RNC Platform OK'd By Panel Highlights Tax Cuts, Border

By Hadriana Lowenkron, Bloomberg News (TNS)

A Republican Party committee approved a 2024 platform ahead of next week’s convention that details priorities for presumptive nominee Donald Trump’s potential second-term agenda, including addressing the migrant border crisis, cutting taxes and boosting domestic energy production.

The platform was approved Monday by the Republican National Committee’s platform committee. Trump extensively wrote and edited the draft that members will be discussing, according to a person familiar who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the process—the latest sign of how the former president is shaping the party in his image.

The campaign shared language highlighting 20 principles that did not mention abortion, an issue that is at the center of an intra-party clash among Republicans, but the full text of the platform says the party will “oppose Late Term Abortion, while supporting mothers and policies that advance Prenatal Care, access to Birth Control, and IVF (fertility treatments).”

Republicans have long called for banning the procedure—a stance popular with conservatives but unpopular with the U.S. electorate at large.

Trump in particular has struggled with abortion, seeking to both tout his nomination of conservative Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade’s federal protections, as well as garner support from suburban women and independents angered by the wave of restrictions on the procedure in states across the U.S. He has urged the party to rethink how it discusses the issue.

The 20 principles in the platform, detailed in Trump’s all-caps style, include a call to seal the border and stop the “migrant invasion” and carry out the “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history.

The principles also include pledges to make the U.S. the “dominant energy producer in the world” and “stop outsourcing” and to impose “large tax cuts for workers, and no tax on tips”—the latter a policy Trump publicly floated at a June rally in Las Vegas in a bid to court blue-collar workers in swing states such as Nevada. The document includes a vow to “cancel the electric vehicle mandate and cut costly and burdensome regulations.”

The principles also pledge to keep the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

Trump has promised to shake up U.S. trade policy in a second term with proposals for sweeping levies, including 60% tariffs on imports from China and 10% duties on those from the rest of the world.

“Republicans will support baseline Tariffs on Foreign-made goods, pass the Trump Reciprocal Trade Act, and respond to unfair Trading practices,” the full platform says. “As Tariffs on Foreign Producers go up, Taxes on American Workers, Families, and Businesses can come down.”

Critics have warned that Trump’s tariffs could stoke inflation, a top concern of voters and an issue that has been a drag on President Joe Biden’s reelection prospects.

Trump has made his pledges to renew expiring tax cuts and cut federal regulations a centerpiece of his bid to return to the White House in November’s election.

The committee adopted the platform while Trump, who has largely been silent since his first debate with Biden, prepares to return to the campaign trail with two rallies this week in Florida and Pennsylvania. Trump also has said he would announce his running mate close to the convention’s start.

Trump has avoided the spotlight to keep the glare on Biden, who delivered a poor debate performance that sparked fears among many Democrats that the incumbent president would not be able to defeat Trump or handle the rigors of another four-year term.

— With assistance from Stephanie Lai.

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