Gaza and Ukraine

Two wars resulting from hostile attacks reveal differences in how both candidates for President see America’s role in the world.

In Donald Trump’s view, “America First” essentially means rejecting or diminishing the alliances that the U.S. helped foster after World War II and that have kept the world a largely peaceful place ever since then. A Trump win would make most or all of the U.S.’s most important allies – Great Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Japan – nervous about an American withdrawal from the role we have played in the world for the past 80 years. A win by Kamala Harris would reaffirm our commitment to serving that role, especially in places like Ukraine where, she argues, Russian president Vladimir Putin’s aggression needs to be stopped before he decides to invade half of Europe – with many big consequences for the U.S., our economy, and our national security.

In Gaza, Palestinian activists and some young Democrats are pressuring Harris to break from U.S. support for Israel, given the large number of casualties caused by its response to the terrible Hamas attack at an Israeli music festival on October 7, 2023.

Harris maintains that Israel has the right to defend itself, while also advocating for a cease-fire and, ultimately, a two-state solution that provides the Palestinian people with the homeland she says they need and deserve. Trump, on the other hand, has shown zero interest in the Palestinian side of this conflict and if elected, would be expected to shape his Middle Eastern policies on that basis.

Harris

Kamala Harris vows to continue strong support for NATO and Ukraine, seeing Russian president Putin’s unprovoked invasion there a crucial test of European and American resolve. U.S. leadership in the world, she said this past February, “keeps our homeland safe, supports American jobs, secures supply chains and opens new markets for American goods.” She calls active U.S. engagement in the world as a smart strategic move that supports a wide range of dimensions of American life, not an “act of charity” towards other countries.

Harris likewise vows continued support for Israel, while also pushing for a long-term, two-state solution that would provide safe harbor for the Palestinian people and end the hostilities that have marked the Middle East since 1967. She views China as the U.S.’s primary economic threat, internationally, and points to current and proposed investments (like the act promoting American computer chip-building and tax credits for electric vehicles) as important steps in reducing our reliance on Chinese manufacturing. But she stops way short of the 100% tariffs that Trump promises to put on goods from China (and outright bans on some goods), arguing – with virtually all economists – that such tariffs would spike inflation and cost American consumers thousands of dollars per year.

Trump

Donald Trump has expressed admiration for Putin and has encouraged Russia to invade any NATO country he feels doesn’t fund its own defense sufficiently.  He would consider ending all aid to Ukraine. He claims without basis that neither the Russian nor the Hamas invasion would have taken place if he were in the White House. About the current conflict in the Middle East, Trump says: “Just end it,” which essentially means allowing Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu to bomb Hamas into submission wherever it is suspected to be operating.

Americans have heard this kind of refrain before. Republican Richard Nixon won the 1968 presidential election by a thin margin, claiming he had a “secret plan” to end the Vietnam War. He then proceeded to bomb Vietnam and Cambodia for years, killing hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. Vice President Al Gore lost the 2000 race to Republican George W. Bush by a few hundred votes in Florida, and Bush led the U.S. into decades of senseless, expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. With no break being applied from the U.S., Israeli president Netanyahu would be free to expand his war without boundary.

Putin, with no opposition from Trump and facing a diminished NATO, can be counted on to take as much of Eastern Europe and formerly Soviet-bloc nations as he can in the next four years.

The lack of opposition to Putin or Netanyahu from another Trump Administration would also very likely embolden China with regard to Taiwan, and North Korea with regard to its nearby enemies, South Korea and Japan.

As President, Trump regularly belittled long-standing American allies such as Canada and France and made his fondness clear for autocrats in Saudi Arabia, Hungary, and North Korea. A second term by Trump in the White House, staffed not by respected foreign policy leaders but (as he overtly promises) by people who will readily agree with him, would clearly lead to a vastly more dangerous world, not a less dangerous one.