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JD Vance will take the national stage as the Republican nominee for vice-president on Wednesday evening, headlining a party convention line-up that will include some of the most controversial foreign policy hands from Donald Trump’s first term in the White House.
Trump’s selection of Vance as running mate has already sparked concerns among American allies in Europe and traditional internationalists within his own party for the US senator’s isolationist stances, including his opposition to continued military aid to Ukraine.
As if to emphasise the radical break from the Reaganite roots of the Republican foreign policy establishment, convention organisers in Milwaukee have added two well-known foreign policy iconoclasts from the Trump administration — arch-China hawk Peter Navarro and firebrand former ambassador Richard Grenell — to the third night’s line-up, themed “Make America Strong Once Again”.
Grenell opened his remarks by bashing previous Republican presidents, saying they “thought it was their duty to spread democracy by military force” — a clear reference to George W Bush’s invasion of Iraq.
But most of his address was used to praise his ex-boss and argue that recent conflicts in Europe and the Middle East were the fault of “weakness” under President Joe Biden.
“Under President Trump, we put American interests first. There were no new wars. Old wars ended, and America had the greatest economy in the world. But after four years of Joe Biden, wars are back,” Grenell said.
Grenell, one of the leading proponents of Trump’s America First agenda, became persona non-grata in Europe during his tenure as ambassador to Germany, where he used the American diplomatic presence to promote far-right causes and political movements, angering the government in Berlin.
But on Wednesday night he insisted that world leaders stood in “fear and awe” at the thought of Trump’s return to the White House.
Navarro, who helped drive Trump’s tariff-led trade war with Beijing during his presidency, appeared in Milwaukee to rapturous applause hours after having been released on Wednesday morning from prison, where he served a four-month sentence for refusing to co-operate with a congressional investigation into the 2021 attack on the US Capitol building.
Navarro described himself and Trump as victims of political persecution, saying: “If they can come for me, if they can come for Donald Trump, be careful, they will come for you.
“They convicted me. They jailed me. But guess what? They did not break me, and they will never break Donald Trump,” Navarro added to cheers of “fight, fight, fight” from the crowd. “On election day, America will hold these lawfare jackals accountable.”
But the night’s main event will be Vance’s keynote speech, which Trump campaign officials said would be an opportunity for the 39-year-old first-term senator to introduce himself to the American people.
Trump announced Vance would be his running mate on Monday, ending months of speculation and thrusting the US Marine Corps veteran and Yale Law School graduate into the harsh scrutiny of the national spotlight.
His foreign policy views are considered more isolationist than even Trump’s in some diplomatic circles, and his repeated calls for Kyiv to cede territory to Russia in order to end the two-year war has raised alarms in Europe, where allies have struggled to arm the Ukrainian military without American aid.
Vance, who worked in venture capital before turning to politics, first gained a national profile in 2016, with the publication of his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, about growing up in a white, working class family and being raised predominately by his Appalachian grandmother while his mother struggled with drug addiction.
At the time, Vance was also a sharp Trump critic, referring to the then- presidential candidate as an “idiot”, saying he “couldn’t stomach” voting for him, and comparing him to “cultural heroin” that would be unable to solve society’s ills.
But Vance changed his tune, and by the time he embarked on a run for the Senate in 2022, he had become a Trump supporter. The Ohio senator has since emerged as one of the president’s most fluent and pugnacious advocates in television interviews and other public appearances.
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