A cadre of Trump-era officials on Tuesday launched a new non-profit organization called the America First Policy Institute, with the mission of advancing a populist agenda similar to that of former President Trump.
The group of 35 people has a first-year budget of $ 20 million and a number of prominent Trump alumni at the helm. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner will serve as informal advisers.
Brooke Rollins, Trump’s chief of the National Policy Council, will be chief executive and president, and Linda McMahon, former head of the Small Business Administration and a member of the former president’s cabinet, will chair the board. The vice president is Larry Kudlow, Trump’s former White House economic adviser. Kudlow presents a show on Fox Business.
TRUMP’S SAVE AMERICA PAC HAS $ 85 MILLION IN HAND BEFORE 2022 MEANS: SOURCE
Rollins, McMahon and Kudlow first discussed the formation of a non-profit organization in December. Rollins met with Trump last week at Mar-a-Lago to outline the group’s plans, which he was “delighted” to hear.
The group plans to increase its budget to $ 40 million by next year. An AFPI spokesman did not disclose where the $ 20 million funding came from, but attributed the success of earlier donations to the leadership.
AFPI contains 20 different policy focuses, many of which are managed by Trump alumni. The chairman of the Center for Energy Independence will be chaired by former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and National Security will chair former acting director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, and the retired Army general, Keith Kellogg, who serves as National Security Adviser to Vice President Mike Pence.
Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi will chair the Center for Law and Justice. Bondi also served as a defender for Trump during his first indictment.
AFPI is currently in Arlington, Virginia, but plans to relocate to Washington, DC to get closer to the action.
“We know we need to earn our credibility and trust through the results. In Washington, DC, where the results are few and the credibility is low, it may seem like an impossible summit,” Rollins told Fox News. “But it’s also to our advantage: like the Trump presidency that brought us together, we were never from Washington DC. We are only in it – and in several capitals in the state, as I write – and therefore we are not heeded. ”
The group plans to have offices in Fort Worth, Texas, Miami and New York.
“The patriots that make up the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) are among the greatest champions of freedom, free enterprise, national greatness and the priority of American workers, families and communities our Nation has yet seen,” Trump said in a statement. “Linda McMahon, Brooke Rollins, Larry Kudlow, Rick Perry, General Kellogg and the rest of the freedom fighters at AFPI have my full support because they work not only to preserve the historic achievements of my government, but also to preserve America First. “Agenda in the future. I look forward to working with them to save America.”
Announcing the launch in his Fox Business show, Kudlow calls the group ‘twofold’.
“It’s twofold, which means we put every policy we know first and put America first,” Rollins agreed.
Unlike other free market-oriented groups with Republican support, the Conservative group advocates ‘fair trade’ rather than ‘free trade’.
GRANT FOR MAJORITY, HOUSEHOLD CHOICE ARM REPORTS LARGE FUNDRAISING HAUL
“The DC and global corporate elite, in the name of the orthodoxy of free trade, have for years allowed markets and market efficiencies to have an overwhelming influence on policy decisions,” the group wrote on its website. “Nowhere was this more evident than in the field of international trade relations, where the United States has repeatedly entered into transactions that protected and promoted the interests of foreign workers, foreign agriculture and foreign enterprises – but not our own.”
On foreign policy, the group will take a hard line against China. “DCS insiders and Wall Street elites have for decades continued the lie that American involvement in Communist China would open up, liberalize and reform the country,” reads the AFPI website.
The group also wants to promote classic American values in education and elsewhere “not as a look back at the past, but as the foundation of our future.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
AFPI plans to develop policy for stricter border restrictions. “From efforts to discourage the social integration of immigrants, to narratives that proclaim American injustice, to abuses of our asylum system, we are witnessing an unprecedented attack on what has made our nation great. The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) conducts research and develop policies to secure our borders, modernize our outdated gateways and promote merit-based policies, ”the website reads.