respect, the proposals clash with Trump’s position: The book supports banning TikTok and other Chinese apps over data privacy concerns. Trump rejects it. One of TikTok’s major American shareholders is a Republican donor.
The other major aspect that the book addresses (which barely devotes any attention to Europe, which in itself is a message) is the border. Domestic and foreign policy is mixed there. “Without a secure border, the United States is not a sovereign nation. Although our immigration laws could always be modernized and improved, including overhauling the legal immigration system to better serve the national interest, there are enough existing powers that the Biden Administration refuses to use that the next America First administration should immediately implement to ensure the border,” Chad Wolf, former acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, points out in a chapter.
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