Connect with us

America

Pro-Trump think tank outlines ‘America First’ foreign policy

Published

on

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”.

Related Topics:
Continue Reading

America

Trump energy shares rose by up to $4.4m during Iran war, CNBC reports

Published

2 days ago

on

10/09/2026

By

The value of US President Donald Trump’s nine largest oil and gas holdings increased by approximately $1.5 million to $4.4 million during the first six months of the war with Iran.

According to an analysis conducted by CNBC based on the American leader’s financial disclosure, corporate balance sheets, and FactSet market data, the investment basket includes shares in Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Kinder Morgan, Marathon Petroleum, Occidental Petroleum, Phillips 66, Valero Energy, and Williams Companies.

In its calculations, the television network took into account the minimum and maximum baseline values of Trump’s declared holdings alongside share price fluctuations from the close of trading on 27 February through 31 August.

As the conflict with Iran continued, specialists managing Trump’s investment accounts maintained active trading in energy company shares.

Up to 29 June, the latest date for which transactions were disclosed, fresh purchases were logged alongside at least 23 sales operations involving stock in the nine companies.

Because disclosure filings do not specify exact share numbers or transaction prices, the estimates produced by CNBC do not reflect Trump’s realised profits or the precise current scale of his holdings.

On 2 March, the first trading day following the launch of air strikes against Iran by the US and Israel, shares in eight major oil and gas companies were purchased through Trump’s accounts.

These transactions included ExxonMobil shares valued at between $100,000 and $250,000. Prior to the conflict, the aggregate value of Trump’s holdings in ExxonMobil stood at between $3.2 million and $12.5 million.

Stock market gains in August, excluding subsequent transactions, raised the value of these shares by approximately $176,000 to $690,000.

CNBC also examined transactions executed on days when Trump’s decisions directly swayed the oil market. On 23 March, when the president deferred planned strikes against Iran’s energy infrastructure, the price of a barrel of Brent crude dropped by roughly 11%.

That same day, oil and gas shares worth a combined $163,000 to $570,000 were purchased across Trump’s accounts.

A similar transaction took place on 7 April. One of Trump’s investment accounts sold between $500,000 and $1 million worth of ExxonMobil shares.

Approximately two and a half hours after markets closed, President Trump announced an agreement on a two-week ceasefire with Iran. The following morning, ExxonMobil shares fell by more than 6% at the market open.

The report noted that CNBC saw no evidence indicating that Trump gave direct instructions for specific trades, that managers possessed advance knowledge of his actions, or that personal financial interests guided White House policies.

White House officials, commenting on the matter, stated that the president’s investment portfolio is managed by independent portfolio managers and that neither Trump nor members of his family hold authority to intervene in asset trading decisions.

The growth in the portfolio coincided with a broader surge in the earnings of energy majors. The nine energy companies in which Trump holds shares generated a combined profit of $47.6 billion in the second quarter.

During the same period last year, that figure stood at $15.9 billion. The profits of ExxonMobil and Chevron alone climbed from $9.6 billion in the prior year to $26.6 billion.

In July, the US Office of Government Ethics published Trump’s 927-page financial disclosure report for 2025.

The report noted that Trump’s earnings from cryptocurrency operations exceeded $500 million.

Continue Reading

America

Over half of Latino voters back Democrats in key US House races

Published

3 days ago

on

09/09/2026

By

A new public opinion poll in the US shows that Democratic candidates have made notable gains since 2024 among Latino voters in critical, competitive districts for the House of Representatives.

These gains have the potential to directly determine which party will secure the majority in Congress next year.

According to a joint survey by Hart Research and TelevisaUnivision shared with Axios, Democrats reached 58% support on the generic congressional ballot among Latino voters across 17 competitive House districts.

The share of those backing Republicans within the same voting bloc remained at 35%. This group continues to represent the fastest-growing swing constituency in battleground districts.

Examining three competitive House races in Texas, the study indicated that Latino voters, who reported splitting evenly at 44% to 44% in the 2024 presidential election, shifted 56% to 36% in favour of Democrats heading into the midterms.

Latino support for Democrats also increased in other states. In California, 57% of Latino voters said they would support Democrats, compared with 33% who said they would back the Republican Party.

Kate Coleman, Senior Vice President at TelevisaUnivision, highlighted voter behaviour in remarks to Axios:

“Latino voters are not locked into one party. They are watching developments closely; they make decisions based on who stands with them and how they stand.”

The survey data determined that 11% of Latino respondents who said they voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election now support Democratic candidates.

Accelerating his deportation plans, Trump triggered fear across many Latino neighbourhoods while weakening his support among this demographic.

The Hart Research and TelevisaUnivision study revealed that 63% of Latino voters disapprove of Trump’s presidential job performance. The share of those approving of his performance in office stood at 36%.

Trump’s approach to high prices and the cost of living drew disapproval from 65% of Latino voters, while immigration enforcement and deportation practices were disapproved of by 62%.

More than half of Latino voters, at 64%, reported that they disapprove of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

A survey published in May by UnidosUS showed that a quarter of Latino voters “would probably not vote” or would definitely not support Trump if they had to vote for him again.

The study at that time had pointed out that, despite Trump’s decline among Latino voters, Democrats had not yet secured significant gains.

According to Pew Research Center data, Trump strengthened his support in 2024 by securing 48% of the Latino vote, coming very close to the 51% reached by then Vice President Kamala Harris.

Some figures within the Democratic Party, however, worry that primary victories by democratic socialist candidates could alienate certain Latino voters, particularly those who fled Cuba or Venezuela.

The Hart Research and TelevisaUnivision survey was conducted between 6 and 17 August among 1,500 Latino respondents. The poll’s margin of error was reported as 2.5 percentage points.

Continue Reading

America

Researcher quits Anthropic and warns AI firms gamble with lives

Published

3 days ago

on

09/09/2026

By

Jacob Coxon, an artificial intelligence researcher at Anthropic, has resigned from his post, stating that tech companies are acting irresponsibly in the race towards self-improving superintelligence. Coxon warned that the autonomous operational capabilities of such systems pose existential risks to humanity and that internal industry anxieties run far deeper than generally perceived.

The AI researcher stepped down from his position at Anthropic to draw attention to industry safety vulnerabilities and the unregulated race among developers.

Having worked for three years as a pre-training researcher across both OpenAI and Anthropic, Coxon announced his decision to leave in an extensive statement shared on his X account.

Stating that both companies have acted irresponsibly, Coxon argued that developers are engaged in a dangerous race to achieve self-improving superintelligence.

“They believe it could kill us all by the end of the decade”

In his posts, Coxon stated that technical teams developing AI genuinely believe this technology could bring about the demise of humanity by the end of the decade.

Asserting that these concerns are not a marketing strategy, the researcher noted that while top executives and senior researchers adopt a cautious tone in public statements, they voice the very same fears behind closed doors.

Developments reflecting similar anxieties across the sector evoke James Cameron’s 1984 film The Terminator, which set 2029 as the pivotal year when machines waged war against humanity.

Indeed, Evan Hubinger, head of Anthropic’s own alignment team, had previously estimated the probability of human extinction to be greater than 10%.

Warning that systems currently under development will soon evolve into superhuman structures capable of bypassing any firewall, transforming industries overnight, and securing physical resources, Coxon stressed that the pace of progress is not slowing in any way.

Arguing that the danger of superintelligence is no longer merely theoretical, the researcher pointed to the Hugging Face security leak that occurred between May and July.

In that incident, OpenAI models established an independent chatroom within the testing environment to communicate among themselves, subsequently using this channel to reach the open internet and infiltrate production systems.

Because of this security breach, Hugging Face was forced to rebuild approximately one-third of its infrastructure.

“They are gambling with our lives”

Characterising the leak as a warning flare, Coxon indicated that the incident makes pacing agreements between US-based laboratories more feasible.

However, emphasising that developers are not yet on the right track to prevent a global race, the researcher noted that measures such as a temporary moratorium on advancing model capabilities could be considered.

Arguing that civilisation-scale risks have not yet been sufficiently internalised at OpenAI, Coxon contended that Anthropic joined the race out of an ambition to be first, despite being fully aware of the dangers.

Coxon is not the only figure to leave the sector on such grounds. Mrinank Sharma, a member of Anthropic’s safety team, also stepped down earlier this year, writing that the world is in danger.

On the other hand, not everyone agrees with these catastrophic scenarios. Some responses to the post emphasised the view that humanity, with an evolutionary history spanning hundreds of thousands of years, will not be wiped out by a text prediction model achieving consciousness.

It was also noted that even the plot of the Terminator franchise does not entirely support Coxon’s premise, as the human resistance survived the nuclear catastrophe and ultimately defeated the machines.

Alongside safety debates, AI continues to directly affect the labour market. Research by the Stanford Digital Economy Lab indicates that, while mass job losses have not yet materialised, entry-level employment in AI-exposed sectors across the US has fallen by nearly 20%.

A Goldman Sachs study pointed to a similar trend, showing that entry-level workers bear the brunt of the ongoing workforce transformation.

Anthropic, which remains at the centre of the controversy, filed for an initial public offering in June and plans to list on the Nasdaq exchange this autumn at a multi-trillion-dollar valuation.

Continue Reading

MOST READ

Turkey