The Foreign Policy Differences between Harris/Walz and Trump/Vance Are Crystal Clear

Sometimes, in presidential elections, the policy positions of Democrats and Republicans overlap and are difficult to distinguish, but that’s not the case in 2024.

Last month, on July 9, 2024, I was invited to testify before the Democratic National Convention Platform Committee Hearing. In just a few pages, I tried to summarize what I thought were the major differences in foreign policy between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party in this presidential election. In my view, the contrast in positions is very stark, offering a very clear choice. Obviously, my testimony was just one input of many, so I do not know if any of my ideas made it into the final platform. Also, I testified when President Biden was still the presumed presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. But since the changes in the ticket, I predict with great confidence that Vice President Harris and Governor Tim Walz share nearly all of the positions that I ascribed to the Biden administration in this testimony. But read it below and give me your feedback as I plan to write more about the foreign policy debates in this presidential election in the next three months.

If you want to watch the shorter verbal presentation of this longer testimony instead, see the video below. I come on at 3:41:02 of what ended up being nearly a six-hour committee hearing!

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Testimony for the Democratic Party Platform Draft Committee: “Sustaining a Democratic Party Foreign Policy That Advances the Security, Prosperity, and Values of the American People”

Over the last four years, President Biden, Vice President Harris, and their administration have renewed America’s leadership in the world. The Biden administration’s strategy of reengagement with the world has produced concrete, positive outcomes for all Americans regarding our security, prosperity, and values. The United States is a respected leader in the world again today. The Democratic Party should be proud of these achievements over the last fours and endorse continuity with the Biden administration’s approach to foreign policy.

The Biden-Harris strategy reflects many of the Democratic Party's deep, longstanding principles of advancing American interests and values around the world. 

First, President Biden, Vice President Harris, and their team are internationalists, believing rightly that proactive engagement with, not isolation from, the world is the best way to advance American security, prosperity, and values. Even on very complicated issues -- stopping the war in Gaza and crafting a roadmap for a two-state solution, ending Russia’s invasion, occupation, and annexation of Ukraine, or keeping the peace between China and Taiwan --  the Biden administration rightly understands that we are better off trying to solve these issues rather than ignoring them, allowing them to fester, and then make more problems for the United States in the future.

At the same time, President Biden and Vice President Harris rightly understand that American leadership abroad can be most effective if we are stronger at home, which is why his historic domestic achievements -- the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, the creation of 15 million new jobs, and pledges of over $850 billion in private sector investment – not only help all Americans, and especially the middle class but also position America to win the high-tech competition with China and other rivals. In response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, President Biden has also expanded our military industrial base at home to replenish and upgrade our weapons and munitions stockpiles while at the same supporting American jobs in over three dozen states.

Second, President Biden and his team have nurtured deeper ties with allies and valued multilateral cooperation, believing that we can best deal with the challenges coming from China and Russia in concert with our allies in Asia and Europe and can best tackle global issues like climate change, pandemics, food insecurity, or nonproliferation through robust diplomatic interaction with other countries and international institutions. 

In Europe, Biden and his administration dramatically strengthened NATO by adding two new strong allies, Sweden and Finland; persuading 23 NATO allies to spend 2% of the GDP on defense; and leading NATO in providing military and economic assistance to Ukraine to stop Russia’s barbaric invasion from moving farther West and thereby reducing the Russian threat to our NATO allies.

In Asia, President Biden and his administration strengthened several alliance relationships, including signing AUKUS agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States to jointly build nuclear-powered submarines, enhance security cooperation, and bolster deterrence; negotiating a new basing agreement with the Philippines; and hosting the first ever trilateral Camp David summit between the United States, Japan, and South Korea in 2023. Biden also upgraded the Quad, a non-military partnership between Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. Defense spending from our Asian allies, including Japan’s new purchase of 400 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the United States, has increased on Biden’s watch, too.

Bidens strengthening of ties to allies in Europe and Asia also produced comprehensive sanctions against Russia and coordinated export controls regarding sensitive technologies to China.

To address global challenges, Biden rejoined the Paris Climate Accords to fight climate change, expanded cooperation with the World Food Program to address food shortages triggered by Putin’s war in Ukraine, created the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment to provide countries in the developing world an alternative source of infrastructure investment capital independent of China, returned the United States to the World Health Organization to prepare for future pandemics, and more generally reinvigorated American diplomacy in all multilateral organizations.

Third, President Biden and his team have recognized the utility of expanding American economic cooperation with other countries around the world, but only when trade and investment advance the economic interests of all Americans – especially the middle class – and not just giant corporations and banks. Biden’s sophisticated strategy for addressing unfair economic practices from China has been particularly successful and has included a smart mix of new but limited tariffs, targeted export controls on sensitive technologies, greater scrutiny of Chinese investments in the United States, and powerful incentives to bring manufacturing back to the United States.

Fourth, President Biden, Vice President Harris, and their administration have restored America’s commitment to advancing democracy and defending human rights around the world, rightly seeing that the rise of autocratic countries such as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea threatens not only our security but the freedoms of all democracies. Biden clearly understands that the first step in inspiring democratic values abroad is to get our own house in order, an assignment of democratic renewal for the United States that he and his administration have tackled with vigor.   

President Biden’s foreign policy strategy radically contrasts with the previous administration. While Biden is an internationalist, Mr. Trump is an isolationist who wrongly believes that the United States can withdraw from an interconnected world without damaging our interests. While Biden values allies and multilateralism, Trump is a unilateralist. Trump foolishly believes bullying our closest democratic allies while cozying up to dictators like Vladimir Putin in Russia and Kim Jong Un in North Korea somehow makes America safer.  When Trump encouraged Russians to do “whatever the hell they want” to allies that don’t “pay up”, he made more likely war between Russia and NATO.  Trump fails to grasp that addressing nearly every major security challenge we face – China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, terrorism, cyberattacks, climate change, or pandemics – requires U.S. cooperation with our allies, partners, and multilateral organizations. These fundamental misunderstandings about how best to protect American interests led Trump to repeatedly threaten to quit NATO and withdraw American troops from South Korea. Trump also quit the Paris Climate Accords, the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), the INF Treaty, the Open Skies Treaty, the Transpacific Partnership (TPP), and the World Health Organization. While Biden has engaged in economic statecraft that always placed the prosperity of Americans first, Trump pursued an erratic, volatile mix of policies that undermined America’s reputation as a trustworthy, rule-abiding economic partner and did little to strengthen American industrial capacity. Trump’s new idea of a 10 percent tariff on all imported goods would fuel major inflation, reduce millions of American jobs, add at least $1500 in additional expenses for every American household, increase tensions not only with China but with many allies, and maybe even trigger a global recession. If Biden has promoted democracy and stood up to autocrats, Trump paid no attention to defending human rights or supporting democratic values and instead embraced dictators when he was president.

 Regarding foreign policy, therefore, American voters have a clear choice in November – reelect a president and his team who believe in engagement and world leadership, support multilateralism, champion economic statecraft that benefits all Americans, and advance our democratic values, or go back to a president who trumpets short-sided isolationism, pursues pugnacious unilateralism, and ignores American values.