On July 15th, former President Donald Trump selected Ohio Senator JD Vance to join the GOP ticket as the vice presidential nominee. Vance emerged as the victor of a veepstakes that also saw Florida Senator Marco Rubio and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum as finalists for the role. At just 39 years old, Vance is well-positioned to succeed President Trump as the heir of his populist brand of Republican politics, carrying the torch of Trump’s legacy well into the future.
Soon after Vance was selected, media reactions began to pour in. On foreign policy, a Politico article published referred to Vance as “one of the most isolationist members of the Republican Party.” The Washington Post chimed in as well, writing that Vance is perceived as someone who is “likely to entrench the former president’s isolationist tilt among conservatives for years to come.”
Yet, the term isolationism in reference to Trump and Vance’s foreign policy instincts is a misnomer.
In a recent op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Walter Russell Mead argues that the assassination attempt on Trump would reinvigorate a “Jacksonian turn” in US politics. As characterized by Mead, on foreign policy, the Jacksonian strain of American politics “feel[s] no need to spread democracy around the world.” He adds, “Absent serious threats against America, Jacksonians have little interest in foreign affairs. But when the U.S. is attacked, they believe every measure is justified in its defense.” Abroad, Jacksonians display “skepticism about international organizations and law” and “indifference to ideological crusades.”
Notably, Trump’s former National Security Advisor, Robert O’Brien, recently wrote in Foreign Affairs that Trump “thinks highly” of Andrew Jackson’s approach to foreign policy, which he summarizes as being “focused and forceful when compelled to action but wary of overreach.”
One might also describe the Jacksonian (and Trumpian) approach to foreign policy as peace through strength. Indeed, while Trump was critical of allies in his first term, that criticism was not for its own sake; rather, amid a rapidly deteriorating global security environment, his criticism was directed toward increased burden sharing to meet the challenges of this new era. During Trump’s presidency, the United States did not withdraw from NATO and Russian President Vladimir Putin did not take any more territory from Ukraine. In the Middle East, Trump oversaw a vigorous campaign to pressure Iran while achieving a foreign policy coup through the Abraham Accords, deepening ties between Israel and several of its neighbors. Similarly, Trump pursued a tougher course with China while also working to strengthen ties with allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific.
None of this is the mark of a president pulling up the drawbridge on US global engagement.
Vance would reinforce Trump’s foreign policy instincts. In a conversation with Ross Douthat earlier this year, he outlined fundamental principles of his worldview that could serve as guideposts for a Trump-Vance foreign policy.
First, Vance matches Trump’s skepticism of globalization, advocating for tariffs and a tougher immigration policy to bolster the domestic labor force. As Vance put it, “the economics profession is fundamentally wrong about both immigration and about tariffs.”
Second, Vance takes an amoral approach to geopolitics, denouncing “moralisms about ‘This country is good,’ ‘This country is bad’ [as] largely useless,” adding that “we should be dealing with other countries based on whether they’re good or bad for America’s interests.”
Third, Vance emphasizes the importance of domestic industrial might, stating that “military power is downstream of industrial power.”
Fourth, Vance views the world through the lens of multipolarity and contends that resource scarcity necessitates that allies must “step up in big ways so that we can focus on East Asia, which is where our most significant competitor is for the next 20 or 30 years.”
Taking these principles alongside Trump’s first term, one can see that a Trump-Vance foreign policy would be driven not by affection for international norms and institutions as ends unto themselves, but a robust defense of domestic economic interests, especially industrial strength; a hard-nosed approach to China; and alliance and partner relationships built around shared interests.
The isolationist charge against Vance is further discredited by looking at his approach to the three main arenas of international strife today: Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
The charge is most closely linked to Vance’s views on US aid for Ukraine and transatlantic security. In an April op-ed, Vance argued that “Ukraine needs more soldiers than it can field” and “it needs more materiel than the United States can provide.” He then urged Ukraine to commit to a defensive strategy to “stop the bleeding and provide time for negotiations to commence,” describing as “fantastical” the notion that Ukraine would regain its full territorial boundaries. In his conversation with Douthat, Vance added that a resolution should “guarantee both Kyiv’s independence but also its neutrality,” while also noting that there should be “some American security assistance over the long term.”
As for European security more broadly, Vance has called on Europe “to play a bigger share of the security role” given that “we live in a world of scarcity.” While calling for Europe to contribute more to its security, he has also stated he does not think the United States should pull out of NATO. From Vance’s perspective, it comes down to prioritization: With limited resources, the United States needs Europe to step up so that Washington can focus on the bigger challenge that is China.
One need not agree fully with Vance’s perspective on Ukraine (I don’t) to see that even on transatlantic security, where he is most often characterized as isolationist, he is nothing of the sort.
In other areas, Vance’s position is more hawkish. Soon after being selected as the vice presidential nominee, he called China “the biggest threat” to the United States, and he has advocated for substantial tariffs on Chinese products. He told Douthat “we should make it as hard as possible for China to take Taiwan.”
On the Middle East, he has expressed support for Israel’s war against Hamas. He favors building on the Abraham Accords initiative spearheaded by Trump in his first term to get “to a place where Israel and the Sunni nations can play a regional counterweight to Iran.” He has said that the United States should “ensure that Israel, with the Sunni nations, can actually police their own region of the world. That allows us to spend less time and resources on the Middle East and focus more on East Asia.”
Beyond Vance, a Trump 47 foreign policy would be shaped by other voices. While it is unclear exactly who would fill out Trump’s cabinet, it has been reported that Senators Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio could receive senior national security positions. Other names that have been floated include former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien. None of these individuals can accurately be described as isolationist.
Should he win a second term, President Trump’s foreign policy seems poised to build upon his first four years in office, with Vice President Vance only reinforcing that likelihood. Adopting Mead’s Jacksonian language, their approach may be wary of foreign entanglement but it would not be marked by America going it alone – and, if punched, adversaries beware that the United States would punch back hard.
