Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, July 16, 2024 Contract With Our Readers
Soon after being chosen as Donald Trump’s running mate on the GOP ticket, Sen. J.D. Vance’s vetting by the legacy media began.
Ignoring the fact that the current occupant of the VP office’s resume is thinner than the paper it is written on, the talking heads warned that Trump’s pick would shift U.S. foreign policy away from Ukraine. A CBS analysis noted Vance “drew criticism for praising one of Europe’s most far-right leaders, Hungary’s authoritarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, a NATO partner who is also close with Putin.”
In one of his first interviews after being selected by Trump, Vance told Fox News host Sean Hannity that he hoped to work towards bringing the Ukraine war “to a rapid close so America can focus on the real issue, which is China.”
“That’s the biggest threat to our country and we are completely distracted from it,” Vance said.
In March, Vance introduced a bill to limit Chinese government access to American capital markets.
“If the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t want to play by American rules, they shouldn’t be allowed access to our financial markets,” he told Breitbart News at the time. “Ohio workers and our manufacturing industry have suffered the consequences of the CCP’s illegal currency manipulation for far too long. It’s about time we hold them accountable and force them to follow the law.”
China’s vow to invade Taiwan is a high-profile threat to the United States, Vance said.
“This is really important for Americans to understand: the Taiwanese control the American information technology industry because we allowed them to manufacture all of our computer chips,” he said in an April 2023 appearance on Fox News. “If the Taiwanese fall to China, it will cause a Great Depression in this country. We have to prevent that from happening. But to prevent it, we have to be self-sufficient and we have to make our own weapons.”
Expanding manufacturing at home is central to confronting the China threat, Vance said.
“One of the big mistakes we’ve made as a country — bipartisan — is we let China make way too much of our stuff,” Vance told Breitbart News in June. “We let Mexico make way too much of our stuff. If you look in a lot of ways at what Biden has done on the green energy stuff, they’ve been doubling down on a lot of very stupid policies because where are all the minerals mined for the green energy economy? They’re mined in China. Where are a lot of the components made? In China.”
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Vance has referred to the Ukraine war as a “distraction” by Team Biden from China and greater problems at home.
Prior to his election to the Senate, Vance stated: “I gotta be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another. … I’m sick of Joe Biden focusing on the border of a country I don’t care about while he lets the border of his own country become a total war zone.”
In an article co-authored with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts in November 2023, Vance reinforced his opposition to the Russian invasion but suggested that “Europe take the lead in support for that war.” The authors compared the situation in Ukraine to that of Israel, noting, “Israel has wealthy neighbors, but they are not going to assist Israel’s war effort, and aid is unlikely to come from any source but the U.S.”
“The same cannot be said of Ukraine, whose wealthy EU neighbors — notably Germany and France — could provide considerably more assistance,” the article stated.
Vance has also asserted that Ukraine is not sufficiently important to American national interests to justify the emphasis Biden has placed on it.
“It’s not that we don’t admire the courageousness of the Ukrainians. We certainly do. It’s that America is stretched too thin,” he said in April. “We do not have the industrial capacity to support a war in Ukraine, a war in Israel, potentially a war in East Asia if the Chinese invade Taiwan, so America has to pick and choose.”
Vance expressed alarm at the idea of a potential NATO incursion into Ukraine to go to war with Russia.
Vance has also condemned Team Biden’s policies in the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
“Our goal in the Middle East should be to allow the Israelis to get to some good place with Saudi Arabians and other Gulf Arab states,” Vance told CNN in May. “There is no way that we can do that unless the Israelis finished the job with Hamas.”
“You’re never going to defeat the ideology of Hamas, but you can root out those commanders, those final military trained battalions. I think we should empower the Israelis to do it,” he said.
J.D. Vance on foreign policy: Real threat to U.S. is China not Ukraine added by Editor Two on July 16, 2024
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