New Delhi: With being renominated for a second term by the Republican Party, US President Donald Trump has promised Americans literally the moon, including 10 million jobs in 10 months and a vaccine within this year to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, among his list of top priorities under the banner of “Fighting For You!” if re-elected to the White House.
In a statement, on Tuesday, Marina Tse, Republican National Committee (RNC) director of Asia Pacific Media, said that the Grand Old Party “stands for the values of freedom, democracy, prosperity, peace, justice, a strong nation, and community safety”.
“President Trump’s policies empower Americans, and all those who come to the United States through the legal channels, the opportunity to contribute to our great American experiment and achieve a better, beautiful life,” Tse stated.
In the agenda for a second possible term, Tse cited the Trump campaign office as listing his priorities under eight broad categories: jobs, eradicate Covid-19, education, drain the swamp, defend our police, end illegal immigration and protect American workers, innovate for the future, and America First foreign policy.
While the 2020 agenda is reminiscent of Trump’s 2016 campaign promises of creating more jobs for Americans, stopping illegal immigration, and imposing more tariffs on goods made in China, what is new this time are priorities of finding a vaccine to fight the Covid-19 virus and creation of a space force with a permanent manned presence on the moon.
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Under the jobs category, Trump’s campaign office has promised the creation of 10 million new jobs within 10 months and one million new small businesses. It also offered to cut taxes in order to boost take-home pay and keep jobs in America. The jobs agenda also includes enacting fair-trade deals that protect American jobs, "Made in America" tax credits, expanding opportunity zones and continuing deregulatory policy for energy independence.
Facing unrelenting criticism of his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in the US, Trump has promised development of a vaccine to fight the virus by the end of this year and a return to normal by 2021. The agenda also includes making all critical medicines and supplies for healthcare workers in the US refilling stockpiles and prepare for future pandemics.
Even as the Trump administration spent its entire first time trying to scrap former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, the health care agenda this time includes cutting prescription drug prices, putting patients and doctors back in charge of the country’s healthcare system, lowering health care insurance premiums, ending surprise billing, covering all pre-existing conditions, protecting social security and medicare and protecting war veterans and providing world-class health care and services.
The newly proposed education agenda promises to provide school choice to every child in the US and “teach American exceptionalism”.
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Under the category of “drain the swamp”, the Trump campaign office offers to pass Congressional term limits, “end bureaucratic government bullying of US citizens and small businesses, expose Washington’s money trail and delegate powers back to people and states”.
It also offers to “drain the globalist swamp by taking on international organisations that hurt American citizens” in a reflection of Trump’s attempts at unilateralism in the face of a growing multilateral world. Among Trump’s key foreign policies in his first term that riled, the world was Washington’s decision to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that Iran had signed with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and the US – and Germany reimpose sanctions on Tehran for its alleged nuclear programme. Trump also pulled out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation stating that it would undermine the US economy and put his country at a “permanent disadvantage”.
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With protests raging in the country over police excesses against citizens and racism, under the category of “defend our police”, Trump promises to fully fund and hire more police and law enforcement officers, increase criminal penalties for assaults on law enforcement officers, prosecute drive-by shootings as acts of domestic terrorism, bring violent extremist groups like Antifa, an anti-fascist political movement in the US, to justice, and end cashless bail and keep dangerous criminals locked up until trial.
After having promised to build a wall along the border with Mexico during his 2016 campaign to stop illegal immigration, the incumbent President has this time, under the “end illegal immigration and protect American workers” category, has offered to block illegal immigrants from becoming eligible for taxpayer-funded welfare, healthcare, and free college tuition. The 2020 campaign also calls for mandatory deportation for non-citizen gang members, dismantling of human trafficking networks, ending sanctuary cities - municipal jurisdictions that limit their cooperation with the national government's effort to enforce immigration law – “to restore our neighbourhoods and protect our families”, prohibiting American companies from replacing US citizens with lower-cost foreign workers and requiring new immigrants to be able to support themselves financially.
Under the “innovate for the future” agenda, the Republican campaign offers to launch a space force, establish a permanent manned presence on the moon and send the first manned mission to planet Mars.
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It also seeks to “build the world’s greatest infrastructure system, win the race to 5G and establish a national high-speed wireless internet network, continue to lead the world in access to the cleanest drinking water and cleanest air, and partner with other nations to clean up our planet’s oceans”.
Even as Trump seeks to pull out US troops from war-torn Afghanistan amid peace negotiations, under the “America first foreign policy”, he has promised to “stop endless wars and bring our troops home”.
The policy wants allies to pay their fair share, maintain and expand US’ “unrivalled military strength”, wipe out global terrorists who threaten to harm Americans, and build a great cybersecurity defence system and missile defence system.
With Washington and Beijing being involved in a trade war and a bitter rivalry over peace and security in the Indo-Pacific region, the Trump campaign office, in a separate statement, said that Trump will also illuminate his vision of ending the US’ reliance on China during his nomination acceptance speech Thursday.
According to the statement, Trump will talk about bringing back one million manufacturing jobs from China, tax credits for companies that bring back jobs from China, allowing 100 per cent expensing deductions for essential industries like pharmaceuticals and robotics who bring back their manufacturing to the united states, and offering no federal contracts for companies who outsource to China.
Trump will also hold China fully accountable for allowing the Covid-19 virus to spread around the world, the statement added.
