Individual issues
A self-described economic nationalist, Bannon advocates for reductions in immigration and restrictions on free trade with China and Mexico. He has been described as a white nationalist but rejects the description. He generally believes in reducing the size of the federal bureaucracy, declaring at the Conservative Political Action Conference he favored the "deconstruction of the administrative state".
In May 2025, Bannon voiced opposition to a bipartisan proposal that would expand anti-BDS laws punishing the boycott of Israel.
Bannon was a strong opponent of the Paris climate agreement. During his time in the Trump administration, he successfully persuaded Donald Trump to withdraw from it.
Bannon favors reducing immigration, both legal and illegal immigration, to the U.S. and asserts that immigration threatens national sovereignty. Bannon has suggested that too many Silicon Valley chief executives are Asian or South Asian, and that this undermines "civic society". In a 2015 radio appearance, Bannon expressed opposition to resettling any refugees of the Syrian Civil War in the U.S. In a 2016 radio appearance, Bannon asserted that illegal immigration was "horrific" but that legal immigration was "the beating heart of this problem"; that levels of legal immigration to the U.S. were "scary"; and that legal immigrants had "kinda overwhelmed the country". On his podcast, Bannon emphasized the need for "MAGA shock troops" to actively support Donald Trump's plans for mass deportations. He envisions these loyalists not only participating in street-level actions but also embedding within the Trump administration to ensure the comprehensive removal of undocumented immigrants.
Bannon was the chairman of We Build the Wall, an organization involved in the construction of the proposed expansion of the Mexico–United States barrier.
Bannon often describes himself as an economic nationalist, criticizing crony capitalism, Austrian economics, and the objectivist capitalism of Ayn Rand. He also generally considers himself a free-market capitalist, however in May 2025 Steve Bannon described his team as being Neo-Brandeisians and advocated in favor of Lina Khan's administration of the FTC. He is also considered to be a market fundamentalist. Bannon favors raising federal income taxes to 44 percent for those earning incomes over $5 million a year as a way to pay for middle class tax cuts. He also supports significantly increasing spending on infrastructure, describing himself as "the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan".
In 2014, during a conference at the Vatican, Bannon criticized Wall Street for its role in the 2008 financial crisis. He has also criticized bail outs for big banks and is angered by the fact that Wall Street banks have not been held accountable for the financial crisis, which he says fueled populist fury and groups such as the Tea Party.
Bannon has praised Democratic politicians Ro Khanna, Sherrod Brown, and John Fetterman for their economically populist views, particularly regarding corporate offshoring. Khanna has, in turn, agreed with Bannon on several occasions, praising Bannon's support for increasing taxes on corporations and opposition to "unfettered globalization and automation".
Amid ongoing national debates on gun violence and gun control, Bannon has been vocal in advocating for broader access to firearms, emphasizing the importance of the Second Amendment. He has been vocal in warning Trump against any shifts towards gun control, emphasizing the potential for intense backlash from the president's base. A notable instance of this was his reaction to the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, where Bannon insisted that any move by Trump towards gun control would be the "end of everything," suggesting that it would be received even more negatively than an immigration amnesty bill by Trump's political base. Expanding on his pro-gun stance, Bannon sparked controversy by advocating for the arming and training of children in the use of firearms. Speaking at Turning Point USA's America Fest in December 2023, he proposed that gun classes should be integrated into school curriculums as a means for children to defend themselves against bullies.
He is generally skeptical of military intervention abroad, opposing proposals for the expansion of U.S. involvement in the War in Afghanistan, the Syrian Civil War, and the crisis in Venezuela.
In Afghanistan, he supported a proposal by Erik Prince for the deployment of private military contractors instead of the U.S. military. He believes "there is no military solution" to the 2017 North Korea crisis.
Bannon has described U.S. allies in Europe, the Persian Gulf, the South China Sea, the Strait of Malacca, as well as South Korea and Japan, as having become "protectorates of the United States" that do not "make an effort to defend [themselves]", and believes NATO members should pay a minimum of 2% of GDP on defense.
Bannon opposes upgrading the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Bannon strongly favors U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, and was supportive of the approach taken by Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman during the 2017 Qatar diplomatic crisis.
During his tenure as White House chief strategist, Bannon opposed the 2017 Shayrat missile strike, but lost the internal debate on the matter to Kushner. He also expressed skepticism about the 2020 assassination of Qasem Soleimani, questioning whether it was "necessary to kill this guy and to kill him now and to exacerbate the military issues", and warned that an escalation with Iran could undermine Trump's support with "working-class, middle-class people, particularly people whose sons and daughters actually fight in these wars".
He has referred to himself as a "proud Christian Zionist" in reference to his support of Israel. Bannon reportedly spoke often with Trump donor Sheldon Adelson, and was alarmed at a push for a renewed Middle East peace process. He has described Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas as a "terrorist". He has advocated giving the land in the West Bank to Jordan and in Gaza to Egypt. In 2025, Bannon suggested a Three-state solution, which would include a Christian state.
In June 2025, Bannon opposed the involvement of the United States in the Twelve-Day War. During a meeting with Trump prior to the American strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, Bannon suggested to Trump that Israeli intelligence could not be trusted, that bunker buster bombs may not work as planned, and that striking Iran put U.S. soldiers in the Middle East at risk. Following Israeli violations of the Twelve-Day War ceasefire, he stated that Israel is "not an ally" of the United States and described pro-Israel commentator Mark Levin as "Tel Aviv Levin". Bannon has also called for an investigation into Fox News over its coverage of the war, suggesting it was acting at the behest of Israel. Bannon later accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of "pathological lies" in order to involve the United States in Israel's future conflicts, after Netanyahu claimed the Make America Great Again movement was incompatible with anti-Israel views.
Bannon believes the U.S. is not merely in a Cold War but already in a "hot war" with China, especially in the domains of information and economics. Bannon expressed concerns about China's growing influence in Asia, viewing the nation as expansionist and anticipating a global culture clash. He holds the view that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) must be confronted and suggests that the ongoing informational and economic confrontations will escalate into a "kinetic war". Bannon believes a military confrontation between the US and China in the South China Sea is likely to occur within the next decade. He highlighted China's construction of artificial islands, equating them to stationary aircraft carriers with missiles, as a primary concern.
According to Chaos Under Heaven, a book by Josh Rogin, Bannon was the leader of a group of officials that wanted Trump to "speed the downfall" of the CCP and that "believed in economic nationalism, the return of manufacturing from abroad, and the protection of domestic industries, even at the expense of free trade". The book wrote that Bannon "believed the only way to save our country and the free world is to bring down the CCP as quickly as possible". Regarding China, Bannon said, "My belief is pretty straightforward, that the CCP is exactly like Mussolini, Hitler, and Tojo. These are gangsters, they are criminals. They think like criminals, they act like criminals and they need to be treated like criminals". Bannon frequently used the phrase "CCP delende est", paraphrasing Cato the Elder, who said "Carthago delenda est". During his tenure in the White House, Bannon allied with trade advisor Peter Navarro, who advocated for a hawkish stance against China. Bannon had read Navarro's books about China and used his influence on Trump to advance Navarro's views.
Although "those who met him say" Bannon initially favored the British National Party (BNP) and the English Defence League (EDL) in the United Kingdom, he later backed the UK Independence Party (UKIP).
Bannon urged Boris Johnson, who Bannon said in July 2018 that he had known "over the last year" and was "very impressed" with, to challenge Prime Minister Theresa May. According to a BuzzFeed News report, Bannon was in private contact with Johnson during his visit to Britain that month, and the two men were previously in text communication during their respective tenures as White House chief strategist and British foreign secretary.
Bannon has defended Trump's ties to and praise for Russian president Vladimir Putin. He expressed a belief that traditionalists see Russia as an ally. Bannon said they "believe that at least Putin is standing up for traditional institutions, and he's trying to do it in a form of nationalism—and I think that people, particularly in certain countries, want to see the sovereignty for their country. They want to see nationalism for their country" rather than a "pan-European Union". According to the book War for Eternity, Bannon met Russian far-right political philosopher Aleksandr Dugin in Rome in 2018 to advocate closer relations between the United States and Russia, as well as Traditionalist philosophy. Bannon supports closer ties to Russia to ally them against China.
In 2018, Bannon announced plans to launch a new political operation beginning with an attempt to unite populist parties across Europe before the 2019 European Parliament election. With the project to be based in Brussels, he indicated he would spend 50 percent of his time in Europe from the following November, working at locations throughout the continent. Later that year, Bannon formed a foundation called The Movement to connect far-right groups throughout Europe.
Bannon is supportive of European right-wing populist national conservative movements such as the Hungarian Fidesz, the French National Front (now National Rally), the Spanish Vox, the Dutch Party for Freedom, Alternative for Germany, the Italian Northern League, the Freedom Party of Austria, the Sweden Democrats, the Danish People's Party, the Flemish Vlaams Belang and the New Flemish Alliance, the Polish Law and Justice, and the Swiss People's Party.
In 2007, Bannon proposed and developed a script for a documentary titled Destroying the Great Satan: The Rise of Islamic Fascism in America. The film's plot was that there was an effort by Muslims to take over America.
In 2010, Bannon said, "Islam is not a religion of peace. Islam is a religion of submission". He also criticized George W. Bush for calling Islam a religion of peace. Bannon has said that Islam today is "something much darker" than Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. He has also stated, "If you're Sharia-compliant ... we don't want you here," and has accused U.S. newspapers of being "Sharia-compliant". He has also stated, "The elites in Europe ... are allowing an Islamic invasion to take place." and that the war with Islamic fascism is "metastasizing far quicker than governments can handle it."
In his talk delivered to a small conference in the Vatican during 2014, Bannon said: "If you look back at the long history of the Judeo-Christian West [sic] struggle against Islam, I believe that our forefathers kept their stance, and I think they did the right thing. I think they kept it out of the world, whether it was at Vienna, or Tours, or other places...it bequeathed to us the great institution that is the church of the West". He is reputed to believe Putin's Russia and Trump's America are Christian allies against the Islamic State and "radical Islamic terrorism". During his time in the Trump administration, Bannon and Stephen Miller helped orchestrate Executive Order 13769 which banned entrance into United States from seven majority Muslim countries. Bannon has been linked to the counter-jihad movement.
Bannon sees transhumanism as a dangerous and radical religion of "the technocratic elite". He accuses tech entrepreneurs of using "transhumanistic science" to control humanity and eradicate religion through advanced gene editing, robotics, and forced microscopic implants. He has accused transhumanists of wanting eternal life at the expense of disregarding people's religious beliefs. Bannon's recent preoccupation with transhumanism aligns with his anti-vaccine rhetoric, and he has adopted similar positions as Alex Jones on this topic. In discussions with his frequent podcast contributor Joe Allen, he also promotes viewpoints against AI and other new technologies inspired by "The Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski. On his podcast, Bannon said he was proud to be a Luddite and expressed concern that Homo sapiens could be replaced in the near future.
