The staff of Foreign Policy speculates about what should be expected from the foreign policy of a prospective Harris Administration. The area in which it could differ from that of the Biden Administration is probably policy towards the Middle East, Israel in particular:
In her public statements, Harris has placed more emphasis on—and shown more empathy toward—Palestinian suffering in Gaza. That is consistent with media reports starting late last year that she has pushed the White House to express more concern about the humanitarian crisis. The Biden administration has disputed those reports.
During a speech in Dubai in December, she revisited the brutal nature of the Hamas attacks that sparked the war, but she also urged Israel to do more to protect civilians in Gaza. In a speech in Selma, Alabama, in March, she called for an immediate cease-fire to allow for the release of hostages and for aid to flow into Gaza. Though her remarks were consistent with the administration’s diplomatic efforts to broker a cease-fire deal, they were met with thunderous applause from the crowd due to her impassioned delivery.
While her policy on the conflict is largely likely to be one of continuity, she may strike a different tone than Biden, said Frank Lowenstein, the former special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations at the State Department. This perception has been echoed by those who have spoken to her personally about the war.
During a meeting with Muslim community leaders at the White House on April 2 to discuss the administration’s Gaza policy, Zaher Sahloul, a Syrian American physician who worked in Gaza on a medical mission earlier this year, said that Harris was moved by their presentation about the impact of the war on people in Gaza and approached him after the meeting to ask for more reports from the ground about the humanitarian situation. “I felt that she projected empathy,” Sahloul said. “She clearly cared about the civilian plight in Gaza.” And while she didn’t diverge from Biden on policy, her articulation of the U.S. approach to the conflict was clearer and more detailed, he said.
In public remarks following her meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, Harris struck a forceful tone. Although she reiterated the Biden administration’s stance that Israel has the right to defend itself, she said that how it does so matters. Speaking about Gaza, she said, “We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and I will not be silent.”
I think there are several possible directions that her foreign policy might take including:
- It could be closely aligned to that of the Biden Administration. That is clearly the vision being articulated in the article.
- It doesn’t really matter what she thinks since foreign policy under the Harris Administration would be largely under the control of the State Department
- It could be completely different, almost anything
I suspect this is another area in which we’ll need to elect her before we can find out what she believes.
Eisenhower is likely the last President to have any control over foreign or military policy. The very public way Bolton and Pompeo slapped down Trump’s agreement with Kim should have made that clear to everyone. The foreign policy of the US is decided by the Deep State, and presidents merely execute it.
In the particular case of the Middle East, our foreign policy is usually set by Israel. They control the White House and some 350 or so votes in Congress. However, both Harris and Walz are very hard left, and they have some sympathy with the Palestinian cause. So in this case, there may be a struggle between the old line pro-Israel cadres and the upcoming leftists who are pro-Palestinian.
By the way, Trump was the most servile, submissive President the Israeli’s ever had.
I wouldn’t expect major changes. Events may lead to big changes but ongoing policy seldom changes a lot when the same party holds office.
Steve
Something as large as “foreign policy” can change in a few ways. The biggest ones are circumstances change (like the Soviet Union collapse changed our policy on Europe) or personnel change.
Circumstances for Harris are still the same as Biden; in particular the domestic considerations driving Mideast policy. The civil conflict between fractions of the Democratic Party over Israel vs Palestine doesn’t look to resolve itself just like the conflict.
And on personnel; sure Blinken / Sullivan / Austen will be replaced, but the replacements will come from the same small pool of Democratic foreign policy elite that served during the Obama or Biden administrations.
Maybe it’s me; but the most urgent foreign policy question is what to do with Ukraine; where we are the main supporters of an escalating war that’s lead to repeat Napoleon and Nazis Germany in taking the fight to Russia. However, the most important question is what to do vis-a-vis China, where it looks like it will go hot if the current trajectory continues.
CuriousOnlooker:
I think your comment illustrates our ongoing and, possibly, even accelerating foreign policy problems. When the Soviet Union collapsed our foreign policy should have changed but it didn’t. Careerists who’d built their entire careers on opposition to the Soviet Union did not change their positions at all. They just used a mass edit on their emails to replace “Soviet Union” with “Russia”.
I agree with the priorities you’ve highlighted. Our policy with respect to Russia and Ukraine has been crafted by the careerists I’ve mentioned, all of whom benefit personally in one way or another from a Ukrainian ethnic state allied with the U. S. They won’t change willingly. Either they will be forced out or we will maintain the same policies until Ukraine collapses.
What the different group of careerists who’ve crafted our China policy will do I have no idea. It’s clear that they detest trade sanctions and will oppose them regardless of who is in the White House. It appears to me that they are encouraging a war in the Western Pacific which would be disastrous for everybody.