While President Donald Trump tries to reshape global trade with sweeping tariffs, some of the opposition is coming from an old ally: his former Vice President Mike Pence.
Pence and his organization, Advancing American Freedom, are publicly arguing against the tariffs, while also quietly encouraging Republican members of Congress and aides to push back in private.
The effort is part of a broader mission Pence has taken on as a one-time insider turned outsider during the second Trump administration: fighting for the future of what he considers traditional Republican values. He’s aiming to make his group a leading advocate for lower taxes, international trade, and a strong global presence, reaching back to an earlier era of GOP politics.
That means praising Trump’s tax cuts and border enforcement, but challenging him on isolationism and trade barriers — and providing cover for lawmakers who might feel the same way, but are scared to say so.
“The Republican Party itself is engaged in an internal debate over whether we’re going to stay true to the traditional conservative agenda that’s defined our party over the last 75 years or whether we’re going to follow the siren song of populism unmoored to conservative principles,” Pence said in an exclusive interview with Bloomberg Government. “We have really tried to be that anchor to windward for traditional conservatism.”
His push amounts to a test of whether old guard GOP beliefs still have any purchase in a party that Trump has significantly changed.
It’s a difficult fight.
Pence’s effort comes as populism is widely credited for Trump’s comeback, GOP control of Congress, and the party’s inroads with working class voters and people of color. Orthodox Republicans such as former Sen.
“We’ve got a new coalition,” said Steve Bannon, a Trump adviser and champion of the more populist strain of conservatism.
MAGA-styled Republicans, he argued, are replacing “country club Republicans, the upper-middle class, the Wall Street faction.”
“The lane,” for Pence’s views on issues such as tariffs “has gotten slimmer and slimmer,” said Lisa Camooso Miller, a longtime Republican strategist. “The opportunity here is definitely very challenged.”
Pence’s falling out with Trump after refusing to help overturn the 2020 presidential election, and his excommunication from the GOP ticket, makes it risky for elected Republicans to openly align with him, she added. He might have more influence, Camooso Miller suggested, on issues less firmly settled than trade, where Trump might still be shaped by lawmakers’ input.
Pence admits it’s not easy.
‘Lonely Voice’
“Somedays we’re a lonely voice,” he said, while repeatedly aligning himself with the “Trump-Pence administration” and “Trump-Pence tax cuts.”
Even among Republicans who still believe in Pence’s version of conservatism, few want to cross Trump. They’ve spent months tip-toeing around questions about tariffs and foreign policy.
Pence said his organization is making an anti-tariff case publicly so Republicans in Congress can take those arguments privately to Trump. It’s a similar argument on global affairs and the US presence overseas.
They’re sending “market signals” that “there’s still a market” for traditional conservatives, said AAF’s president, Tim Chapman.
The group has held more than half a dozen briefings with congressional staffers to imbue them with old school conservative viewpoints on tariffs, Chapman said, while running ads aiming to show the downsides of the levies.
On Thursday, GOP Sen.
Pence, a six-term House member, says he’s still in touch with some Republicans on the Hill, though he didn’t name them.
“Mike is a very well-respected person,” said Sen.
Boozman, though, hadn’t spoken to Pence “in quite awhile.”
“I think his voice is important,” said Sen.
But he also said he hadn’t heard from Pence recently.
Pence’s AAF team, many of them alums of the vice president’s office, are planning or have held events in Michigan, Texas, Iowa and North Carolina to highlight the local effects of tariffs.
As a former House member, Pence said, he knows the impact such stories can have when they air locally.
Long Game
Along with trying to influence lawmakers today, they also hope to shape the debate that unfolds after Trump’s second term ends..
“The race is on right now for what is after President Trump,” Chapman said, arguing that the fight over conservatism’s future isn’t settled.
“I concede President Trump and some of his populist allies have changed parts of the agenda of the Republican party, but I don’t think they’ve changed the Republican party,” Pence said. “This is still a conservative party that is committed to strong defense, American leadership in the world, limited government, less taxes and regulation, the right to life and values.”
That’s true to some extent, said Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University historian who has written about the changing GOP.
Traditional GOP values are evident in the central legislation Republicans are trying to pass: tax cuts, he said. But other parts of Pence’s worldview, including belief in free trade and overseas engagement, are “under stress.”
The “populist Republican party is very deeply rooted now,” Zelizer said. A shift back to Pence’s version would require “a generational change, not just a successor to Trump.”
Pence has already run once to be that person, though without much success, in the 2024 presidential primary. He said he has “no plans” to run for office again.
Instead, he plans to speak for “the overwhelming majority of people that ever voted Republican,” Pence said. “We want to make sure that voice is there.”
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