“As president, I will never waver in defending America’s security and ideals. Because in the perpetual struggle between democracy and tyranny, I know which side I’m on; and which side America is on,” said Vice President Kamala Harris in her speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. In her first interview after assuming the party’s presidential nomination, she addressed the war in Gaza last Thursday to maintain that, if she wins the November elections, she will maintain the line of her predecessor, Joe Biden, of demanding an immediate ceasefire but not turning off the tap on arms sales to Israel.
Little by little, the Democratic candidate, who in the first weeks avoided giving great details about her government proposals, is giving more details about how she plans her foreign policy if she were to occupy the Oval Office. In her first brushstrokes, she wanted to present herself as a strong and experienced leader – “I will strengthen, not abdicate, our global leadership” – who will follow in the footsteps of her predecessor but make her own decisions. And, with this, mark a radical contrast with the “America first” of Donald Trump, who has repeatedly questioned in public Harris’s ability to confront autocrats such as Kim Jong-un or Vladimir Putin.
Whoever takes office on January 20, 2025 will face a more than complicated scenario. In Europe, the bloodiest war since 1945. In the Middle East, the precipice is in sight. In the Indo-Pacific, a cold war on trade and technology. An ever-increasing rapprochement between Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. The spectre of disinformation and cyber interference looms around the world.
Meanwhile, as a result of an era in which Trump pushed US allies to invest more in their own defence and Biden launched a web of new regional alliances, military spending is multiplying. NATO has expanded and modernised; in the Indo-Pacific, cooperation between Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia is strengthening.
Harris and her campaign argue that she is, other than Biden himself, the most recent candidate with foreign policy experience in 35 years, dating back to the days of George Bush Sr. The vice president recalls that during her three and a half years in office she has traveled to 21 countries and met with nearly 150 foreign leaders. During her years in the Senate she served on the Intelligence and National Security committees, which gave her access to some of the thorniest and most classified issues in American foreign policy and security.
“She has been in the Oval Office or the Situation Room every time there has been a major foreign policy decision. President Joe Biden values her advice. It’s not like she’s a newbie on the first day, she’ll have been familiar with these issues for four years, during a period that has been quite turbulent in international politics,” recalls Colin Kahl, former deputy secretary of defense during Biden’s term and now at Stanford University.
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Continuity
Throughout his speech to the Democratic convention, he stressed the importance of being “firm” in promoting US values and security abroad, and promised that as commander-in-chief, he will ensure “that the United States always has the most powerful, most lethal fighting force in the world.” He also highlighted the importance of alliances, his commitment to NATO and his support for Ukraine against the Russian occupation. All of these are pillars of Biden’s foreign policy and contrast radically with Trump’s proposals. The Republican candidate assures that he would end the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours” after his return to the White House and threatens not to respect the principle of mutual assistance if an Atlantic Alliance partner that does not meet military spending targets is attacked.
“The principles of American foreign policy will be consistent with those of the Joe Biden administration. Kamala Harris believes in strong American leadership, where our values and our strength must be combined for the well-being and security of Americans, but also for the benefit of the global common good,” says Susan Rice, former White House National Security Advisor in the Barack Obama era and now at Harvard University, about a hypothetical Harris administration. “It will strengthen our alliances around the world, not only in Europe and Asia, but also in places like Latin America, Africa and the Middle East,” she believes.
As vice president, Harris was charged with trying to tackle the root causes of immigration from Central America; as a candidate, she has promised to push through the bipartisan border control bill, which failed in Congress earlier this year due to Republican pushback after Trump criticized the measure. “I think immigration will continue to be a central issue in the hemisphere, just because of the numbers, particularly of Venezuelans, that continue to move,” former White House National Security Council Latin America adviser and Harris aide Roberta Jacobson told the publication. Americas Quarterly.
But Harris’s foreign policy will not be identical to Biden’s, Rice believes: “We will see differences in emphasis, differences in tone,” predicts the former US ambassador to the UN.
Part of it is a question of mindset. Biden is an old-school politician, forged in the ideological constraints of the Cold War. Harris, a former California attorney general and member of the generation that entered adulthood when the Berlin Wall fell, sees things more through the prism of legality. As the daughter of immigrants and political activists, she is also aware of other views in the rest of the world on imperialism, globalization or the problems in the Middle East.
It is precisely around this region, and the war in Gaza, where it had been anticipated that there could be greater distancing between the current tenant of the White House, who has resolutely supported Israel since the beginning of the conflict, and his vice president. Asked in her interview on Thursday about her position on a possible arms embargo against the allied country, Harris assured that she does not differ from Biden’s, and does not contemplate such a veto.
Israel and Gaza
The candidate stressed that her position is “unequivocal and unwavering” on Israel’s right to defend itself, but also pointed out that this right must be exercised in accordance with international law. And she stressed that “too many innocent Palestinians” – more than 40,000 – have died in this war. “We have to reach an agreement” for a ceasefire and an exchange of hostages, she insisted. Only in this way can the war end and a path be started that will allow a two-state solution and a life of dignity for the Palestinians.
Harris has been much less explicit about what has been one of the major axes of Democratic and Republican US foreign policy in recent years: the rivalry with Beijing. As president, she maintains, she will ensure that “the United States, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century” in areas such as artificial intelligence and space.
The Democratic electoral platform, drafted before Biden’s refusal to seek re-election and approved at the Chicago convention, provides a little more detail in its 91 pages: close collaboration with allies to respond to the “intense strategic competition” with the Asian giant; resistance to Chinese coercion and what Washington considers biased trade practices; strengthening the American industrial base; and, at the same time, collaboration with Beijing in areas of common interest, such as
the fight against climate change or fentanyl trafficking. The platform also criticizes Trump’s plans to impose 10% tariffs on all imports, and 60% on Chinese products, considering it a reckless step that would end up harming American consumers.
A pragmatic advisor of the Obama era
MVL
His pragmatism is shared by his former top foreign policy adviser in the White House, Philip Gordon, considered the favourite for the post of National Security Adviser in a possible Harris administration. This former assistant secretary of state for Europe and envoy to the Middle East in the Obama era is essentially pragmatic, highly critical of foreign interventions driven by idealism, and in particular the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
“The American policy debate around the Middle East suffers from the fallacy that there is an external American solution to every problem, even though decades of painful experience suggest otherwise… and regime change is the worst ‘solution,’” he wrote in his book “Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East” (2020).
Gordon’s promotion may not be the only change to the national security team in a new Democratic administration. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin are likely to leave after four years of enormous demands on both and, in the case of the latter, health problems.
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