USA 2024: From China to Migrants, Here’s Vance’s America
A warning to China on the tariff war, one to migrants, to be welcomed but “on our terms” and the promise to “defend the wages of American workers” and to favor domestic production, in the name of “America First”, with a scratch on the largest stock exchange in the world: “Enough taking care of Wall Street, it’s over, we’re committed to workers”. The investiture speech as vice president of Ohio Senator JD Vance, 39, chosen by Donald Trump, did not surprise the media but thrilled the audience at the Republican convention underway in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Vance presented himself as an example of the American Dream, capable of rising from a white working-class family in the American Rust Belt, with a father gone, an alcoholic mother, him entrusted to his grandparents and yet capable of studying, working and establishing himself first as an entrepreneur and then in politics. Vance recalled his mother’s addiction, “sober for ten years”, sparking enthusiasm from supporters, who invoked the woman’s name, shouting “JD’s mom”, who appeared very emotional.
In the end, what seemed to be the real political message that will have to make the difference on November 5, the day of the American elections, was the appeal to “all the forgotten communities” of Ohio and America, from Michigan to Wisconsin to Pennsylvania. “I will never forget – he added – where I come from”. This is exactly what Trump is counting on, who in the end let his instinct prevail and gave his trust to a man who represents the American dream but who started from the bottom: if Trump is the billionaire who grew up in a rich family, Vance made it starting from scratch. His dry, simple way of speaking will put him in tune with that rural America that often feels forgotten by Washington, and which could prove decisive especially in the key states where the real game is being played with the Democrats, grappling with the decline of Joe Biden, now also affected by Covid, and contested by his own party comrades.
The victory, as always, will be decided in the Rust Belt States, the industrial belt of the country, the working class, from Wisconsin to Michigan, from Ohio to Pennsylvania. Vance is convinced that he can win over that hard-core electorate and give Trump a second term in the White House. Then, as promised from the stage, the “new American trajectory” will begin, made of isolationism, protectionism, war on “global market products”, duties on foreign goods to favor domestic production. It is a recipe anticipated on the eve with an interview with Bloomberg by Trump, and on which many economists see a risk in the contraction of demand and the increase in costs for the middle class.
But the message of America First remains powerful, stronger than the critics of the experts. And the final ovation for Vance confirmed it: the Republican base likes this idea of an America that is tougher on Europe and more closed to the market. As well as the return to a country from the 1950s, which the senator evoked by comparing his ideal country to an old black and white photo in which a traditional family is at the center. If this is what the majority of Americans really want, we will begin to understand in the coming weeks, with the first polls that will measure the impact of the Trump-Vance duo.
