‘I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine’: what a JD Vance vice presidency could mean for the world

By Ava Kalinauskas, Samuel Garrett, University of Sydney

After months of gamesmanship and speculation, JD Vance has emerged as Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate and the heir apparent to the America First movement.

With less than two years in Congress under his belt, the first-term senator from Ohio has very little experience in politics, let alone conducting foreign policy.

Yet Vance represents a clear departure from the Ronald Reagan-era foreign policy views that characterised Trump’s previous vice president, Mike Pence. Pence spent much of his time in office making trips to reassure US allies and partners overseas, delivering speeches aimed at providing strategic clarity to Trump’s often unpredictable actions.

As Trump’s vice presidential pick, Vance’s foreign policy views could prove similarly influential if the former president is re-elected in November. So, what could a Vance vice presidency mean for the rest of the world?

An ‘Asia-First’-style isolationist on Ukraine

Vance is one of many so-called “Asia First” Republican politicians who want to limit US attention on Europe and reorient the country’s resources towards countering China’s rise.

In Congress, he has garnered a reputation as one of the most vociferous opponents of continued US aid to Ukraine, saying the US has “provided a blanket of security to Europe for far too long” and calling for European allies to “step up” their own military contributions to Kyiv.

https://x.com/YuliaTymosha/status/1812931387990942201?t=AbnslHBojzE72Z2ViwojNw&s=19

Just after Russia’s invasion in February 2022, in fact, Vance bluntly declared

I gotta be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.

At the same time, Vance maintains he is not advocating for the US to “abandon Europe”. Rather, he wants to place more focus on what he sees as a more pressing threat to US interests – competition with China – because, he said in a speech last year, “that’s where the real enemy is.”

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