A think tank working to lay the groundwork for a second Trump administration if former US President Donald Trump wins again in November has published a new book, An America First Approach to U.S. National Security, which aims to detail the so-called “America First” national security policy.

The book was written by former Trump advisers, including Robert Lighthizer, who served as US Trade Representative, Michael Waltz, a Florida Republican and former Green Beret, and Fred Fleitz, who served as Trump’s chief of staff on the National Security Council.

All of these names are rumoured to be in the running for senior positions if Trump wins the presidential election in November.

Think tanks working to ‘help Trump avoid the mistakes of 2016’

The book was produced by the think tank America First Policy Institute (AFPI). According to the Associated Press, the group, like “Project 2025” by another pro-Trump think tank, the Heritage Foundation, is trying to help Trump avoid the mistakes of 2016, when he entered the White House largely unprepared.

It includes proposals such as tying future military aid to Ukraine to its participation in peace talks with Russia, banning Chinese citizens from buying property within 50 miles of US government buildings, and staffing the national security sector with Donald Trump’s aides.

The institute is also working on dozens of draft executive orders and developing a training programme for future political appointees. The Heritage Foundation, on the other hand, is compiling a comprehensive personnel database and preparing its own policy guidelines.

The book’s authors are in contact with Trump

Both groups stress their independence from the Trump campaign and insist that the only policies Trump supports are those expressed by the candidate himself.

But Fred Fleitz, the book’s editor, said he and retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, who served for a time as Trump’s deputy national security adviser and wrote parts of the book, are in frequent contact with the former president, asking for feedback and discussing issues such as Ukraine at length.”We hope these are things he’s thinking about. We don’t speak for him, but I think he would approve,” said Fleitz, who previously served as chief of staff to the National Security Council.

Fleitz said he hoped the book would be an “easy-to-use” guide that “provides an intellectual foundation for an America First approach” to national security.

Kellogg said: “This is grand strategy. You don’t start with policies. You start with strategies. And that’s what we’ve done,” he added.

Criticism of ‘globalist’ strategies

The book characterises the current trajectory of US national security as a failure, with the foreign policy establishment accused of adopting an interventionist and ‘globalist’ approach at the expense of America’s ‘national interest’.

The book offers some premises for how a future Trump administration might approach foreign policy issues such as the war in Ukraine.

Trump has said that, if elected, he would resolve the issue before Inauguration Day in January.

The book’s chapter on the war discusses how the conflict developed rather than how to end it. But it does say that the US should make future military aid conditional on Ukraine’s participation in peace talks with Russia.

Continue arming Ukraine after ‘peace’ is established

Predicting that the Ukrainian military will lose ground over time, the report recommends that the US “should not continue to send weapons into a stalemate that Ukraine will ultimately find difficult to win”.

In the event of a peace agreement, however, the US would continue to arm Ukraine as a deterrent against Russia.

The authors propose a framework in which Ukraine “would not be asked to give up its goal of regaining all of its territory” but would accept diplomacy “with the understanding that this would require a diplomatic breakthrough in the future and would probably not happen before (Russian President Vladimir) Putin leaves office”.

The book also acknowledges that Ukrainians “will find it difficult to accept a negotiated peace that does not return all of their territory or, at least for the time being, does not hold Russia accountable for the carnage it has caused in Ukraine”.

Nevertheless, the authors declare their agreement with Donald Trump’s words on CNN in 2023: “I want everybody to stop dying” and that “this is a good first step”.

An architecture for Ukraine ‘focused on bilateral security defence’

The book blames President Joe Biden for the war and repeats Trump’s claim that “Putin would never have invaded Ukraine” if he had been in office.

The book’s main argument in defence of this claim is that Putin “sees Trump as strong and decisive”.

Looking to the future, the book suggests that Putin could be persuaded to join peace talks if Biden and other NATO leaders offered to delay Ukraine’s NATO membership for an extended period.

Instead, it suggests that the US should establish “a long-term security architecture for Ukraine’s defence, focusing on bilateral security defence”.

It also calls for a tax on Russian energy sales to fund Ukraine’s reconstruction.

According to the book, the prolongation of the war in Ukraine risks deepening the alliance between Russia, China, Iran and the Democratic Republic of Korea, which the think tank calls a new “anti-American axis”.

China ‘most urgent national security threat2

“As serious as the war in Ukraine is, it is not the greatest national security threat to our country. That threat is China,” the authors write.

The book describes China as the country’s “most pressing national security threat”, eager to replace the United States as the world’s leading power. The authors propose a “hawkish policy”, building on the approaches of both the Trump years and the Biden administration, to make Beijing’s policies “largely irrelevant to American life”.

By elevating economic concerns about China above national security concerns, the book proposes a reciprocal approach that would deny Beijing access to US markets in the same way that American companies are blocked in China.

It also recommends more rigorous vetting of US adversaries, particularly Chinese-owned cyber and technology companies, to ensure they are not collecting sensitive information.

It also recommends that Chinese citizens be prohibited from buying property within a 50-mile (80 km) radius of any US government property.

AFPI is working with US states to introduce legislation to ban foreign ownership of farmland. So far, such legislation has been passed in Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, Montana, North and South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Utah.

He is also calling for visa restrictions on Chinese students wishing to study in the US and a ban on TikTok and other Chinese apps over privacy concerns.

However, Trump has said he opposes legislation that would force the sale of TikTok or block its access to the US. Last week, Trump stepped up his criticism of Biden over his proposal to ban the social media app TikTok, claiming that the current president supported the ban to “help his friends on Facebook get richer and more dominant”.

US investment strengthens People’s Liberation Army

“Under America First, the United States must focus its military power on deterring China’s peer threat, using the full spectrum of political, economic and military power,” Waltz writes in a chapter of the book.

The book argues that decades of US efforts to transform China into a responsible partner on the global stage have been a “self-defeating policy”.

The authors argue that American investment in China has provided liquidity for Beijing’s high-tech projects, which have strengthened the People’s Liberation Army by reinforcing military-civilian fusion.

Continuation of tariffs against China

The book called for the continuation of all tariffs imposed on China during the Trump administration, while urging the US to develop supply chains “based solely on American workers, our allies, or our friendly neighbours in the Americas”.

They thanked the Biden administration for restricting US investment in sensitive Chinese sectors such as artificial intelligence, and called for further measures to sever American investment ties with organisations associated with the Chinese Communist Party.

Taiwan’s ‘defence’ prioritised, partnership with Japan critical

While the US is debating how to respond to a possible Chinese intervention in Taiwan, the authors of the book also address this issue.

The book clearly states that “the island must be defended”. The authors argue that protecting Taiwan’s security is in both the economic and national security interests of the United States.

But the authors insist that the US should demand more from its allies.

“If allied countries were allowed to contribute in their own way, they could significantly reduce the strategic burden on the United States,” the book says.

The US-Japan alliance “sets the standard” for a successful “America First” foreign policy, the authors write, praising Tokyo’s decision to increase defence spending and acquire stand-off missiles.

As for the Quad, an informal four-way partnership between the United States, Japan, India and Australia, the authors encourage “closer military integration” to counter the rise of China.

Call for more military support for Israel

Ellie Cohanim, Trump’s former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for ‘Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism’, explained what the ‘America First’ strategy means for the Israeli military.

Cohanim wrote that the US should send Israel a fleet of 25 Lockheed Martin F-35s, a Boeing F-15 EX and an Apache E attack helicopter.

Cohanim wrote that the US should give Israel some of the billions of dollars in military funding in Israeli currency so that Israel can spend it at home, and that Washington should force Arab states to accept Israel’s suspension of political negotiations with the Palestinians and subject the Palestinian people to “indefinite forced de-radicalisation”.

According to Cohanim, “peace in the Middle East will only be achieved through the reassertion of American power”.

According to Bloomberg, the administration of US President Joe Biden is preparing to announce a sweeping decision on tariffs against China next week that is expected to target key strategic sectors and reject the across-the-board increases sought by Donald Trump, citing people familiar with the matter.

The decision is the result of a review of the Section 301 tariffs, which were first introduced under Trump in 2018. The new tariffs will focus on sectors such as electric vehicles (EVs), batteries and solar cells, while existing taxes will largely remain in place.

While the yuan weakened on the news, the CSI 300 index of Chinese stocks rebounded after falling 0.6% in early trading.

Biden had also called for tariff increases on steel and aluminium

An announcement is expected on Tuesday, sources said.

Although the decision is likely to be delayed, it will still be one of the biggest moves in the US economic competition with China.

The new tariffs follow Biden’s call last month to increase tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminium, and the formal launch of a new investigation into China’s shipbuilding sector.

The move comes after Biden last month proposed new 25% tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminium as part of a series of steps to shore up the American steel industry and wink at workers in an election year.

The promise is seen as largely symbolic as China currently exports very little of either metal to the US.

Chinese foreign ministry responds and calls for tariffs to be lifted

China’s Foreign Ministry said the tariffs imposed by the previous US administration had “seriously disrupted” economic and trade exchanges between the two countries.

The ministry called on Washington to lift the restrictions, adding that China would take necessary measures to defend its rights and interests.

“The US has continued to politicise economic and trade issues instead of correcting its mistakes,” ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a regular briefing on Friday. Raising tariffs further is adding insult to injury,” Lin Jian said.

New tariffs will not take effect immediately

According to Bloomberg, the tariffs will not have an immediate impact on Chinese companies because the world’s leading EV manufacturers are staying away from the US market because of the tariffs.

Solar companies, on the other hand, mostly export to the US from third countries to avoid restrictions, and US companies also want higher tariffs on this trade.

China factor in the US election

Biden and Trump are vying to appear tough on China as they head into a November election rematch, Bloomberg reported.

Last month, Biden signed a bill that started the countdown for video-sharing platform TikTok to spin off from its Chinese parent ByteDance or leave the US market.

If re-elected, Trump has promised to raise tariffs on China across the board, imposing a 60 per cent tax on all goods imported from China.

Many Democrats oppose this approach, saying it would raise prices for US consumers already struggling with inflation.

In the US, the Biden administration has cancelled export licences that allowed Intel and Qualcomm to supply semiconductors to Huawei.

The move by the US Department of Commerce affects Huawei’s supply of chips for its laptops and mobile phones, the Financial Times (FT) reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The Commerce Department confirmed to the FT that it had revoked certain export licences for Huawei, but did not specify which US companies were affected.

We continually assess how our controls can best protect our national security and foreign policy interests, taking into account the ever-changing threat environment and technological landscape. As part of this process, we sometimes revoke export licences, as we have done in the past,’ the spokesman said.

A person familiar with the matter said the Commerce Department had notified affected companies, but did not elaborate.

Meghan Harris, an export control specialist at consultancy Beacon Global Strategies, said: ‘This is an important action that shows how seriously the US government takes national security threats from Chinese technology and is not backing down. Industry and foreign partners have been watching to see if the administration would soften its stance, this is a clear indication that it won’t, and we should expect any subsequent administration to continue down this path,’ she said.

The move comes at a time when the US is concerned about Huawei’s ability to develop advanced chips despite extensive export controls that will be introduced in 2022. When US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo visited China last year, Huawei launched its Mate 60 Pro smartphone with an advanced chip that surprised experts.

Republicans push for more bans

Washington has already imposed tough restrictions on US technology sales to Huawei, but Republican members of Congress are urging President Joe Biden to take even tougher action against Huawei.

Marco Rubio, the Republican vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Elise Stefanik, a Republican in the House of Representatives, called on Raimondo last month to revoke Huawei licences after it emerged that the Shenzhen-based group was building laptops using Intel chips.

It is clear from these trends that Huawei, a company that was blacklisted just a few years ago, is making a comeback,” the congressmen wrote in their letter.

Following publication of the letter, Intel announced that it strictly complies with all laws and regulations in the countries where it does business.

Huawei’s MateBook X Pro laptop, released last month, uses Intel’s Core Ultra 9 chip.

Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has repeatedly called on the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security to take a tougher stance on Huawei. In a letter last year, he expressed concern that the Chinese group ‘may still be able to purchase significant amounts of US technology’.

Rubio told the FT: ‘This is the right decision, but the licence should never have been granted in the first place. The Biden administration needs to be proactive in rejecting critical technology from Chinese companies, not just reactive when alerted by lawmakers who take the threat seriously,’ Rubio told the FT.

Reaction from China: Economic bullying

The Chinese embassy in Washington described the move as ‘blatant economic bullying’.

Arbitrarily imposing restrictions or forcibly trying to unbundle [economies] to serve a political agenda violates the principles of market economy and fair competition, undermines the international economic and trade order, disrupts and destabilises global industry and supply chains, and ultimately harms the interests of the whole world,’ said embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu.