Vice President JD Vance, widely viewed as the front-runner to take up President Donald Trump’s mantle ahead of the 2028 election, argued that the timeline to implement the Make America Great Again agenda would take decades.
During a speech at the American Compass Gala in Washington, D.C., Tuesday evening, Vance spoke at length about the anti-globalist principles that undergird his populist worldview, particularly regarding the economy.
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Naive globalists in Washington have “atrophied critical skills in the economy” because they’ve offshored vital supply chains, Vance told attendees. It would likely take years to fully implement Trump’s “America First” policies and build up a skilled workforce capable of doing jobs long outsourced to foreign countries, the vice president argued.
“This is not a five, a 10– this is a 20-year project to actually get America back to common-sense economic policy,” Vance said. “This is going to be the work of a generation. There’s still much work to be done.”
“When you atrophy critical skills in the economy, it’s not easy just to flip that switch back on,” he continued. “And I think that was the way in which the advocates of globalization were the most strong, is they allowed our, the best-skilled trades workforce in the history of the world, to become a little bit atrophied … That’s one of the things that we have to fix in order for us to accomplish the things that we need to accomplish.”
Vance’s remarks on the necessity of keeping the MAGA movement in power for decades come as conventional wisdom says he is the most likely candidate to carry on Trump’s legacy and clinch the 2028 Republican nomination for president. Vance is backed by powerful Trump allies, including the president’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr.
The vice president “will be the nominee in 2029 — mark my words,” Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) told the Washington Examiner last month.
In an Economist-YouGov survey conducted between May 9 and 12, 77% of Republicans viewed Vance favorably. In the latest McLaughlin and Associates survey shared with Secrets, Vance held a big lead over Trump Jr., 43% to 14%.
At the Washington gala Tuesday, the vice president reflected that it “takes a special kind of person” to shake economic policy up in D.C. and implement Trump priorities such as onshoring “brittle” supply chains and revitalizing the country’s skilled workforce.
A lot of “well-intentioned” bureaucrats have sold out industries to foreign economies, Vance complained.
VANCE SAYS US WAS ‘GOVERNED BY COMPLETE MORONS’ BEFORE TRUMP TOOK OFFICE
“It’s very hard, and I saw this in the United States Senate, to look back on a 30,40, or 50-year career and say the very thing that I tried to do, I accomplished the opposite. Right?” he questioned. “It takes a special person to be able to actually change and pivot and accept new information.”
“Unfortunately, we just don’t have a lot of those people in the leadership class of the country,” Vance continued. “The complete disconnect between their views on foreign policy and economic policy made me realize again that we’re governed by people who aren’t up to the job.”