Bash the banks, maybe raise taxes: Inside Vance’s policy agenda

Former President Donald Trump has picked a running mate in his own populist mold — one who called for breaking up Google, pushed for tighter regulations on big banks and railroads, and has even proposed raising taxes on university endowments and corporate mergers.

Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance is also one of Capitol Hill’s most ardently protectionist Republicans, who has supported raising tariffs, blocking foreign mergers and reducing the value of the U.S. dollar to protect domestic manufacturers from rivals like China.

Vance’s departures from the GOP’s Paul Ryan-style orthodoxy — at least on some issues — may cause heartburn for industry groups longing for a return to the party’s insistence on lessening Washington’s interference with big business. But they mesh with much of Trump’s own agenda during his first term, which launched trade wars and filed antitrust lawsuits aimed at Silicon Valley, even if Trump also gifted businesses with a corporate tax cut and a broad assault on regulations.

Like Trump, Vance is also a harsh critic of U.S. military aid to Ukraine.

And like virtually every Republican office-holder in Washington, he’s an outspoken supporter of increased oil and gas drilling — a stance that can only help Trump’s chances across the Ohio border in Pennsylvania, a fracking hotbed.

The new prospective vice presidential nominee is also very much in line with the conservative crusade against affirmative action, protester encampments on campus and alleged elitism in education.

These are among the most noteworthy policy stances for Vance, a Yale Law School graduate and Marine Corps veteran who rose to prominence after publishing his Appalachian memoir Hillbilly Elegy in 2016:

Get set for more trade wars

Vance, who was elected to the Senate in 2022, has made no secret of his desire to use government policies to rebuild industrial jobs across the deindustrialized Midwest — a major theme of his book.

That includes through tools such as tariffs and trade barriers, two favorite weapons for Trump himself.

“You're going to see a much more aggressive approach to protecting domestic manufacturers” if Trump wins a second term, Vance told POLITICO this spring.

Vance is on record as supporting Trump’s aggressive use of tariffs against China and all other U.S. trading partners. He’s been less specific on whether he’d support the exact barriers that the Trump campaign has floated, such as a 10 percent tariff on all imports and up to 60 percent tariffs on Chinese goods.

“I don't know what the right number is,” he said this spring, but “I certainly think we should be much more aggressive in applying tariffs on a whole host of industries.”

Vance was one of the earliest senators to call on President Joe Biden to block the acquisition of U.S. Steel by Japanese rival Nippon Steel. Biden has said repeatedly he opposes the deal but has not taken any action to block it. In contrast, Trump has said he would block it outright.

Vance has even signaled openness to devaluing the U.S. dollar, potentially one of Trump's most disruptive trade policy proposals. Such a move would make imports more expensive for American consumers but could boost U.S. manufacturers who sell their products overseas.

“‘Devaluing’ of course is a scary word, but what it really means is American exports become cheaper,” Vance said in April.

Vance has been clear that he wants to move working class voters, particularly union members, away from their historic allegiance to the Democratic Party.

"J.D. has had a very successful business career in Technology and Finance," Trump said in a post on Truth Social announcing the pick, "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 …"

— Gavin Bade

Banking and Wall Street crackdowns ahead?

Vance has used his perch on the Senate Banking Committee to chastise large banks, even partnering with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on legislation to penalize executives of failed banks.

He’s also cheered on Biden's lead antitrust regulator, Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan — in contrast to the many other GOP lawmakers who have accused her of overstepping her authority.

"Unfettered free-market capitalism is not something that sits well with Sen. Vance," said Travis Norton, a former Republican staffer who is now with the lobbying firm Brownstein.

Vance is a co-sponsor of a bill to crack down on credit card swipe fees. He has co-sponsored another designed to discourage banks from limiting services to energy producers, firearms businesses and other interests that Republicans accuse some lenders of discriminating against. And he has introduced legislation with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) to end tax-free mergers.

On the other hand, Vance has adopted the standard Republican position on other financial regulation issues: He opposes a plan by Biden-appointed regulators to increase capital requirements on large banks, for example.

But he has suggested that the GOP’s support for lighter-touch regulation shouldn’t come for free — warning companies of consequences for pushing liberal social and environmental policies.

“If you guys are going to use the financial power that you’ve accumulated to go to war against the values of our voters, impoverish our constituents who rely on cheap energy and destroy the jobs of people who work in the energy sector, why should [Republicans] listen to you when you come and ask us for a tax break or for reasonable regulations?” he said to bank CEOs testifying before the Senate last year.

— Jasper Goodman, Eleanor Mueller

Possible willingness to hike taxes

Vance is not nearly as enthusiastic about cutting taxes as the more traditional supply-siders who have dominated Republican politics since the age of Ronald Reagan.

Unlike most of his colleagues, Vance is not afraid to endorse tax hikes either, and has stopped short of ruling them out on very high earners.

His policies would especially be very bad news for universities.

Vance has antagonized schools and flummoxed Democrats with his calls to dramatically increase a tax on big universities’ endowments. Calling it unfair that they’re only charged a 1.4 percent excise tax on their investment earnings, Vance has proposed hiking that to 35 percent.

— Brian Faler

Breaking up (some) Big Tech

Vance is a venture capitalist who won his Senate seat with the backing of tech billionaire and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel . But that hasn’t made him a steadfast fan of Silicon Valley, and he’s expressed outrage about some artificial intelligence rollouts by companies such as Google.

Vance signed a June letter with two Republican colleagues asking Google CEO Sundar Pichai why the company’s Gemini AI model only generated images of “diverse” people when asked to produce pictures of the American founding fathers or the Pope. The three said they expected Google to “at a minimum, create systems that accurately represent observable, irrefutable and objective facts.”

Vance went a step further in a March interview with Fox business, calling Google “one of the most dangerous companies in the world” and demanding the company be broken up. That would fit with the agendas of both Trump and Biden, whose Justice Departments each filed antitrust suits seeking to split up Google’s empire.

Google “actively solicits and forces left-wing bias down the throats of the American nation," Vance told Fox.

During his Senate campaign, Vance also pushed for repealing the internet's liability shield — known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 — for companies "over a certain size." (Trump and Biden have also called at various times for rolling back or eradicating Section 230.) Yet Vance made exceptions for smaller platforms, including Trump’s Truth Social network.

“The big tech companies have an army of lawyers,” Vance said in 2022. “They’re going to destroy the new entrants. So President Trump’s new Truth Social, or Gettr or any of the alternative platforms that we're using — we need to reform [Section 230] in a way that protects them.”

Vance has also invested in video site Rumble , which is considered a right-wing alternative to YouTube.

He’s also been a big supporter of helping foot the bill for broadband. Vance formed an alliance with Democrats early in 2024 to try to save the Affordable Connectivity Program, a subsidy that helped 23 million low-income households pay their monthly broadband bills. In contrast, other top Republicans have said the program was too expansive and wanted restrictions as part of any extension.

“It’s a really important program for a lot of rural Ohioans, a lot of inner city Ohioans too,” Vance said in an interview.

— Christine Mui, John Hendel, Alfred Ng and Mohar Chatterjee

Abortion stance may cause Trump headaches

Vance, who once described himself as “pro life as anyone,” said during a 2022 Senate debate that he’d support “some minimum national standard” restricting abortion. Vance has also indicated he opposes abortion in cases of rape and incest .

Those positions are at odds with Trump, who has repeatedly said abortion laws should be left to the states and supports rape and incest exceptions.

Vance has also said he believes life begins at conception, a position that some have argued is incompatible with how in vitro fertilization is practiced in the United States. Vance, however, was one of several Republicans to sign onto a letter stating strong “support [for] continued nationwide access to IVF,” after an Alabama court ruling cast doubt on availability of the procedure.

Trump has expressed his own support for IVF.

Biden’s campaign immediately zeroed in on the abortion issue after Vance officially joined Trump’s ticket.

“This is someone who supports banning abortion nationwide while criticizing exceptions for rape and incest survivors; railed against the Affordable Care Act, including its protections for millions with preexisting conditions,” Biden campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon said in a statement Monday.

Vance earlier this month called Trump a “pragmatic leader,” praising the former president on “ Meet The Press ” for his policy to leave abortion decisions to the states. Vance said in 2022 that he supported “reasonable exceptions” to abortion bans.

The 39-year-old Vance has a limited voting record on health care since joining the Senate last year but has taken conservative stances on a number of health-related issues. He doesn’t serve on the major health care committees in the chamber.

Before Monday’s pick was announced, the Biden campaign hit Vance for ties to Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s sprawling policy road map to a second Trump administration. Vance has said there are some “good ideas” in the proposal but hasn’t delved into specifics.

“Most Americans couldn't care less about Project 2025,” he said recently .

— Ben Leonard and Dan Goldberg

Railroad safety after East Palestine

Vance reacted to a toxic pollution crisis in his state — last year’s derailment of a Norfolk Southern freight train in East Palestine, Ohio — by joining his Democratic colleague, fellow Sen. Sherrod Brown, to craft bipartisan rail safety legislation.

That bill would increase requirements for train crew staffing, bolster safety standards on hazardous materials and increase fines for railroads in certain instances, among other changes. The legislation has stalled, though, for reasons that include opposition by other Republican lawmakers. House Transportation Chair Sam Graves (R-Mo.) has said he doesn't see the need for a bill on the subject.

After the derailment, Vance stood by Trump' s side in East Palestine as Trump criticized Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for the administration’s response to the derailment.

“Buttigieg should’ve been here already,” Trump told reporters.

— Chris Marquette and Oriana Pawlyk

Opposition to aiding Ukraine

Vance is among Washington’s most vocal opponents of U.S. assistance to Ukraine — siding with Trump instead of the GOP’s long-ascendant internationalist wing. His selection as Trump’s running mate comes less than a week after Biden sought to shore up both the transatlantic alliance and Ukraine at the NATO summit in Washington.

Vance has argued that it’s not realistic for the Biden administration to keep an open-ended commitment of American taxpayer dollars and prolong an “indefinite” war that Ukraine can’t win.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr “Zelenskyy’s war aims are not consistent with reality,” Vance told reporters at the Capitol last year. “This was always going to end with Russia controlling some Ukrainian territory and a negotiated settlement. I've been saying it for a year. It was obvious to anybody who paid attention to realities on the ground.”

Vance was one of just 18 senators, 15 of them Republicans, who opposed the behemoth $95 billion package to assist Ukraine, Israel and Pacific allies. (The package included $61 billion for Ukraine.) During the monthslong debate over that legislation, he argued that Washington needs to step back and let other NATO members pony up.

Ukraine advocates have countered that the money is not a blank check — and much of the money allocated for Ukraine assistance doesn’t leave the United States. Much of it instead goes to purchase new weapons from American defense contractors to replenish stocks that have been tapped to help Ukraine, sign contracts for new weapons for the Ukrainian military, or finance U.S. military operations.

In February, Vance distributed a memo to Senate GOP offices arguing that the foreign aid measure could tie Trump's hands if he comes into office next year wanting to pause Ukraine funds as part of peace negotiations. He warned that it could even lead to a third Trump impeachment if he “were to withdraw from or pause financial support for the war in Ukraine in order to bring the conflict to a peaceful conclusion.”

At the Munich Security Conference in February, he voiced the view that he supported Kyiv’s fight but that America couldn’t produce enough weapons to arm Ukraine and protect the U.S. at the same time.

Trump’s previous vice president, Mike Pence, has backed more U.S. aid to Ukraine.

— Connor O’Brien, Joe Gould

No to wind turbines and the ‘green energy fantasy’

Vance has been a strong backer of oil and natural gas drilling in the Midwest and a sharp critic of the Biden administration’s clean energy agenda. He introduced legislation that would slash federal incentives for electric vehicles and condemned clean energy jobs that he says come at the expense of the U.S. heartland.

“If you are in Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania, you are not being empowered or enriched by Joe Biden's green energy agenda,” he said.

Vance could help Trump's standing in Pennsylvania, a crucial swing-state neighbor to Ohio and the nation's No. 2 natural gas producer, said Stephen Brown, consultant at energy advisory firm RBJ Strategies.

“J.D. will bring western Pennsylvania with him and all that that implies for the coal, fracking and permitting chemical manufacturing taking place there,” Brown said ahead of Trump's announcement.

Trump had made reviving the nation's coal mining industry a core part of his 2016 campaign as well as focus during his presidency, but his actions ultimately had little effect on the declining sector.

The fossil fuel sector contributed $500,000 to Vance’s 2022 Senate campaign, according to Open Secrets, a nonprofit that tracks campaign contributions. Oil and commodities trading firm Vitol and Ohio-based fuel maker Marathon Petroleum were among his largest contributors.

Vance, in an August 2023 op-ed in the Marietta Times of Ohio, called for more pipelines and refineries to be built, writing that “I believe that right now is the time to double down on the Ohio energy industry.” About 5 percent of U.S. natural gas comes from Ohio, about one quarter of Pennsylvania's market share.

Environmental groups blasted Vance’s record on climate and environmental legislation. He scored a “zero” on the League of Conservation Voters scorecard , voting against what that green group considered bills for combating climate change or preventing pollution.

“Unfortunately all we can expect from J.D. Vance is the same mix of extreme rhetoric and Big Oil talking points we already hear from Trump,” Megan Jacobs, vice president of campaigns for LCV Victory Fund, said in an email before the pick was announced. “The policies he and Trump support could result in the loss of thousands of clean energy jobs.”

Vance — who had expressed concern about climate change before he entered politics — has adopted Trump's rhetoric on electric vehicles and China’s dominance in the clean energy supply chain. He has more recently said he doesn’t believe climate change is a crisis.

Vance has also derided Democrats’ “green energy fantasy” and criticized the Biden administration for incentives that he says are increasing U.S. reliance on China for the materials needed to build renewable energy equipment. He co-sponsored a measure to rescind the Biden administration's two-year pause on tariffs for imports of solar equipment from four Southeast Asian countries — a key topic in his home state of Ohio, which is the site of major First Solar manufacturing operations.

Echoing rhetoric from Trump on wind turbines , Vance told the Turning Point Action conference in June "they're hideously ugly. They kill all the birds. And they're mostly made in China."

— Ben Lefebvre, Kelsey Tamborrino, James Bikales

Campus culture wars

Vance has promoted legislation to block federal funding from universities that hire undocumented migrants, strike down college affirmative action admissions policies and force campuses to clear disruptive encampments from school grounds.

In a 2016 interview with POLITICO , Vance said he favored providing new school choice options to rural students beyond traditional schools. But he said offering such options in rural America is a “tough nut to crack” given the limited number of available private schools and charter schools.

“If you’re given a school voucher in Pikeville, Kentucky, … the answer is you might not have an alternative, right? So, part of the issue is not just giving folks resources to go to an alternative school, it’s actually creating an alternative school where none exists,” he said.

Later, as a Senate candidate, Vance railed against loan forgiveness as a “massive windfall to the rich” and a bailout for “corrupt” university administrators as he urged the party to “fight this with every ounce of our energy and power.”

Since joining the Senate less than two years ago, Vance has pursued several conservative education policies with a core group of congressional allies.

His Encampments or Endowments Act would bar colleges and universities from receiving federal financial assistance, including student aid funds, if they “failed to disestablish any permanent encampment on the institution’s campus.”

Vance has also joined House education committee member Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) to push legislation that would pull federal aid from schools that hire illegal immigrants .

The senator, a hawk on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, also has sought to eliminate all federal DEI programs and funding for federal agencies. He has introduced legislation to curb the consideration of race in admissions, sent letters to university leaders and demanded a Federal Trade Commission investigation into certain admissions policies.

He labeled DEI a “modern gloss on racism” in a December letter to The Ohio State University, his alma mater. “I want Ohio State to be successful," he wrote, "but I believe that success depends on serving all citizens of our state rather than parroting the latest madness to come out of Harvard and Yale."

— Juan Perez Jr. and Bianca Quilantan

Getting Washington out of weed

Vance doesn’t like marijuana legalization but has said he believes in states rights when it comes to setting cannabis policy.

Vance hails from one of America’s newest legal recreational states , though he was unhappy when Ohio's November 2023 pro-pot ballot measure passed.

“I'm not a fan of recreational marijuana,” he told POLITICO at the time. “I think that where you've seen that legalized you see youth usage rates go up, you see traffic fatalities go up.”

Vance also voted against a bill to expand access to financial services to the cannabis industry last September, saying he didn’t want to enable marijuana businesses.

Then again, he has said, “I don't have a super ideological or philosophical approach to [cannabis]. I just think you have to take these things issue by issue.”

His stance is a contrast with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who was an outspoken proponent of legalization in the 2020 election.

— Natalie Fertig