Former US president and Republican nominee Donald Trump has chosen Ohio senator JD Vance to be his running mate for the 2024 election, he announced in a social-media post on Monday.
The pick, unveiled on the first day of the Republican National Convention held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was announced within 48 hours of an assassination attempt on Trump that left him bloodied after a bullet grazed his ear.
Saturday’s events underscored the critical importance of the vice-president’s position, but it was unclear whether they influenced the selection. Trump last month said he had already made up his mind.
“After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of vice-president of the United States is Senator JD Vance of the great state of Ohio,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
“JD has had a very successful business career in technology and finance, and now, during the campaign, will be strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for, the American workers and farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota and far beyond,” he continued.
Vance was formally nominated as the 2024 Republican vice-presidential candidate on the convention floor hours later.
Others said to have been in contention were North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and Senators Marco Rubio of Florida and Tim Scott of South Carolina.
Vance, who in 2016 strongly opposed Trump, has built a reputation championing economic populism and cultural conservatism.
Before his run for office, Vance gained recognition as the author of Hillbilly Elegy, a bestselling memoir detailing his upbringing in a poor, working-class family in post-industrial Ohio.
As an Ohio native, Vance has been critical of China’s contribution to the loss of manufacturing jobs in the state and across the US.
During his US Senate campaign and in recent months, he expressed support for imposing new tariffs on China, which Trump has repeatedly committed to doing.
The new vice-presidential candidate has also expressed concern over American reliance on Taiwanese manufacturing, particularly chips.
“If the Taiwanese fall to China, it will cause a great depression in this country,” he said in April last year, adding that the US needed to make more weapons domestically to help Taiwan in case of an armed conflict with China.
Vance has been outspoken on China since becoming a senator in 2023. He has introduced several pieces of legislation targeting China, including to restrict Chinese influence on the US education system and the financial market.
Another area of focus for the senator has been China’s potential impact on critical American infrastructure.
In May, he wrote to the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency expressing concern over Volt Typhoon, which he described as a Chinese state-sponsored hacker group.
The 39-year-old Ohio senator serves on several Senate committees, including Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, as well as Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
As a senator, Vance has been aligned with the isolationist wing of the Republican Party, becoming one of the leading voices against American support for Ukraine against Russia. Earlier this year, he voted against a US$60 billion aid package for Kyiv.
But in his view limiting support for Ukraine would not necessarily mean pulling out everywhere. At the Munich Security Forum in February, he stated that the US needed to divert resources towards Asia.
“I don’t think we should pull out of Nato or abandon Europe,” Vance said, adding that the US should pivot “to focus more on East Asia”.
“That’s going to be the future of US foreign policy for [the] next 40 years. Europe has to wake up to that.”
Still, his reputation for supporting withdrawals from international engagements has led some analysts to question the extent to which a re-elected Trump would support a hardline view of the China danger.
“Vance’s views on Ukraine and other international matters and the GOP platform seem at odds with Speaker Johnson’s strong focus on the China danger,” said Robert Sutter of George Washington University, referring to a speech by House Speaker Mike Johnson at the Hudson Institute earlier this month.
Vance made an appearance on the convention floor on Monday to receive his nomination. Earlier in the day, Trump officially won the Republican nomination in a roll-call vote.
The party platform was also formally adopted on Monday. Released earlier this month, it includes a commitment to “secure strategic independence from China”.
“Republicans will revoke China’s most-favoured-nation status, phase out imports of essential goods and stop China from buying American real estate and industries,” the document says.
During the election season’s first presidential debate with President Joe Biden last month, Trump made several references to China, including that the country was “killing” the US.
The former president also defended his plan to impose a 10 per cent tariff on all imports so that countries like China could “pay us a lot of money” and help reduce the American deficit.
On Monday, Politico reported that Trump met with independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jnr in an effort to secure his endorsement.
Support from Kennedy, who in some polls is garnering double-digit support, would boost Trump in his tight race with Biden.
