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”.
