Those in construction seeking insights into industry-related policy priorities for the Republican party—should GOP nominee and former President Donald Trump be elected—gained some details from his July 18 acceptance speech in Milwaukee and the party’s newly released campaign platform.
Some of those echo actions and remarks from Trump’s 2016-2020 administration.
In his speech, Trump vowed to embrace fossil fuels, including coal, in a new term. He also said he would end subsidies for electric vehicles and any support for what he termed “green scam” projects, particularly in offshore wind energy.
He instead called for reducing the national debt by making the U.S. not just energy independent through expanded oil and gas production but also “energy dominant” in supplying the fuels to other countries.
According to Trump, increased oil and gas extraction would lower costs for consumers and boost the economy. Those gains, he said, would fund construction of more roads, bridges and other infrastructure.
The Biden administration has spent “trillions of dollars on things having to do with the Green New Scam," Trump claimed, adding that "the trillions of dollars are sitting there not yet spent." He said his administration "will redirect that money for important projects like roads, bridges and dams and ... will not allow it to be spent on the meaningless Green New Scam ideas."
Trump Critiques, But Detail is Thin
Trump characterized Biden administration climate-change policies as ineffective but did not mention Biden's enactment of major federal project funding laws that included three of the largest infrastructure and construction measures in U.S. history—the $1.2-trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the $280-billion CHIPS and Science Act and the $800-billion Inflation Reduction Act.
Trump also failed to note that no major infrastructure laws were enacted during his own term in office.
Another main theme of the speech and platform was to close the southwestern U.S. border. Trump praised former President Dwight Eisenhower’s mass deportation program in the 1950s that used military-style efforts to deport more than one million Mexicans from the U.S.
In the Trump platform’s discussion of border security, a key element was finishing the southwestern border wall. “Hundreds of miles have already been built and work magnificently,” it said. “The remaining wall construction can be completed quickly, effectively and inexpensively.”
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, there were about 654 miles of pedestrian and vehicle barriers on the southwestern border, which stretches for about 1,950 miles in total as of February 2024.
The Republican party's official platform for 2024 contains only three references to "infrastructure."
In one, it says that “the Republican party must return to its roots as the party of industry, manufacturing, infrastructure and workers,” but there are no further details on what an infrastructure policy would entail.
The other two mentions refer seemingly to cybersecurity, not construction, with one stating that “Republicans will use all tools of national power to protect our nation’s critical infrastructure and industrial base from malicious cyber actors.”
The platform also called for a return to Trump’s push during his presidency to undo federal regulations.
Related to government procurement, “Republicans will strengthen Buy American and Hire American policies, banning companies that outsource jobs from doing business with the federal government,” the platform says, again with no details on that plank.
In a rare example of a detailed recommendation, the platform promises that “Republicans will promote beauty in public architecture and preserve our natural treasures.”
That is an apparent reference to a controversial 2020 Trump executive order stating that classical architecture “shall be the preferred and default architecture for federal public buildings absent exceptional factors necessitating another kind of architecture.”
The 2020 Trump directive drew strong criticism from the American Institute of Architects and was revoked by President Biden in a February 2021 executive order.
