Project 2025: The conservative blueprint that may shape America’s global role after the 2024 election

The conservative vision Project 2025 has grabbed the attention of American voters for the past several months.

The 900-page Mandate for Leadership, published by the Heritage Foundation, lays out a massive policy wish list for the US, should Donald Trump and the Republican Party return to the White House after the US election on 5 November.

And while Trump has distanced himself from the document, many of its authors served in his previous administration and could wield influence again, should he take office next January.

Some of Project 2025's recommendations include drastic changes such as gutting federal agencies and ushering in sweeping immigration reforms.

But its approach to foreign policy, and especially the Middle East, is largely consistent with many of Trump's previous decisions while in the Oval Office.

Some parts are also similar to bipartisan approaches to the Middle East that the incumbent Democratic administration under President Joe Biden is now pursuing.

How does Project 2025 view the world?

Much of the document's section on foreign policy outlines how the US needs to adopt a "burden-sharing" approach when it comes to the collective defence of its allies. Other countries, it says, should have a more prominent role in sustaining their militaries, rather than Washington providing security assistance.

"US allies must take far greater responsibility for their conventional defense," the document states.

This was also a key policy approach for Trump while president, who repeatedly chastised European allies for not meeting the minimum requirement of spending at least two percent of their countries' GDPs on defence spending.

Many conservatives have criticised the large amount of military aid that the US provides to Ukraine, as it continues to fight Russia in a war that has now lasted more than two-and-a-half years.

Project 2025 also calls on the US's allies in the Middle East to "take responsibility" for their own defences.

What does Project 2025 say about Israel?

There is, however, one US ally that isn't expected to pay for its own defence: Israel.

It receives several mentions throughout Project 2025, which argues the need for continued US support for the country, its military, and its economy.

"Sustain support for Israel even as America empowers Gulf partners to take responsibility for their own coastal, air, and missile defenses both individually and working collectively," Project 2025 states.

This approach is not markedly different from the Democratic Party, which in its party platform for 2024 shunned a demand from progressives to include an arms embargo on Israel.

Instead, it states that it has an "ironclad" commitment to the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding, an Israeli-US agreement signed by then-President Barack Obama, which gives Israel $3.8bn in US military annually until 2028.

What does Project 2025 say about Saudi Arabia?

Project 2025 urges any future Republican administration to continue building upon the 2020 normalisation agreements signed between Israel and four Arab countries: the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan.

The agreements were brokered by the Trump administration and established diplomatic relations between Israel and Arab countries with which it did not share a border for the first time (previous deals were struck with Egypt and Jordan in the late 20th century).

Now, the Heritage Foundation wants a Republican presidency to broker a normalisation agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

This, again, is the same approach pursued by the Democratic administration of Joe Biden for the past year, without success.

However, the policy dossier attempts to draw a distinction from the Democrats, saying that Biden is guilty of the "degradation of the long-standing partnership with Saudi Arabia".

This is a reference to Biden's declaration on assuming power that he would freeze sales of offensive US weaponry to Saudi Arabia, due to Riyadh's leading role in the war in Yemen that several rights groups have alleged are being used against civilians.

What does Project 2025 say about the US and the PKK?

One area in which Project 2025 separates itself from Washington's bipartisan approach to the Middle East is Turkey and the US-backed Kurdish groups in Syria.

Instead, it proposes a "rethinking of US support for YPG/PKK [People’s Protection Units / Kurdistan Worker’s Party] Kurdish forces".

The issue of the YPG has pitted Nato allies Washington and Ankara against each other for years.

Turkey says the YPG is an arm of the outlawed PKK group. But the Kurdish YPG militia has also been a key part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an armed group that has been the US's principal partner on the ground in Syria against Islamic State (IS).

The PKK is also labelled a terrorist organisation by the US.

Middle East Eye reported in March that Ankara rapidly accelerated its attacks on the SDF amid Israel's war on Gaza. The group fears that it will be ditched by the US should Washington withdraw from Syria.

Project 2025 says there is a need to rethink US support of the Kurdish armed fighters in Syria to keep Turkey "from 'hedging' toward Russia or China". But this policy doctrine is not that different from Trump's approach to Syria, Turkey and the US-backed Kurdish fighters.

Under the Trump administration, the US imposed major sanctions on Turkey and expelled Ankara from the joint-F-35 fighter jet programme after it acquired the Russian-made S-400 missile defence system.

But in a new book HR McMaster, Trump's former national security advisor, says that the president listened and was amenable to Erdogan's description of US support for the SDF. According to McMaster, in a call on 24 November 2017 Erdogan described continued arms transfers to the SDF as a waste of money.

“Trump fell for it. ‘You're right, it is 'ridiculous,’  [Trump told Erdogan]," the book reported. "I told General McMaster no weapons to anyone, now that it is over. I told General McMaster that to his face!"

McMaster said Trump had never ordered him to stop the delivery of weapons.

What is Quad 2.0 and who does it include?

The Biden administration announced in 2022 that the US was launching a four-nation summit with India, Israel and the UAE.

This led to the creation of the I2U2, a partnership later dubbed the "Quad 2.0" in reference to the quadrilateral agreement between the US, Australia, Japan and India.

Project 2025 has called for an additional arrangement, stating that "it is in the US national interest to build a Middle East security pact that includes Israel, Egypt, the Gulf states, and potentially India, as a second 'Quad' arrangement".

The group, suggested by the Heritage Foundation, would aim to add another element of security and military cooperation to the I2U2 pact.

The US's Middle East allies have also been calling for Washington to agree to a Nato-style security pact, and the Biden administration has reportedly been negotiating a possible security pact with Saudi Arabia.

But such an agreement would appear to contradict Project 2025's calls elsewhere for the US's Gulf allies to "take responsibility" for their own defences.

What about Project 2025 and Palestine?

While in power, the Trump administration tried to weaken the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is responsible for the administration of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

In 2018, Trump shut the office of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), the political party that heads the PA, in Washington.

Now, Project 2025 states: "The Palestinian Authority should be defunded."

The US has provided security assistance to the PA for decades, and the office of the US Security Coordinator for Israel and the PA was established in March 2005 to better coordinate between the two.

This policy is in direct contradiction of the Democratic Party, which continues to back the PA.

Project 2025: Arm against Iran

The document advocates sanctions against Iran to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

In 2018, Trump decided to exit the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and reinstitute major sanctions on the country.

Iran continued to comply with the deal for several months after the US left but then began enriching uranium at levels higher than allowed by the agreement.

While Trump argued at the time that the agreement was allowing Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, Iran is now closer to enriching enough uranium to build a bomb than it was before. Iran has said it does not seek to build a nuclear arsenal.

Part of Project 2025's strategy to counter Iran is for the US to continue arming Israel, which again echoes Trump, and ensure that "Israel has both the military means and the political support and flexibility to take what it deems to be appropriate measures to defend itself against the Iranian regime and its regional proxies Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad".

But despite the Heritage Foundation's hawkish approach, it falls short of advocating direct military action against the country; nor does it include Yemen's Houthis in the list of Iran-aligned groups against which Israel needs to defend itself.

What about US aid to Yemen and Syria?

Project 2025 suggests ditching several humanitarian missions it says are not aligned with US interests, including the US Agency for International Development's projects in Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen.

With the Taliban in charge of Afghanistan, the Bashar al-Assad government controlling much of Syria, and the Houthi movement running most of Yemen, such aid projects are being "controlled by malign actors," it argues.

But ending the aid projects could have a major impact on those countries, which have some of the worst humanitarian situations in the world.

For example, the US has given around $6bn to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, which has seen a sustained lessening of the conflict thanks to a truce between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition.

What about the US and arms sales?

Project 2025 also breaks from the bipartisan consensus on arms exports.

It is longstanding practice for the US president to provide prior notification to Congress about potential arms sales before making any official actions: sometimes, the administration will not delay the sale if Congress raises significant concerns.

But Project 2025 says the executive branch should no longer notify Congress about weapons sales in advance as  "informal congressional notification or 'tiered review' is a hindrance to ensuring timely sales to our global partners.

"The tiered review process is not codified in law; it is merely a practice by which the Department of State provides a preview of prospective arms transfers before Congress is formally notified."

However, the president is still required under US law to issue a formal notice to Congress 30 days before any arms sale worth more than $14m is finalised.