Usha Vance – the lawyer who is now America’s ‘second lady’

Published

5 months ago

November 6, 2024

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Usha Vance is a lawyer, a Yale graduate, the Hindu daughter of Indian immigrants – and has just become the United States’ “second lady”.

She was thrust into the spotlight after her husband, JD Vance, was chosen as Donald Trump’s running mate in the 2024 presidential election.

Almost immediately, she quit her job as a lawyer and appeared on stage to introduce him at the Republican Convention.

There, she gave a flavour of her husband; a “working-class guy” who had overcome childhood traumas to attend Yale Law School.

A “meat and potatoes” man who had adapted to her vegetarian diet and learned to cook Indian food for her mother.

A “tough Marine” who had served in Iraq but loved nothing more than “playing with puppies and watching the movie Babe”.

That duality was also present in the way the pair positioned themselves as committed Republicans, but parents first and foremost.

Mrs Vance talked of her husband’s “over-riding ambition” to have a family, while he called her “an incredible lawyer and a better mom”.

Early life and family background

Mrs Vance, 38, was raised in San Diego by parents who had moved to the US from India in the 1970s.

Her mother is a biologist and provost at the University of California at San Diego; her father is an engineer, according to Mr Vance’s campaign.

In her introductory speech at the Republican Convention, she said her middle-class upbringing was very different to her husband’s experience growing up poor in Ohio.

“That JD and I could meet at all, let alone fall in love and marry is a testament to this great country,” Mrs Vance said. “It is also a testament to JD.”

In a June interview with Fox News alongside her husband, Mrs Vance talked about being raised in a religious household.

“My parents are Hindu and that is one of the things that made them such good parents, that made them really good people. And so I have seen the power of that.”

Mr Vance told the broadcaster his wife had helped him “re-engage” with his Christian faith.

Mrs Vance received an undergraduate degree at Yale University and a master of philosophy at the University of Cambridge through the Gates Cambridge scholarship.

She then returned to Yale for law school, where she met her now-husband.

How the couple met

In his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, Mr Vance said the two got to know each other through a class assignment, where he soon “fell hard” for his writing partner.

“In a place that always seemed a little foreign, Usha’s presence made me feel at home,” he wrote.

In a 2017 NBC interview, Mrs Vance described liking that Mr Vance – then just a friend – was “very diligent” when they were assigned to work together on a brief in law school.

“He would show up for these 9am appointments that I set for us to work on the brief together,” she said.

The pair graduated in 2013 and got married the following year.

They live in Cincinnati, Ohio, and have three children together: Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel.

Career as a lawyer

After law school, Mrs Vance spent a year clerking for Justice Brett Kavanaugh – who is now on the Supreme Court – when he served as an appeals court judge in Washington, followed by a year as a law clerk to Chief Justice John Roberts.

During that time, Justice Roberts authored a 5-4 ruling upholding Mr Trump’s travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority countries.

In another ruling, he was in the 7-2 majority that backed a Christian baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.

Until recently, Mrs Vance was an associate at the 200-lawyer Munger Tolles & Olson firm, where she focused on civil litigation and appeals.

The firm has counted Berkshire Hathaway, Bank of America, and PG&E among its clients.

Her clients there included a division of the Walt Disney Company and the Regents of the University of California, court records show.

A Munger spokesman said she had been an “excellent lawyer and colleague”.

What JD Vance has said about his wife

Talking about meeting as law students in a 2017 interview, Mr Vance said: “The thing I remember about Usha is how completely forward and confident with herself she was.”

In his memoir, he credited part of his success and happiness to his wife.

“Even at my best, I’m a delayed explosion – I can be defused, but only with skill and precision,” he wrote.

“It’s not just that I’ve learned to control myself but that Usha has learned how to manage me.”

He also told the Megyn Kelly Show podcast in 2020 that he benefits from having a “powerful female voice” on his shoulder.

“Usha definitely brings me back to earth a little bit, and if I maybe get a little bit too cocky or a little too proud, I just remind myself that she is way more accomplished than I am,” he said.

World

Inside a NATO base in Poland – as residents bordering Russia say ‘scare tactic’ is needed

Published

4 hours ago

April 10, 2025

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Inside a NATO base in Poland - as residents bordering Russia say 'scare tactic' is needed

Along the thin strip of beach and woodland known as the Vistula Spit which marks the northernmost demarcation between Poland and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, there is not much in the way of a border.

Just some torn wire fencing and a few rotten posts which seem to stagger drunkenly into the shallows of the Baltic Sea.

Beneath a sign barring entry, we find a couple of empty bottles of Russian cognac and vodka.

It doesn’t feel like the edge of NATO territory.

“I don’t see much protection. It’s not good,” says Krzysztof from Katowice, who has come to inspect the border himself.

“We have to have some kind of scare tactic, something to show that we are trying to strengthen our army,” says Grzegorz, who lives nearby.

“At the same time I think I would not base the defence of our country solely on our army. I am convinced that Europe or America, if anything were to happen, will help us 100%.”

Poland is investing massively in its defence, with military spending set to hit 4.7% of GDP in 2025, more than any other NATO country.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said he will introduce voluntary military training for men of any age, and women too should they wish, so the army has a competent reserve force in the event of war.

He is investing $2.5bn in stronger border fortifications between Russia and Belarus, a project called East Shield which will include anti-tank obstacles, bunkers and potentially minefields too.

Along with its Baltic neighbours, Poland is withdrawing from the Ottawa convention against the use of land mines. It hasn’t committed to using them, but it wants to have that option.

We’ve been granted access to one of the cornerstones of Polish, and European defence, which is a couple of hours drive from the Vistula spit at the Redowicze military base.

Aegis Ashore Poland, together with its sister site in Romania, are the land-based arms of NATO’s missile defence shield over Europe, which is run by the US navy.

They are symbols of the US commitment to NATO and to the protection of Europe.

And despite changes at the top of the Pentagon it is “business as usual”, says Captain Michael Dwan who oversees air and missile defence within the US Sixth Fleet.

“Our mission to work with NATO forces has been unchanged. And so our commitment from the United States perspective and what capability we bring to ballistic missile defence and the defence of NATO is championed here in Poland.”

As far as Russia is concerned, NATO’s two missile defence bases in Romania and Poland represent a NATO threat on their doorstep and are therefore a “priority target for potential neutralisation”, per Russia’s foreign ministry.

NATO says the installations are purely defensive and their SM-3 interceptor missiles are not armed and are not intended to carry warheads. Russia counters they could easily be adapted to threaten Russia.

Not the case, Captain Dwan says.

“It’s not a matter of moving offensive weapons here into the facility, the hardware and the infrastructure is simply not installed.

“It would take months or years to change the mission of this site and a significant amount of money and capability and design.”

With so much marked “secret” on the site, it seems amazing to be granted the access.

But for NATO, transparency is part of deterrence. They want potential adversaries to know how sophisticated their radar and interception systems are.

They know that if they carried warheads on site, that would make them a target so they don’t.

Deterrence also depends on whether potential adversaries believe in the US’s commitment to NATO and to Europe’s defence.

On an operational level, as far as the troops are concerned, that commitment may still be iron-clad.

But as far as its commander-in-chief goes, there is still – as with so much around Donald Trump’s presidency – a great deal of uncertainty.

In the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon President Trump suggested he might bundle a potential US troop drawdown in Europe together with the issue of EU trade and tariffs.

“Nice to wrap it up in one package,” he said, “it’s nice and clean”.

Probably not the way Europe sees it, not with a resurgent Russia on their doorstep, economic tailwinds breeding animosity and the notion of Pax Americana crumbling at their feet.

World

Asianmarkets bounce back after Trump pauses higher tariffs for most countries – despite increasing those on China to 125%

Published

10 hours ago

April 10, 2025

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Asianmarkets bounce back after Trump pauses higher tariffs for most countries - despite increasing those on China to 125%

Asian markets have reacted positively after Donald Trump paused his so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on most of America’s trading partners for 90 days, despite the US president increasing those on China to 125%.

There have been fears of a global recession and stock markets around the world had plummeted after Mr Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs on Wednesday 2 April.

However, Japan’s Nikkei share average was up 8.2% by 3.50am BST, while the broader Topix had risen 7.5%.

Similarly, the S&P 500 stock index had jumped 9.5% and global markets bounced back following Mr Trump’s announcement on Wednesday that the increased tariffs on nearly all trading partners would now be paused.

Tariffs latest: Trump gives reasons for pausing some tariffs

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Mr Trump said the “90-day pause” was for the “more than 75 countries” who had not retaliated against his tariffs “in any way”.

He added that during this period they would still have to pay a “substantially lowered” 10% tariff, which is “effective immediately”.

It is lower than the 20% tariff that Mr Trump had set for goods from the European Union, 24% on imports from Japan and 25% on products from South Korea.

The UK was already going to face a blanket 10% tariff under the new system.

Mr Trump said the increased 125% tariff on imported goods from China was “effective immediately”.

He added: “At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realise that the days of ripping off the USA, and other countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable.”

What’s in Trump’s tariff pause?

Here’s what Donald Trump’s tariff pause entails:

‘Reciprocal’ tariffs on hold

• Higher tariffs that took effect today on 57 trading partners will be paused for 90 days

• These include the EU, Japan and South Korea, all of which will face a baseline 10% duty instead

• Countries that already had a 10% levy imposed since last week – such as the UK – aren’t affected by the pause

China tariffs increased

• Trump imposed a higher 125% tariff on China

• That’s in addition to levies he imposed during his first term

• China had hit the US with 84% tariff earlier today, following tit-for-tat escalations

No change for Canada or Mexico

• Canadian and Mexican goods will remain subject to 25% fentanyl-related tariffs if they don’t comply with the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement’s rules of origin

• Compliant goods are exempt

Car and metal tariffs remain

• Trump’s pause doesn’t apply to the 25% tariffs he levied on steel and aluminium in March and on cars (autos) on 3 April

• This 25% tariff on car parts does not come into effect until 3 May

Sectors at risk

• Copper, lumber, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and critical minerals are expected to be subject to separate tariffs, in the same way autos are

Hours after Mr Trump announced the pause on tariffs for most countries, a White House official clarified that this did not apply to the 25% duties imposed on some US imports from Mexico and Canada.

The tariffs were first announced in February and Mexico and Canada were not included in the “Liberation Day” announcements.

Hours before the 125% tariff on China was revealed, Beijing said it was increasing tariffs on US goods by 50%.

It meant tariffs of 84% would be enforced on US goods – up from the 34% China had previously planned.

China ‘want to make a deal’

Asked why he posted “BE COOL” on Truth Social hours before announcing his tariff pause, Mr Trump told reporters at the White House: “I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line.”

“They were getting yippy, you know, were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid,” he added.

Mr Trump continued: “China wants to make a deal, they just don’t know how to go about it.

“[They’re] quite the proud people, and President Xi is a proud man. I know him very well, and they don’t know quite how to go about it, but they’ll figure it out.

“They’re in the process of figuring out, but they want to make a deal.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the walk back was part of a grand negotiating strategy by Mr Trump.

“President Trump created maximum negotiating leverage for himself,” she said, adding that the news media “clearly failed to see what President Trump is doing here”.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also insisted Mr Trump had strengthened his hand through his tariffs.

“President Trump created maximum negotiating leverage for himself,” he said.

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Mr Bessent said Mr Trump decided to raise tariffs on China because Beijing hadn’t reached out to the US and instead increased its own levies on US goods.

Downing Street said that the UK will “coolly and calmly” continue its negotiations with the US.

A Number 10 spokeswoman said: “A trade war is in nobody’s interests. We don’t want any tariffs at all, so for jobs and livelihoods across the UK, we will coolly and calmly continue to negotiate in Britain’s interests.”