Posted on 07/16/24
| News Source: AL-MONITOR
Former US President and Republican nominee Donald Trump announced Monday that he had picked Ohio Senator J.D. Vance to be his vice presidential running mate, choosing a candidate that could galvanize the Republican base and supporters of an “America First” foreign policy as well as pro-Israel voters.
Trump made the announcement in a post on Truth Social during the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, just two days after the presumptive Republican nominee survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania.
Vance, 39, successfully ran for Senate in 2022 and assumed office in January of 2023. He serves on committees related to banking, commerce, economics and aging. The senator previously worked as a venture capitalist in the tech industry and as a corporate lawyer. He came to prominence through his 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.” The book depicts social and socioeconomic issues in his native Appalachia region. Vance served in the US Marine Corps for four years starting in 2003. His time in the military included working in public affairs in Iraq following the US invasion that year.
'America First'
In contrast with more hawkish voices and the neoconservative wing of the Republican party, Vance has criticized foreign aid and US military operations in the Middle East. In a May address at the Quincy Institute, Vance questioned American military assistance to Ukraine.
“I certainly admire the Ukrainians who are fighting against Russia, but I do not think that it is in America’s interest to continue to fund an effectively never-ending war in Ukraine,” he said in the speech.
Vance critiqued US foreign policy decisions throughout the Quincy Institute speech, saying the US "created a proxy of Iran in the Middle East" via the 2003 invasion of Iraq, among other examples.
After the Senate approved $61 billion in new military aid to Ukraine in late April, Vance rebuked his colleagues, drawing on his experience in Iraq.
“I served my country honorably, and I saw when I went to Iraq that I had been lied to,” said Vance on the Senate floor, adding that “the promises of the foreign policy establishment of this country were a complete joke.”