Commentary: If Trump-Vance prevail in November, expect even more American isolationism

WHERE VANCE STANDS ON KEY ISSUES

Democrats are already using Mr Vance’s own words and views against him.

The early Democratic attacks against him focus on how he supported a nationwide abortion ban and criticised exceptions for rape and incest, called Social Security and Medicare “the biggest roadblocks to real fiscal sanity”, and admitted that as VP he wouldn’t have certified the election results immediately on Jan 6, 2021.

With all this political baggage coupled with inexperience on the national stage, Mr Vance by no means ensures the election for Trump.

From a policy perspective, Mr Vance has been vocal in opposition to US aid for Ukraine in its war with Russia.

He has called for broad-based tariffs, especially on goods coming in from China because they pose an unfair threat to American jobs and commerce. His support for imposing new tariffs on China could make the reality of Trump’s 60 per cent tariffs on Chinese goods and 10 per cent globally even more likely.

In May, Mr Vance said in an interview that applying tariffs means “we’re going to penalise you for using slave labour in China and importing that stuff in the United States”, resulting in “making more stuff in America”. Most economists disagree, not that it matters.

On the home front, Mr Vance has expressed support for an overhaul of the civil service. This spreads trepidation across Washington, DC.

At the end of Trump’s first term, the former president tried to reclassify tens of thousands of federal employees in “policy-related” jobs into excepted service positions, thereby eliminating their civil service protections.

Vance supports this effort in a second Trump term.

“I think that what Trump should, like, if I was giving him one piece of advice, (is) fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state,” Vance said in 2021. “Replace them with our people.”

A Trump-Vance administration would likely be met by an exodus of some of the most experienced US public servants, diminishing the country’s ability to manage all the crises facing it, at home and abroad.