JD Vance, a 40-year-old senator from Ohio who many experts consider Donald Trump's heir apparent and the 2028 Republican presidential nominee, was elected vice president of the United States on Tuesday.

The self-described hillbilly turned Marine turned Ivy League law school graduate is perhaps best known to U.S. voters for his conservative politics in the Rust Belt.

In his 2016 memoir hillbilly elegy, Vance addressed the economic and social problems plaguing America's forgotten hinterland. He tried to explain why Trump appealed to white working-class families like his own.

Vance would later promote Trump’s “America First” foreign policy and argue in a January 2023 Wall Street Journal opinion article that he favored the kind of statecraft that pursued U.S. national interests—albeit with great reluctance.

Vance said the U.S.-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and U.S.-led regime change in Libya, among other wars, did not serve “the nation's long-term interests.”

“Very few have ever been challenged by a leader of national importance,” Vance argued, adding, “That was, of course, until Donald Trump came along.”

After being named Trump's vice president in July, Vance worked to establish himself as a key surrogate on the world stage and advance Trump's “America First” global policy.

Although his foreign policy includes a deep distrust of foreign entanglements and alliances, he has remained a strong supporter of Israel. These views were clearly expressed earlier this year when Vance rejected aid to Ukraine but insisted on supporting Israel's war on Gaza.

“I support Israel and its campaign against Hamas. “I also admire the Ukrainians fighting Russia, but I believe it is not in America’s interest to continue funding a seemingly endless conflict in Ukraine,” Vance said.

“It is strange to equate Israel and Ukraine as similar issues. They are fundamentally different and we should analyze them separately.”

Supporter of the Gaza war and normalization agreements

Vance saw his political career take off when he cultivated ties with pro-Israel billionaire Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist who bankrolled his Senate campaign.

Thiel is co-founder of Palantir Technologies, the CIA-backed analytics firm that played a major role in Israel's war on Gaza. Palantir is often referred to as the “scariest” of the American tech giants, while others call it “the AI ​​arms dealer of the 21st century.”

Thiel brought Vance to Silicon Valley after graduating from Yale Law School and funded Vance's 2021 Senate campaign to the tune of $15 million.

At the time, it was the largest donation to a single Senate candidate.

Vance's addition to Trump's candidacy, as well as Trump's good graces with several Silicon Valley entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, have signaled that the administration will prioritize a tech- and innovation-friendly approach to the economy, as Thiel envisioned.

In a speech at the Quincy Institute in May, two months before he was announced as Trump's vice presidential running mate, Vance addressed the contradiction between his conditional support for Ukraine and his stated unconditional support for Israel.

“The majority of the citizens of this country believe that their savior – and I count myself a Christian – was born, died and rose again in this narrow little strip of land off the Mediterranean,” he said.

“The idea that there will ever be an American foreign policy that doesn’t particularly care about this part of the world is absurd.

“We want the Israelis and the Sunnis to police their own region of the world. We want Europeans to monitor their own region of the world and we want to be able to focus more on East Asia,” he added.

Vance has since supported Israel's devastating military offensive in Gaza, which has killed at least 43,000 Palestinians, saying it was necessary to reach a normalization agreement between Israel and Gulf Arab states.

JD Vance's mentor co-founded a company that helps Israel create “kill lists” of Palestinians in Gaza

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“Hamas initiated the conflict and is now using Palestinian civilians as shields. “To learn from the last 40 years, our priority should be to destroy Hamas as a military power,” he said.

“You can’t eliminate Hamas’ ideology, but you can eliminate its commanders and military units, and I believe Israel should have the power to do that.”

At the same time, Vance expressed concerns about escalation related to Iran.

On October 26, Vance pointed out that U.S. and Israeli interests do not always overlap, linking that stance to his opposition to war with Iran.

“America’s interest will be clear at times,” he said The Tim Dillon Show.

“Sometimes we will have overlapping interests, and sometimes we will have different interests. And our main interest is not to go to war with Iran. That would mean a huge waste of resources. It would be enormously expensive for our country.”

Instead of the U.S. starting a war with Iran, Vance said, Washington should “let the Israelis and Gulf Arab states act as a counterweight to Iran.”

“America does not need to constantly monitor every region of the world. We should empower people to police their own regions of the world. Firstly, we would save a lot of money. Secondly, we would save a lot of focus.”