US Senator J.D. Vance has accepted the Republican vice-presidential nomination on the third day of the party’s national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The 39-year-old running mate of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gave his acceptance speech on Wednesday.
Vance began by referring to the assassination attempt on Trump. He praised the former president, saying, “When Donald J. Trump rose to his feet in that Pennsylvania field, all of America stood with him.”
He said Trump has called for national unity, and he wants to respond to this call for unity himself.
Vance reflected on his experience of growing up in an area where many families lived in poverty, and stressed the need to promote Trump’s “America First” policy.
He criticized President Joe Biden’s economic policy, saying the US is “flooded with cheap Chinese goods and cheap foreign labor.”
Referring to security issues, Vance said the US will make its allies share in the burden of securing world peace. He added, “No more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the American taxpayer.”
Vance is the author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” the 2016 bestselling memoir about his upbringing in Ohio and the lives of white working-class Americans in a Rust Belt state.
He was first elected to the Senate in the 2022 midterm elections.