Latest news with #AFPI
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
MAGA Think Tank Staffing Trump 2.0: America First Policy Institute
Dubbed a White House-in-waiting during his exile, the America First Policy Institute now seems nearly like another White House campus - almost half of President Trumps Cabinet is expected to address the AFPI policy summit this week in Washington, D.C. The roster of speakers reflects not just the rising influence of the new think tank but also the stunning reversal in Republican political fortunes. AFPI was born from failure. After the 2020 election, founder and then-CEO Brooke Rollins was looking to salvage the "Trump 2.0" policy portfolio, the detailed plans for a second presidential term that never came, or rather, one that was delayed. Her motivating question at the time: "How do we continue moving forward when we are no longer in the White House?" The answer will be on full display when assorted MAGA dignitaries kick off the summit Tuesday at the Kennedy Center by toasting "the America First Moment." After decamping to the Waldorf Astoria for the next two days, they will celebrate the crowning achievement of the young institute. Over 86% of the 196 federal policies that AFPI drafted and recommended in 2022, while Republicans were still in the wilderness, have been advanced or enacted during the first 100 Days of the Trump administration, RealClearPolitics is first to report. "President Trump has kept his promises. His administrations speed and clarity in acting on these priorities is not just impressive, its historic," said Greg Sindelar, who took over as interim CEO earlier this year. "The America First Agenda was always rooted in the needs of real people, not the whims of Washington. What were seeing now is the natural result of a movement that's aligned with the public, led by conviction, and governed with urgency." Some of the policies now implemented were already standard GOP boilerplate, like border security and economic deregulation, when AFPI made their recommendations. Others directly mirror institute white papers, like the plan to reclassify the employment status of thousands of civil servants, lay off large portions of the federal workforce, and remake the bureaucracy in Trumps own image. Known as "Schedule F," the expansion of executive authority was an Institute brainchild. Its mastermind, a policy wonk named James Sherk, went with Trump into the White House. So did many of the AFPI staff, and while some in the beltway will quibble over who originated what policy idea, what is undeniable is that the Trump think tank maxed out the maxim that personnel is policy. The AFPI people are everywhere in the White House and in key positions across the administration. By their count - and reported here for the first time - no less than 73 institute alumni now work for the president. The most prominent can be found seated next to Trump in the Cabinet Room. Rollins took a hiatus from the think tank to lead the Agriculture Department, while Linda McMahon, who chaired the AFPI board and later co-chaired the second Trump transition, now serves as the head of the Education Department. They are not the only former colleagues around the Cabinet table. Attorney General Pam Bondi led the think tanks legal arm before taking over the Department of Justice. Veteran Affairs Secretary Doug Collins was previously the chair of the AFPI state chapter in Georgia. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin helmed the institutes China initiative. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner led the Center for Education Opportunity. Other Cabinet-level officials who are AFPI alums include CIA Director John Ratcliffe, FBI Director Kash Patel, and National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett. It is a full house. And by design. "When we roll into 2024, we will have policies and we will have the people that are set to go," predicted Keith Kellogg before the Biden presidency had even reached the halfway point. When they were new in town, the first Trump transition team faced a personnel crisis, the retired Army lieutenant general told RCP, forcing the incoming White House to scramble to find qualified staff. But with AFPI as a talent scout, he said, Trump will not "have the JV team." Kellogg now serves as U.S. special envoy to Ukraine. And in this way, by identifying key personnel early and by hammering out policy ahead of time, AFPI built out-of-the-box instructions for the current president. More efficient than the original, Trump 2.0 has been defined by a flood-the-zone strategy. The speed has even awed some former Biden officials. One told Axios recently, "Gosh, I wish I could work for an administration that could move that quickly." While the administration raided the AFPI bench for talent, the think tank continues to churn out policy from its new headquarters in the offices adjacent to the luxurious Willard Intercontinental Hotel across the street from the White House. They have already replenished their ranks with 56 new hires this year. It is designed to be a full-stack operation. Kellyanne Conway, who served as senior counselor to the president in the first Trump White House, leads the AFPI polling operation. The topline of a poll commissioned ahead of the policy summit: "America First" policies are supported by the public by a 12-point margin (47% to 35%). Those numbers are central to the current and overall argument of the institute. The populism of Trump is more durable than just the current moment, they insist. They believe that it can and ought to serve as an enduring foundation for the next several decades of the GOP. Their ambitions are grand. "The road ahead is clear," said AFPI spokeswoman Jen Pellegrino. "Build on this foundation and lay the groundwork for an America First century." Philip Wegmann is White House correspondent for RealClearPolitics.
Fox News
16-04-2025
- Business
- Fox News
Farm fresh food initiative for Americans' tables means a ‘renaissance of agriculture'
A new initiative is aiming to "ensure rural America is prosperous and healthy again," including lowering production costs for farmers, bringing down the cost of food, and making healthy, natural food more accessible to Americans. The introduction of the "Farmers First Agenda" by the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) comes as HHS Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and USDA Sec. Brooke Rollins are pushing to bring farm-fresh foods to the homes and schools of Americans. The agenda, obtained by Fox News Digital, aims to guide federal and state policies while also working with the private sector. Listed among the goals is "generat[ing] responsible nutrition policy" as part of the effort to "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA). Kip Tom, former Trump Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture, serves as vice-chair of the "Farmers First Agenda." Tom told Fox News Digital that AFPI welcomes a "renaissance of agriculture" as farmers want to help make America healthy. "Farmers from across the country have been talking about the MAHA movement and they embrace it," he said. "Today we have many choices at the grocery stores, more than we've ever had since when I was a child, but we need to make sure consumers understand the benefits of putting more red meat, more dairy, more vegetables and fruits into our diet," said Ambassador Tom. Freedom Farms owner Dana Cavalea told Fox News Digital recently that amid today's Make America Healthy Again movement, he has seen more people wanting to "get back to finding out where their food comes from." Cavalea shared that ever since he's been producing his own meat for his family, they can see the difference in quality. "The color was different. The flavor was different. The taste profile was different. And then we said, 'Well, what have we been eating all of these years?'" said Cavalea. Ambassador Tom told Fox News Digital, "American agriculture is still probably the safest food supply in the world because of the regulatory process we have in place." He added, though, that "the regulations we have in this country have become very burdensome for the U.S. consumer and the farmers." Fifth-generation farmer and Kentucky Agricultural Commissioner Jonathan Shell shared a similar sentiment. "Right now, red tape and bad trade deals make it harder for us to get our food onto school lunch trays and family dinner tables," Shell told Fox News Digital. Shell said, "We've got the land, the know-how, and the heart to feed this country. Farmers and ranchers across America are ready to grow and raise what our communities need — fresh fruits, vegetables and good, local meat." Shell, alongside his father, Gary, owns and operates Shell Farms and Greenhouses in Garrard County. They raise cattle and grow flowers, corn, and pumpkins. "When we think about bringing farm-fresh foods into our school systems across the country, it should be everywhere … It starts out with probably whole milk. It starts out [by] making sure we have access to fruits and vegetables that are fresh," said Tom. He said that fixing the supply chain and supporting innovation is key to the U.S. returning as the primary supplier of the world's food, fiber and energy systems. "We have the largest mass of quality, high-quality farmland in the United States. We have nearly 14,000 miles of navigable waterways," said Tom. "We need to create a renaissance again [so that] farmers have the opportunity to leverage those tools that our forefathers set us up for in the beginning."
Forbes
21-03-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Trump Must Challenge Foreign Freeloading, Not Copy It
"The Trump administration must confront foreign governments directly to end pharmaceutical ... More freeloading," writes Pipes. This morning, the America First Policy Institute released an issue brief highlighting a genuine problem—the rest of the world free-rides on American pharmaceutical innovation. American consumers bear most of the global costs associated with drug research and development and so subsidize lower prices abroad. President Trump is already working to address similar foreign freeloading—most notably by calling on our European NATO allies to contribute their fair share toward collective defense. He can, and should, apply the same firm approach to pharmaceutical pricing. Much of AFPI's analysis is correct. It accurately identifies foreign freeloading as detrimental to American patients and global research efforts. However, AFPI's proposed solution—a "most-favored-nation," or MFN, pricing policy that would set drug prices in Medicare based on the lowest prices paid in countries like Canada, the United Kingdom, and France—is fundamentally misguided. For starters, the MFN approach overlooks the complex dynamics of pharmaceutical pricing overseas. European countries use aggressive, government-backed negotiations to secure deep discounts from drug manufacturers. These "negotiations" often come with implicit and explicit threats. As just one example, if a manufacturer refuses to sell its products at dictated prices, a European government could retaliate by revoking its patents under Article 5 of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, which allows compulsory licensing when a patent holder declines to sell its product in a market. Plus, it isn't as if U.S. drug firms can simply band together and leave Europe if the continent refuses to pay more for drugs. Any coordinated efforts would be viewed as cartel-like behavior and trigger antitrust penalties under European Union competition laws. Given these constraints, pharmaceutical companies are effectively forced to accept artificially low prices abroad. Expecting American firms to respond to MFN by raising prices overseas simply isn't realistic. In other words, MFN wouldn't fix freeloading. But it would worsen the impact of European price controls on American innovation and investment. Adopting an MFN policy would effectively import Europe's price controls into our own healthcare system—and thereby jeopardize America's global leadership in pharmaceutical innovation. Developing a new drug currently costs about $2.6 billion, takes 10 to 15 years, and only about 12% of drugs entering clinical trials eventually reach patients. Despite these challenging odds, more than 60% of the world's innovative medicines are developed in the United States. If the MFN proposal becomes policy, critical investments in drug research and development could sharply decline. A National Bureau of Economic Research study estimates that reducing U.S. pharmaceutical prices by 40% to 50% could lead to a 30% to 60% reduction in research initiatives. Similarly, research from University of Connecticut economist Joseph Golec found that America would have lost more than 100 new medicines from 1986 to 2004 under European-style price controls. Beyond limiting future discoveries, MFN pricing would delay access to new medicines already in development. The majority of new drugs first debut in the United States. Pharmaceutical firms prioritize the U.S. market precisely because it fairly compensates them for their substantial research and regulatory costs before they face markets with capped prices abroad. Lowering American prices to match Europe's artificially low prices would intensify global freeloading rather than reduce it. Foreign governments would continue paying little, while U.S. research budgets would shrink. Competitors like China are rapidly expanding their biotechnology capabilities. MFN pricing risks shifting global medical innovation leadership from America to China. The United States possesses numerous trade tools and diplomatic levers to compel foreign countries to pay prices that reflect the true value of American-developed medicines. We need to use them. Price controls don't work, whether they're devised domestically or imported from abroad. The Trump administration must confront foreign governments directly to end pharmaceutical freeloading. Doing so will protect U.S. innovation, preserve patient access to groundbreaking treatments, and maintain America's unmatched global leadership in medical research.
The Guardian
15-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
US official heading Ukraine peace plan has history of empathizing with Russia
A retired US general charged with helping sell the Trump administration's Ukraine peace plan wrote a string of op-eds and reports for a rightwing thinktank in which he repeatedly questioned whether Ukraine had a legitimate part to play in peace negotiations. Keith Kellogg also blamed the war on the machinations of a US 'military-industrial complex' and '[Joe] Biden's national security incompetence' rather than Russia's 2022 invasion, which has been condemned across the globe and resulted in a war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Kellogg has been seen as a hawk on Russia, but he also wrote that 'the US should consider leveraging its military aid to Ukraine to make it contingent on Ukrainian officials agreeing to join peace talks with Russia'. Earlier this month, after a disastrous Washington DC meeting with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on 28 February, US aid to Ukraine was paused, as was intelligence sharing. Kellogg is also surrounded by some key staff who share a rightwing nationalist world view or have links to far-right populist figures. After spending the Biden years at the rightwing and Trumpist America First Policy Institute (AFPI), Kellogg took at least two young AFPI staffers with him to assist him as Trump's presidential special envoy to Russia and Ukraine. One, Gloria McDonald, is a senior policy adviser to Kellogg after co-authoring several of his AFPI publications, according to her LinkedIn profile. McDonald's résumé contains no foreign policy experience besides her AFPI policy analyst work and two short Trump-era internships at the US embassy in Kyiv, with her second four-month stint coming after Donald Trump fired then ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. AFPI's extraordinary national security team at the AFPI Inauguration ball!Good luck General Keith Kellogg and Gloria McDonald as you start your new mission for President Trump to end the war in Ukraine! @A1Policy @generalkellogg Another ex-AFPI staffer, Zach Bauder, is employed as a special assistant to Kellogg, according to a LinkedIn profile reviewed by the Guardian. He was also a field operative for the chaotic 2022 congressional campaign of the far-right Republican Joe Kent, now Trump's pick for the National Counterterrorism Center chief. The Guardian sought to confirm their appointments with the state department. In response, a state department spokesperson wrote that they do not comment on personnel. Emails were also sent to Bauder and McDonald's presumed state department email addresses requesting comment. Foreign Agents Registration Act (Fara) documents show that another Kent operative, Matt Braynard, approached Bauder while acting as a lobbyist for the Japanese rightwing populist party Sanseitō, whose leader's 'conspiracist, anti-globalist worldview' has included promoting antisemitic and pro-Russian positions. Braynard's Fara declaration says that Bauder shared his 'interest in meeting with organization leadership'. The revelations about the special envoy's pro-Russia writings and the far-right connections of his staff come at a time when the Trump administration has been accused of seeking to hand Russia victory in its war at the expense of Ukraine and other European allies, and when the employment of young, ideological staffers across government agencies has drawn scrutiny. However, over the last week Russia has reportedly criticized Kellogg and he was recently excluded from high-level talks on ending the war after Moscow said it didn't want him involved, NBC News reported. Kellogg was absent from two recent diplomatic summits about the war in Saudi Arabia even though the talks came under his remit. Kellogg retired from the US army in 2003 as a lieutenant general. He was a prominent figure in the national security hierarchy of the first Trump administration. In 2017 he was the acting national security adviser in the wake of the departure of Michael Flynn. He was chief of staff for the national security council from Trump's inauguration until April 2018, and then replaced HR McMaster as the national security adviser, a position he held until the inauguration of Joe Biden. From 2021 until his recall into the second Trump administration, Kellogg became the chair of the Center for a New American Security at AFPI, a rightwing thinktank founded after Trump's defeat by prominent figures in his first administration including the policy adviser Brooke Rollins and economic adviser Larry Kudlow. Described as a 'White House in waiting' for Trump's second term, AFPI has supplied at least 11 Trump cabinet secretaries and agency heads, reportedly more than any other organization. Senior Trump appointments with AFPI ties include the FBI director, Kash Patel, the education secretary, Linda McMahon, and the attorney general, Pam Bondi. At AFPI, Kellogg articulated what he called an 'America first' foreign policy. Since 2022, that took the form of increasingly strident criticism of US efforts to assist in the defense of Ukraine against Russia's invasion. Before the Russian invasion had even commenced, Kellogg wrote that 'Ukraine is primarily a European issue to solve', and empathized with Russia's point of view: 'To Russia, the issue of Ukraine is deeper and more personal. To Russia, it is about their security.' Before the invasion, he urged that Ukraine be 'armed to the teeth' as a deterrent, but opposed 'a no-fly zone and other ways to engage American military forces in the Ukraine conflict'. After the invasion, Kellogg increasingly reserved his criticisms for the Biden administration, Nato allies and Ukraine, with sympathy withheld from all except Putin and Russia. In June 2022, in a statement co-written with Fred Fleitz, Kellogg wrote of Biden's announcement of $1.2bn in aid to Ukraine: 'This newest call for additional aid is a nonstarter and is not in the best interest of the American people.' His turn against the administration and US allies was most evident from late 2023, including in reports and opinion articles Kellogg wrote with McDonald, then a senior policy analyst at AFPI. McDonald was given the AFPI role with scant previous experience, according to her biography at AFPI's website, her LinkedIn profile, and information from public records and data brokers. In 2018 and 2019, McDonald did summer internships at the US embassy in Kyiv, per her LinkedIn page. In 2017, she did another internship with a Republican congressman, Dave Brat. Her time at AFPI is the only full-time work experience she takes into her apparent appointment as Kellogg's most senior adviser in his efforts to implement Trump's mooted peace deal. In one co-written report, the pair argue that the best course of action for the US is to concede any possibility of Ukraine's membership in Nato in advance of peace negotiations. 'In the case of granting Ukraine NATO membership,' they write, 'the US eliminates the very incentive that would bring Russia to the negotiating table. By taking this issue off the table in the near term, however, the US offers an incentive for Russia to join peace talks and agree to an end-state.' They also specifically criticize the Biden administration's guarantee that Ukraine would be involved in any negotiations. 'The Biden Administration's policy of 'nothing about Ukraine, without Ukraine' and arming Ukraine 'as long as it takes' has, therefore, only served to remove the urgency of reaching a negotiated end-state to the war.' They further recommend withholding arms from Ukraine in order to force it to the negotiating table: 'The US should consider leveraging its military aid to Ukraine to make it contingent on Ukrainian officials agreeing to join peace talks with Russia to negotiate an end state to this conflict.' In a co-written opinion article for the rightwing Washington Times website in December 2023, the pair focused on a recent Zelenskyy visit to the US that included meetings with defense contractors. The pair claimed that this was evidence 'our national security policy is being unduly influenced by the interests of the military-industrial complex.' Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion In the piece, they elaborate on this conspiracy narrative about Ukraine and the military-industrial complex: 'The US withdrawal from Afghanistan significantly reduced defense contractors' profits,' they write, adding that 'the proxy war in Ukraine, however, not only reignited these defense contracting revenue but also spurred global military spending, which was raised to a historic $2.24 trillion after Russia invaded.' In an April 2024 AFPI report written with Fleitz, Kellogg placed the blame for the war largely on Biden, suggesting that his attitude towards Russia was provocative. 'Biden's hostile policy toward Russia not only needlessly made it an enemy of the United States,' they wrote, 'but it also drove Russia into the arms of China and led to the development of a new Russia-China-Iran-North Korea axis.' They wrote: 'It was in America's best interests to maintain peace with Putin and not provoke and alienate him with aggressive globalist human rights and pro-democracy campaigns or an effort to promote Ukrainian membership in NATO.' They also wrote that Putin's sabre-rattling at the beginning of 2022 should have induced the US to make a deal, writing: 'It was in America's interest to make a deal with Putin on Ukraine joining NATO, especially by January 2022 when there were signs that a Russian invasion was imminent.' They describe ongoing support of the Ukraine war effort as 'expensive virtue signaling and not a constructive policy to promote peace and global stability'. Kellogg and Fleitz appear to recommend that Russia be allowed to keep any territorial gains, arguing that the US should 'continue to arm Ukraine and strengthen its defenses to ensure Russia will make no further advances and will not attack again after a cease-fire or peace agreement'. Again, Kellogg signs off on excluding Ukraine from EU membership, writing: 'President Biden and other NATO leaders should offer to put off NATO membership for Ukraine for an extended period in exchange for a comprehensive and verifiable peace deal'. Along with Kellogg and McDonald, the policy adviser, another staffer, Bauder, has come via the AFPI pipeline. And although Bauder has less apparent experience in foreign affairs than even McDonald, he does have international connections that appear related to his 2022 field work for a far-right candidate's congressional campaign. Bauder – who only graduated from rightwing Hillsdale College last year – is employed as a special assistant to Kellogg, according to his LinkedIn page. Besides internships at AFPI and the Austrian Economics Center in Vienna, Bauder's only work experience besides working as an operations coordinator at AFPI in 2023 was field organizing for the failed 2022 congressional campaign of Kent. The Guardian has previously reported on Kent's far-right political positions and unanswered questions about his campaign finances and employment. Daily Beast reporting in January 2024 implicated Braynard, a 'former top aide' of Kent's who had 'white nationalist ties' in campaign finance issues. A significant proportion of 2022 campaign disbursements went to a company belonging to Braynard's wife. After being connected with Bauder on Kent's campaign, Braynard apparently tapped the relationship in his lobbying work for Sanseitō, the far-right populist party in Japan. Fara rules require lobbyists for foreign entities to lodge declarations that specify not only who they are working for, and how much they are paying, but who they make contact with in the course of pursuing their client's aims. A September 2024 Fara filing from Braynard indicates that he had worked as a paid lobbyist for Sanseitō. Rob Fahey is an assistant professor in the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study in Shinjuku, Japan, who has written some of the scarce English language research on the far-right party. In a telephone conversation, he said the party had grown out of 'the anti-vaccine, anti-masking social movement' touched off in Japan by the Covid-19 pandemic. He said that party members were 'terminally online, and they are very, very deeply involved in the conspiracy framework that is a core part of the Maga movement as well'. Fahey said Sanseitō was part of the 'new conspiratorial hard right in Japan' whose 'media diet comes from the American conspiratorial ecosystem'. Fahey added that Sanseitō largely 'see the war in Ukraine as through the same lens as American conspiracy theorists: it's Nato's fault, and Nato is part of the new world order'. Braynard's filing says that the aim of his lobbying for the group is for them to 'win Japanese elections'. On Braynard's account in the Fara declaration, 'the principal, party leader Sohei Kamiya, had planned a trip to the US'. He continues: 'The principal was interested in appearing on Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson's podcast, so I texted the producers of those shows. I also contacted Americans for Tax Reform, Heritage Foundation, and America First Policy Center to ask if they would be interested in meeting with the principal to discuss common, populist conservative policies.' In his list of the people he contacted, along with producers for Carlson and Bannon and a Heritage Foundation staffer, Braynard lists Bauder. The filing said he texted Bauder, described as 'formerly and then again more recently staff of America First Policy Institute, but not employed by them at the time I contacted him'. Following the Oval Office meltdown with Zelenskyy, it has seemed that Trump himself has been calling the shots on a cooling relationship with Ukraine and the other western allies. But he apparently still has the support of his special envoy. This week, the Guardian reported that Kellogg told a Council on Foreign Relations meeting of the suspension of intelligence sharing that 'they brought it on themselves, the Ukrainians,' and that it was a punishment akin to 'hitting a mule with a two-by-four across the nose'.
Axios
13-03-2025
- Business
- Axios
America First Policy Institute's "100-year plan" for Trumpism
Well-funded MAGA forces close to the White House are preparing a "100-year plan" to try to sustain Trumpism long after President Trump leaves office. Why it matters: Top executives at the America First Policy Institute tell Axios that the group is scaling up as an incubator for the America First movement beyond Jan. 20, 2029 — promising to proselytize its policies for the next century. The big picture: The institute was launched in 2021 — by now-Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, now-Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Larry Kudlow, a Fox Business host who was a first-term Trump official — to help keep Trump's ideas in the political ether after he left office. During the president's Mar-a-Lago exile and through his 2024 comeback bid, the institute became something of an administration in waiting, pumping out policy papers and staffing up with Trump 1.0 alums. Now AFPI is retooling as a shadow White House policy shop — and training ground for future administration talent. The group — along with America First Works, a sister organization focused on political work and policy advocacy — just moved into a posh new office on Pennsylvania Avenue next to the Willard InterContinental, wedged between the White House and Capitol. Zoom in: The group is naming an expanded leadership team "to further advance the America First movement and policies that put the American people first." Greg Sindelar, CEO of the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), is interim president and CEO, replacing Rollins. "This is about thinking not even five years down the road," Sindelar told us. "This is about thinking 100 years down the road, and how do we make AFPI a permanent institution in the public square." Chad Wolf, Trump's former acting Homeland Security secretary, will be AFPI's executive vice president and chief strategy officer. David Bernhardt, Interior Secretary in Trump I, is an EVP focusing on litigation and research. Between the lines: Trump's current administration is packed with AFPI alumni, including Attorney General Pam Bondi and other officials. Wolf said Trump is "outcome-driven and outcome-based. But lots of times, there's a lot of work that goes into that, into achieving those outcomes ... That's what we're doing here, which is providing that outside support system for that America First movement, which is now inside government." Go deeper: See the leadership team.
