The Heir

Donald Trump, who hosted him at Mar-a-Lago in 2021, said he was impressed by JD Vance's "incredible" blue eyes, his TV debating skills, and his audacity. Vance was then contemplating his first Senate run the following year. He visited Florida not to seek Trump's support but to apologize for previously calling Trump "Adolf Hitler" after the failed January 6th insurrection and comparing his speeches to "cultural heroin." Trump accepted the apology and monitored his progress.

Last week, on the eve of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Trump, recently recovered from an assassination attempt, chose JD Vance as his "running mate." Vance is set to be Trump's next vice-president, given the near certainty of Trump's election, and potentially his heir, as Trump will be 82 by the end of his second term.

Vance, unlike Trump, but embodying the American dream in his own way, comes from a poor small town in Ohio, Middletown, with jobs lost to China. Raised by his grandmother after his father disappeared and his mother succumbed to drugs, Vance served four years in the Marines with combat missions in Iraq, earned a scholarship to Yale Law School, and married an Indian immigrant. He then thrived in Silicon Valley finance, met mentors Peter Thiel and Elon Musk through Trump, and wrote the bestseller "Hillbilly Elegy." Elected to the Senate in 2022, he is now poised to be the vice-president at 39.

Vance's rise alarms Europe, NATO, and Kyiv. While Trump has long threatened to "reexamine" the Alliance and "end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours" by negotiating with Putin, Vance proposes a deeper shift in American foreign policy. He calls for abandoning the "peace through strength" doctrine upheld by Republicans for 50 years, deeming its arguments "almost always false." Drawing from his Iraq experience, where he initially believed "propaganda" before uncovering "the lie," Vance sees the same deception in Ukraine. He argues that the U.S. should not fund an endless war in Ukraine and advocates for "military restraint and diplomatic engagement" to address domestic issues first. He believes the main U.S. problem is not China's rising influence but that Washington's leaders have allowed it to become the world's leading industrial power.

America is turning inward to address its issues and better confront China. Europeans should prepare for this shift...

Pierre Lellouche

VA Editorial 21/7/24 (V2)