Quinn LiPuma is a junior majoring in Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy in MSU’s James Madison College. During his summer internship with WCDP, Quinn will write short explanatory pieces for us about the Heritage Foundation’s terrifying but little-understood blueprint for American fascism, titled Project 2025. This is the second piece in Quinn’s series.
On Foreign Policy: One of the most striking aspects of Project 2025 is its blatant logical inconsistency with regard to foreign policy and protections for American citizens. The project emphasizes China’s threat to our freedoms and security by “[stealing] our technology, [spying] on our people, and [threatening] our allies, all with trillions of dollars of wealth and military power financed by their access to our market.” These actions are seen as an attack by one nation on another: an international conflict.
Given the international nature of this conflict, the logical solution would be to solve the matter internationally, by strengthening ties with our allies to confront China’s malfeasance head on, and by supporting domestic incentives to keep investment, intellectual property, and more importantly, jobs, in America. Project 2025 would have us reject international agreements because it “reduces democratic accountability”. As it concerns energy, they want to try using oil and gas to leverage the world energy market instead of recognizing that the future resides in clean energy alternatives. They will have us actively ignore scientists who warn that extensive use of oil and gas would dramatically escalate the effects of climate change. And their hatred of international policymaking will lead to us advocating for the weakening of the European Union and the United Nations, because they pass reforms that “unilaterally would never pass through the United States Congress”, even though the point of international policy making is that the policies made are supposed to address needs that affect the interconnectedness of nations and not any one individual nation. Indeed, they will have us return to an isolated economic policy destined to hurt Americans in the long run.
President Biden, meanwhile, has done a superb job regarding foreign policy. He has been hard at work building international partnerships to thwart the threat from China. Accomplishments include, among other things, committing over $7 billion in new funding for the Pacific Island region, opening an embassy in Vanuatu, combating the effects of climate change in the region, combating China’s omnipresence by recognizing Cook Islands and Niue as an independent country, increasing our enforcement of maritime borders in the region, and bringing jobs back to America by investing in American companies’ production of computer chips, clean energy technologies, and infrastructure.
An isolationist foreign policy in an interconnected world with great geopolitical threats only works to strengthen our adversaries. If Project 2025 were to be followed through, it would mean a weaker America, weaker alliances, and international threats would be allowed much more freedom to do as they want.