Brooke Rollins, CEO and president of the newly-launched America First Policy Institute (AFPI), commended the Biden administration Tuesday for carrying over key aspects of former President Donald Trump’s general foreign policy and specific approach to China.
Rollins told Daily Caller that “the Trump Administration set and reset policy on our most important foreign relationships in such a compelling fashion that you can even see the Biden Administration beginning to acquiesce to nearly all of it.” (RELATED: Biden Admin Targets Seven Tech Companies Charged With Helping China’s Military Develop Supercomputers And WMDs)
“Despite stumbles out of the gate, you now see his DHS Secretary, for example, discussing building the border wall, and individuals like John Kerry and Tony Blinken grind their teeth at how tough working with China is,” she continued. “Only time will tell whether the Biden Administration is up to meeting the standard of responsible governance that we set.”
Rollins served as Trump’s Domestic Policy Council Director for the majority of his term in office, and her comments came just after she and other former Trump officials formally launched AFPI earlier in the day. (RELATED: Biden Admin Sanctions Two Top Chinese Officials For ‘Serious Human Rights Abuses’ Of Uyghur Muslims)
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 11: U.S. President Donald Trump listens to Brooke Rollins, of the Texas Public Policy Institute, speak during a prison reform roundtable in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, on January 11, 2018 in Washington, DC. State and local leaders joined Trump to discuss programs intended to help prisoners re-enter the workforce among other policy initiatives. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
She stated during a press call for the launch that while AFPI clearly believes in Trump’s agenda, the group will reach across the aisle to find compromise on economic, education, labor, national security and other policies that will benefit American workers.
Pressed by Daily Caller on the call to comment on the Biden administration pursuing several Trump-era priorities — including national 5G expansion, incentivizing the re-shoring of manufacturing jobs, and supply chain security — Rollins noted that many of the previous administration’s policies had received bipartisan support. She added that while she did not have a full list of overlapping policies in front of her, she saw encouraging signs in Biden’s first days in office for future potential bipartisanship.
Trump’s former Small Business Administration Administrator Linda McMahon and National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow will join Rollins as the chair and vice chair of the new non-profit group.
AFPI currently boasts 40 staffers working across 20 different issue centers and a first-year operating budget of $20 million, making it by far the largest group formed by ex-Trump officials to date. (RELATED: Biden Budget Requests Increase In Defense Spending, Identifies China As ‘Top Challenge’)
Rollins told press that she plans to double AFPI’s funding over the next year and has designs on opening new offices in Miami, New York City and Washington, D.C.
The group is currently headquartered in Ft. Worth, Texas, but will operate in every state where they believe Trump’s agenda will resonate, Rollins claimed.
In addition to Rollins, McMahon and Kudlow, AFPI’s opening-day roster of Trump world veterans includes Pam Bondi, Jack Brewer, Keith Kellogg, Rick Perry, John Ratcliffe, Ja’Ron Smith, Scott Turner and Paula White-Cain.
Trump himself called the group behind AFPI “some of the greatest champions for freedom, free enterprise, national greatness, and the primacy of American workers, families, and communities, that our Nation has ever seen.”
“The freedom warriors at AFPI have my full support as they work not only to preserve the historic accomplishments of my Administration, but also to propel the America First Agenda into the future,” he said in a statement Tuesday evening. “I look forward to working with them to save America.”