The stark contrast in worldview of Trump, Harris
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have two vastly different views of the world.
Trump sees a world of countries trying to unfairly take advantage of the United States, or of (expletive) countries that are not sending America “their best.” His views are wholly transactional. He prefers one-on-one to multilateral and his America First rhetoric stokes the isolationist impulse that has always been present in American foreign policy.
Harris, the child of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, sees the world from a very traditional internationalist perspective that emphasizes rules and norms and alliances. Where Trump sees competitors, she sees potential partners. Though she sat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, her primary foreign policy education has come serving under the most experienced foreign policy president in the nation’s history.
The three most important foreign policy issues in this election are Gaza, Ukraine, and China, not necessarily in that order. In many ways these challenges are interconnected. We have seen a group of countries, led by Russia and China, but including Iran, challenge the American-led rules-based order so painstakingly constructed after World War II.
The Biden administration has touted its efforts to develop and strengthen America’s alliances, whether it is the expansion of NATO, the creation of AUKUS and the Quad in the Asia-Pacific region, or the cooperative efforts by the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan to shoot down some 300 Houthi drones and missiles aimed at Israel.
One should be reminded that as president, Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord, killed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, started a trade war, threatened to leave NATO, withdrew from the World Health Organization in the middle of the pandemic, and left the Joint Comprehensive Partnership for Action, which allowed Iran to move ever closer to building a nuclear weapon.
Trump has claimed that neither the Russian invasion of Ukraine nor Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack would have happened if he had been president and that he would solve both conflicts within 24 hours. Those statements are unprovable and unserious.
As for China, Trump’s weapon of choice is tariffs. He has proposed 60% tariffs on the vast amount of goods coming from China. One can’t even fathom the extent of the economic and diplomatic blowback.
In stark contrast, Harris has supported NATO and aid to Ukraine and a cease-fire in Gaza to be followed by an effort to begin laying the groundwork for a two-state solution. She has had a prominent role in creating the architecture of resistance to China’s aggressive behavior in the Pacific region. Her approach has been described as “lawyerly.”
These are perilous times and the American public shows signs of weariness. In its latest polling, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs finds that only 56% of Americans agree that the U.S. should play an active role in world affairs. Forty-three percent say the U.S. should stay out. It is the lowest level of support in years.
More worrying, only 17% of Americans agree with the statement: “Because the U.S. is the world’s strongest and richest country, it has the responsibility to take a leading role in world affairs.”
One must note that many of Trump’s former foreign policy advisers have stated and written that he should never be allowed to occupy the Oval Office again. Go back and watch the Helsinki press conference where Trump took Vladimir Putin’s word over that of his own intelligence community.
Whoever is the next president must have a strong team and have a worldview that is anchored in our most fundamental values. They must be able to convince our allies to work with us, but also convince the American people that without strong American leadership the jungle will always grow back.
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• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86. His new book “American Dreams: The Story of the Cyprus Fulbright Commission” is available from Amazon.com.