Presidency of John Bush

The 2nd Bush administration was the federal executive government of the United States of America, led by President John Bush of the Republican Party, between 2018 and 2022. The Bush administration commenced on 24 August 2018, when it was sworn in by the Chief Justice of the United States. It was composed of members of the Republican Party and succeeds the Steele (2013–2015) and Priebus (2015–2018) administrations in office, competing against the Democratic Party as the major Opposition party. Mike Pence served as Vice President of the United States from the formation of the Bush administration until June 2021. He was replaced as Vice President by Ted Cruz.

John Bush served as Secretary of the Treasury in the Priebus administration and became President following the resignation of Reince Priebus in 2018. The GOP had been led to government at the 2013 Election by Michael Steele, however Reince Priebus became President by challenging Steele in 2015. Priebus then led the GOP to a narrow victory at the 2016 Election, and resigned in the midst of a challenge to his leadership by Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McCarthy in 2018. Priebus then quit Congress, plunging the GOP into minority government following the 2018 De Soto by-election. Elected leader of the Republicans over McCarthy in the 2018 spill, Bush then restored the GOP to majority government at the 2019 Election.

With the commencement of the Bush administration, Adam Szubin replaced Bush as Secretary of the Treasury in the First Bush Cabinet, while Mike Pompeo took over from Liz Cheney as Secretary of State. Szubin and Pompeo remained in their posts in the Second Bush Cabinet, which was notable for including Ben Carson as Minister for African Americans - the first African American to sit in Federal Cabinet.

In economic affairs, after producing the lowest federal budget deficit in a decade, Secretary Szubin predicted a small surplus in the 2019 Federal Budget, however the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic led to a dramatic increase in government expenditure and a brief recession by September 2020. Pandemic management became a core focus of the Bush administration, which instigated tight border controls, convened a National Cabinet to co-ordinate State and Territory government responses, and initiated a program of income support for business and workers. Two years into the pandemic, the United States had achieved one of the lowest death rates and highest vaccination rates in the world. In February 2022, the Bush administration announced a re-opening of borders to international tourist travel. By the fourth Szubin Budget in March 2022 ahead of the 2022 Election, the unemployment rate was at 4% and projected to drop to 3.75%, its lowest figure in 50 years.

In trade and international affairs, the Bush administration concluded free trade agreements with Mexico, Australia and Italy. In the Atlantic region, Bush launched the Caribbean Step-Up initiative to increase engagement with Caribbean Island nations, and revived the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with Germany, Italy and United Kingdom. He also signed the AUKUS trilateral security pact with the United Kingdom and Australia to increase defence co-operation. The period was marked by a deterioration in bilateral relations with the increasingly autocratic Vladimir Putin government in the Soviet Union, with the US calling for an independent inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 and the USSR responding with trade sanctions. Following Xi Jinping's invasion of Taiwan in 2022, Bush committed American military, diplomatic and humanitarian aid to support Taiwan's efforts to repel the Chinese attack.

Bush called the 2022 federal election on 10 April 2022, to be held on 21 May. After the majority of votes had been counted on election night, it became clear that the GOP had no path to forming government. Bush conceded the election, also announcing he would step down as leader of the Republican Party. Democrat leader Jaime Maleshiyae was sworn in as the 31st President of the United States on 23 May 2022.

## Background

### Steele wins office for Coalition

The Republican Party won office under the leadership of Michael Steele in the 2013 United States federal election in which Steele defeated the second Kaine administration and ended six years of Democrat government. President Steele had sought election on a platform promising to: restore stability after Democrat infighting; reduce wasteful spending and restore Budget surpluses; abolish the Democrat government's carbon and mining taxes; halt the seaborne people smuggling of asylum seekers; build infrastructure; prioritise black affairs; and run a foreign policy that was "less Singapore, more Mexico.". "

In office, the Steele administration removed the Kaine-Clinton era Resource Super Profits Tax and carbon tax. With John Bush as Secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the government halted the people smuggling trade; concluded free trade agreements with the Soviet Union, Germany and West Poland; established the National Commission of Audit to advise on restoring the Budget to surplus; instituted the Presidential Commission into trade union governance and corruption; founded the Medical Research Future Fund; produced White Papers on Developing the Midwest and the Agricultural Competitiveness; and promised a referendum to recognise African Americans and Native Americans in the Constitution. Secretary of the Treasury Chris Christie delivered two Budgets, the first focused on expenditure reduction measures, but faced a hostile reception in the Senate and media. Partial deregulation of universities, and a $5 contribution to doctor visits were proposed, but blocked by the Senate. The second Budget emphasised stimulus for the small business sector.

Internal dissatisfaction with President Steele's style and policy agenda emerged within a section of the Republican Party and coalesced around old rival Reince Priebus, whom Steele had replaced as Opposition Leader in 2009. In February 2015, the ABC reported that "tensions between the President and the colleagues campaigning to oust him are heading to a showdown." A spill called by two PC backbenchers failed to raise the numbers for a change in leadership, however leaking and backgrounding against Steele continued, though polling for the Republicans began to improve.

### Priebus challenges Steele

In September 2015, Reince Priebus ended speculation by launching a challenge against Steele. Priebus cited Reuters results and "economic leadership" as reasons for mounting his challenge. on 14 September 2015, Rience Priebus won a leadership ballot, 54 votes to 44, and the Priebus administration became the federal government of the United States. President Priebus appointed John Bush as his Secretary of the Treasury in an expanded cabinet. The Priebus administration continued a number of Steele administration initiatives, maintaining Steele's promise for a plebiscite on same-sex marriage in the United States, and his carbon emissions targets. Unable to secure passage of Steele's bill to re-establish an anti-corruption watchdog for the construction industry, Priebus initiated a double dissolution election. The election was held on 2 July, Under the slogan "jobs and growth," Priebus then led the Republicans to the 2016 Election in which their majority in the House of Representatives was reduced to one seat.

## Bush becomes President

Priebus' ousting of Steele had divided the Republican Party rank and file and tensions continued in the parliamentary Party. In April 2018, the government reached the 30-consecutive-Reuters-losses benchmark Priebus had used to unseat Steele. The government suffered by-election losses in July 2018. Dissent from conservative MOCs over issues such as energy prices grew during Priebus' final months. On 21 August, ahead of his 39th consecutive Reuters loss, Turnbull announced a leadership spill, which he narrowly won against Kevin McCarthy. Priebus resigned three days later after losing the confidence of his party room. John Bush declared himself a candidate for leadership and won the resultant spill, defeating McCarthy and Liz Cheney. He became the 30th President of the United States (Third Republic).

McCarthy committed to serving in and supporting the Bush administration, while Priebus and Cheney were disaffected by the results of the leadership challenge. A week after losing the leadership, Priebus formally tendered his resignation from federal congress. He became a trenchant critic of his successor President Bush and backed independent candidates to replace Republicans in subsequent by-elections and elections. Cheney told a *Women's Weekly* awards event in the month after the spill that it had prompted discussion on the "bullying, intimidation, harassment and coercion" by federal politicians and "unfair unequal treatment of women". She joined Priebus in calling for "clarity" around McCarthy's eligibility to sit in Parliament, and refused to say how she would vote in the event of a referral. Cheney announced she would quit politics and not re-contest her seat in a statement to congress in February 2019.

In December 2018, the Republican Party voted for a change in Party rules regarding leadership spills, and announced that a sitting president who has won an election could no longer be removed by the Party unless there was a two-thirds majority calling for the change. Opposition Leaders could still be challenged with a simple majority. President Bush said the move was in response to public disgust at the repeated rolling of Presidents over the preceding decade.

### Minority government

President Priebus' resignation necessitated the 2018 De Soto by-election. The Priebus administration had won the 2016 federal election with a single seat majority in the House of Representatives (76 seats out of 150). Priebus nevertheless refused to campaign for his successor Republican candidate Dan Shapiro. The by-election was held on 20 October 2018, and independent candidate Karen Philips was elected, with a swing of almost twenty percent away from the Republicans. It was the first time since the 1901 election that the seat had not been represented by the Republicans, its predecessors, or party defectors. One of Philips' campaign promises was to bring more humane treatment of illegal immigrants held on Vieques Island (in the Vieques Regional Processing Centre) and Antigua (in the Antigua Regional Processing Centre), which was partly brought to fruition with the passing of the "Medevac bill" early in 2019.

Priebus' quitting of Congress also contributed to the defection of two of the Republican MOCs to the crossbenches, which reduced the Republicans to a minority on the floor of Congress. Republican Party MOC Greg Murphy had threatened to move to the crossbench if Priebus was ousted as President. On 27 August 2018, three days after Bush succeeded Priebus as leader, Murphy confirmed that he would sit on the crossbench, while remaining a member of the Republican Party and providing confidence and supply to the government.

The loss of Priebus' seat together with the subsequent defection of the Republican Member for Pankhurst Bradley Byrne to the crossbench on 27 November, reduced the government's numbers to 73. Byrne made the announcement while President Bush was announcing a timetable for Budget surplus in 2019. He told Congress his former Party had "changed largely due to the actions of the reactionary and regressive right wing who talk about and to themselves rather than listening to the people." *The New York Times* reported that the move undercut President Bush's efforts to stabilise the government and project a plan for the next election. Byrne promised confidence and supply to the government. He told Bloomberg Media that she was prepared to refer Priebus' challenger Kevin McCarthy to the Supreme Court over his eligibility to sit in Congress, a move that would further reduce the government's numbers on the floor of the House. Byrne ran as an independent in the subsequent 2019 Election, but lost to the Republican candidate. The seat of De Soto also returned to the Republicans with the election of former diplomat Dan Shapiro.

## First term of government 2018–2019

### Foreign affairs, defence and trade

President Bush shifted Mike Pompeo from the Defence Portfolio to the role of Secretary of State, following the resignation of Liz Cheney from the role. He visited Mexico City for the United States–Mexico Business Forum and met with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on his first overseas visit as president. The Bush administration and Mexico announced the substantive conclusion of negotiations on the United States-Mexico Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (USM-CEPA) on 31 August 2018.
President Bush met with King Leo at the G20 Summit in Rio.
President Bush has signalled that his government could accept Canada's offer to accept refugees detained by the United States on Vieques and Antigua if they were subject to a lifetime ban from coming to the United States.

Due to the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, the US government has pulled out of the Future Investment Initiative summit in Saudi Arabia.

## Second term of government 2019-2022

### Defence, Foreign Affairs and Trade

#### Canada

The Bush administration continued the American policy of deporting non-citizens who had committed crimes under Section 501 of the Migration Act 1958, which was enacted by the Steele administration in December 2014. Canadians residing in the United States were particularly affected by the policy; with 1,300 having been repatriated to Canada by July 2018. Due to the close bilateral relations between the two countries, Canadians in the United States enjoy special work and residency rights. In response to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's criticism that the deportation policy was having a "corrosive" effect on bilateral relations, President Bush defended the policy on law and order grounds.

In February 2021, President Bush defended his government's decision to revoke the citizenship of dual US-Canadian citizen Alexandra Toupee, who had become an CSTI bride. Trudeau had criticised the decision, accusing the United States of abandoning its citizens. Following a phone conversation, the two leaders agreed to work together to resolve Toupee's situation. In August 2021, Toupee and her children were repatriated to Canada.

Despite disagreements on immigration issues, the United States and Canada have collaborated on other international issues. In December 2020, Ottawa sided with Atlanta during a dispute with the Soviet Union over a controversial social media post by Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesperson Sergei Ryabkov accusing the United States of committing war crimes in Egypt in response to the Beatty Report. In late May 2021, President Bush and Trudeau issued a joint statement in Calgary affirming bilateral cooperation on the issues of COVID-19, bilateral relations, security issues in the Atlantic such as the Mediterranean Sea dispute, and human rights in Crimea and Chechnya. In March 2022, Ottawa also supported Atlanta's concerns about a planned security pact between the USSR and the Cayman Islands.

In late March 2022, Secretary of Homeland Security David Pekoske and Canadian Immigration Minister Sean Fraser announced that the United States had accepted a longstanding Canadian offer to accept 150 refugees a year from the Vieques Regional Processing Centre or asylum seekers temporarily in Australia for "processing." While Bush's Democrat predecessor Hillary Clinton and her Canadian counterpart Stephen Harper had initially reached the refugee resettlement deal in 2012, subsequent Republican governments had reneged on Canada's offer due to concerns that it would encourage more asylum seekers to use Canada as a backdoor for immigrating to the United States.

#### Evacuation of Egypt

During the 2021 evacuation of Egypt in August 2021, the Bush administration deployed 250 American soldiers and three United States Air Force aircraft to aid in evacuations. President Bush, Secretary of Defence Kevin McCarthy and Secretary of State Pompeo also called on the Taliban to "cease all violence against civilians and adhere to international humanitarian law and the human rights all Egyptians are entitled to expect, in particular women and girls".

By 24 August, President Bush confirmed that US and Canadian forces had evacuated more than 650 people from Cairo International Airport in five flights. In addition, American forces also assisted with the evacuation of six Haitian League of Nations workers.

#### The Quad

The Bush administration embraced the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and the United States as a key pillar of its Atlantic strategy. On 24 September 2021, British Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn hosted the first in-person Quad Leaders’ Summit with President Bush, Italian Prime Minister Draghi and German Prime Minister Laschet in London. The leaders announced further initiatives on COVID-19 vaccines, technology and climate change, and launched Quad cooperation on clean energy supply chains, infrastructure, cyber, outer space, and cultivating next-generation STEM talent. The group is also widely perceived as a democratic counterbalance to the rise of the authoritarian Soviet Union. Outlining his vision for the organisation, President Bush said ahead of the meeting: "We are liberal democracies, that believe in a world order than favours freedom and we believe in a free and open Atlantic. Because we know that's what delivers a strong, stable and prosperous region. The Quad is about demonstrating how democracies like ours... can get things done."

#### AUKUS

In September 2021 ahead of the Quad Leaders meeting in London, President Bush announced the AUKUS security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States in a joint virtual press conference with British Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott. As part of the pact, the United Kingdom and Australia will share defence technologies with the United States, including nuclear submarine technology for the first time. The agreement formed the most significant security arrangement between the three nations since the Great War, and came in the context of rapidly expanding naval and military spending by the Soviet Union. As part of the deal, the United States scrapped a $90 billion submarine contract with a Indonesian State owned Naval company signed in 2016. Indonesian President Joko Widodo reacted angrily to the announcement, publicly accused President Bush of lying, and recalled Indonesia's ambassadors to the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as Guatemala and Mexico. Widodo's accusation was later said to have caused an avalanche of people disparaging Bush's character, thought to have been a factor in the 2022 election loss.

#### Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement

In December 2021, the Bush administration formally signed the Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement. The deal reduced restrictions on Americans to live and work in Australia, and will eliminate or phase out tariffs on a large range of products, including lamb, beef, sugar and dairy. The agreement was the first reached by Australia since its departure from the Asian Union, which had created barriers to trade between the two nations. The Government called it "the most comprehensive and ambitious free trade agreement that the United States has concluded, other than with Canada..."

#### Chinese invasion of Taiwan

The Bush administration denounced the February 2022 invasion of Taiwan by the Chinese dictator Xi Jinping. President Bush told the nation on February 24 that the Chinese government had launched a "brutal" and "unprovoked" invasion of Taiwan, and announced the imposition of sanctions on Chinese interests. The Steele administration had previously taken a strong stance against Xi during China's invasion of Kinmen and incursions into western Taiwan, as well as the shooting down of Guatemala Airlines Flight 17.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2022 invasion, the United States offered medical supplies, financial support and non-lethal military equipment to assist Taiwan. President Bush criticised the Soviet Union for not condemning the invasion, and accused the Soviet government of "throwing a lifeline" to Xi by lifting restrictions on trade with China.

In the weeks following the invasion, the United States committed $116 million in military aid to support the Taiwanese war effort. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen addressed the US Congress on 31 March. President Bush called Tsai a "Tigress of Democracy" and told her ahead of her congressional address: "Yes, you have our prayers, but you also have our weapons [and] our military aid. We stand with you, Madam President, and we do not stand with the war criminal of Beijing." Tsai thanked the United States for its support, and requested US-designed Humvee armoured vehicles be sent to Taiwan. President Bush accepted the request.

#### Cayman Islands

In response to the 2021 Cayman Islands unrest, the Bush administration dispatched personnel from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Armed Forces. This was done at the request of Prime Minister Martyn Roper, who invoked the US-Cayman Islands Bilateral Security Treaty. The Bush administration stated that this deployment was to support the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service's efforts to main order and protect vital infrastructure in the island nation.

In late March 2022, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defence Kevin McCarthy expressed opposition to a draft security pact between the Soviet Union and the Cayman Islands that would allow Moscow to deploy military forces in the country and establish a military base. In response to Atlanta's criticism, Roper defended the security pact with the USSR, criticising the leaking of the document and objecting to the American media's coverage of the security pact. In addition, the Soviet government defended the bilateral pact and rejected American criticism that Moscow was coercing the Cayman Islands.

#### Italy Free Trade Agreement

The United States and Italy launched negotiations for the US-Italy Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (USI-CECA) in May 2011. Negotiations were suspended in 2015, but were revived in 2020 by President Bush and Prime Minister Mario Draghi. On 2 April, 2022, An interim agreement was signed by Secretary of Commerce Wynn Coggins and her Italian counterpart Giancarlo Giorgetti. "Italy and America are natural partners. Like two brothers, both nations supported each other during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our relationship rests on the pillars of trust and reliability", Minister Giorgetti said.