Donald Trump spent the last few months vehemently denying he or his campaign is closely tied to the Heritage Foundation – the right-wing think tank responsible for publishing Project 2025, a controversial list of policy ideas aimed at consolidating executive power.
But there’s another rising influential right-wing think tank that has developed its own extremist platform for the new Trump administration: the America First Policy Institute (AFPI).
Founded in 2021 by two former Trump administration officials, AFPI has quietly grown its team, increased revenue and expanded its policy ideas to become an influential force in the MAGA world.
AFPI’s plans include requiring ultrasounds for people obtaining abortions (even for medication abortions), making civil servants easier to fire by changing them to at-will employees, and reversing gun control laws – just to name a few.
The organization’s chairperson, Linda McMahon, is already an official member of Trump’s presidential transition team — making it even more likely the President-elect will adopt some of its policies in his second term.
AFPI’s agenda consists of 10 “pillars” to reshape the executive branch and enact changes that it claims will improve the United States – in a similar but less organized fashion than the 900-page Project 2025.
The Heritage Foundation and AFPI mirror each other’s overall goals and ideas, including: drastic cuts to federal agencies, installing loyalists over qualified individuals, scaling back abortion rights, restricting assistance to allies and more.
Here are the major focus points of the AFPI’s plan that could end up becoming government policy.
Increasing pressure on the Federal Reserve, isolating the United States economy, cutting back government assistance and expanding oil and gas drilling projects are major themes of AFPI’s proposed economic policies.
Most of the policies echo the same vague promises Trump made on the campaign trail to lower inflation and make the U.S. more affordable.
That includes imposing sweeping tariffs, which economists have warned would do the inverse. The plan also encourages making the 2017 Tax Cuts and Job Act permanent, which mostly benefits wealthy individuals and corporations, and increasing oil production, which some have warned will not lower the cost of gas.
Perhaps most concerning for economists is the potential for Trump to try and influence the Federal Reserve – the central banking system intended to live separately from political policy. AFPI suggests pressuring it to keep interest rates low – something Trump desired during his first term.
Tara Sinclair, professor of Economics at George Washington University, told The Independent that the independence of the Fed is “really important for maintaining low inflation.”
Finally, among their policies to make the U.S. economy “work for all”, AFPI suggests “work requirements for able-bodied Americans receiving federal assistance” – a policy targeted at Republicans’ common assertion that people abuse federal programs out of laziness.
