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The Harris–Trump debate showed US foreign policy matters in this election
Pollsters say domestic issues will decide the contest in November. Yet the debate showed that America’s international standing and its future global role are still central to this election.
Expert comment
Published 12 September 2024
4 minute READ
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Director, US and the Americas Programme
Kamala Harris went on the offensive against Donald Trump in Tuesday’s debate – and a CNN poll found that she outperformed her opponent by a landslide, at 63-37 per cent.
But multiple polls also confirm that the election continues to be a dead heat, and too close to call where it matters most, in the small number of states that will swing the election. Undecided voters matter, but there are few of them in America today. Turnout is everything, and Democrats in swing states are harder to mobilize than Trump loyalists.
Pollsters say that US voters on both sides of the aisle are motivated by kitchen table issues. In the US election, that means the price of food, housing, gasoline, and medical bills. The fear that immigrants will displace workers, bring crime to the streets of America, and be a drain on services also matters.
US Vice President and Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris waves as she boards Air Force Two at Indianapolis International Airport in Indianapolis, Indiana, on 24 July 2024.
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Given this context, it is stunning that the two presidential contenders spent so much time talking about foreign policy. The debate spanned the US’s China policy, the exit from Afghanistan, the war between Israel and Hamas, border control and immigration, and the war in Ukraine.
How did foreign policy claim centre stage in an election that is focused on Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania? The answer harkens back to 2016.
Donald Trump’s election, and his messages of ‘American carnage’ and ‘America First’ led to the first genuine and sustained debate about the US’s global role since the end of the Cold War.
That debate has not been settled. It is both contentious and consequential, and it is also driving a country notoriously fixated on its own domestic concerns to take foreign policy seriously.
China
Throughout the debate, Harris and Trump offered competing narratives of the country’s current state of affairs.
For Trump, international perceptions of an America in decline were central to this narrative. Harris, meanwhile, redirected a question about the US economy to a discussion of Trump’s China policy.
The all too common assumption that there will be continuity on China policy under a Trump presidency was shaken if not shattered.
Asked about inflation, Harris went on the offensive, turning her chief domestic vulnerability into an attack on Trump.
The former president had, she claimed, sold out consumers and undermined US national security by levying a ‘sales tax’ on the American people through his tariffs, which she claimed invited a trade war with Beijing and drove up the US trade deficit. She also accused the former president of ‘selling American chips to China’ to help them modernize their military.
The all too common assumption that there will be continuity on China policy under a Trump presidency was shaken if not shattered. A Harris administration will continue to put economic security at the centre of its policy agenda. This likely means domestic investment in manufacturing, especially semiconductor chips, and a continued emphasis on building resilient supply chains (manufacturing chips in Mexico is also on the cards for a Harris administration).
The range of available policy tools is vast, from subsidy clubs for critical minerals to sector-specific trade deals. But tariffs appear unlikely to be the instrument of choice for Harris, as they would be for Trump.
For Harris, partnerships and alliances will continue to be at the centre of US strategy. But Democrats are engaged in a debate about whether to place US–China rivalry at the centre of foreign policy, or whether to have a global strategy of which China is a part. Trump has offered more clarity: his approach would be transactional and also free from the constraints of multilateralism or alliances.
Migration
Both candidates talk tough on immigration, and their policy focuses on enforcement. But the similarities stop there. In the debate, Trump sought to conjure up images of criminal immigrants eating dogs, and maybe also cats.
Harris pinned responsibility on Trump for urging Republicans to block a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year, simply to cause chaos and bolster his electoral prospects. Trump was quick to remind viewers of the rising numbers of immigrants at the border in what proved to be a December crisis for Democrats.
For now, Trump’s anti-immigrant narrative has taken root and electoral competition has crowded out a more serious discussion.
Trump’s attack on immigrants has been effective at stirring up public concern and has forced Democrats to tack to the right. Creative solutions and legal pathways have taken a back seat to an approach that gives priority to enforcement of strict controls at the border.
Instead, innovative thinking has found an alternative home. The International Organization for Migration is attempting a transformation in immigration strategy, one that would link employers in need of labour to migrants in need of work.
Such solution-based work could create win-win solutions for Western societies with aging populations. But for now, Trump’s anti-immigrant narrative has taken root and electoral competition has crowded out a more serious discussion.
Ukraine
The debate gave those voters already firmly set in their views plenty of scope to confirm their biases.
Trump accused Europe of free riding on US largesse, and continued to demand that Europe pay for its own security.
For voters already committed to Trump, the debate will not matter too much. Trump bottled his message to them very tightly: Harris has been second in command during an administration that has seen two major wars, chaos on the international stage, and the nation ‘laughed at all over the world’.
For Europeans, Trump’s debate rhetoric will have confirmed their fears. In what are now familiar lines of attack, Trump accused Europe of free riding on US largesse, and continued to demand that Europe pay for its own security.
Image — Kamala Harris shakes hands with Donald Trump during the presidential debate in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
His praise of Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s right wing prime minister (well known for his close relationship with Vladimir Putin and antipathy toward Ukraine) will fuel concerns that a Trump presidency would have dramatic implications for Ukraine’s sovereignty.
His own proposals on the war were light and familiar: he would end the conflict (even before he was inaugurated) – and besides, the war would never have started had he been in office.
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Harris reminded voters that Trump is disruptive and said his tariffs cost them money and security. She also accused him of bad foreign policy choices, placing the blame for the humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan on his deal with the Taliban.
She warned that Trump would sell Ukraine down the river (and with it, the foundational international norm of sovereignty), and accused him of having no strategy to deliver peace in the Middle East. All of this was compounded by her statement to Trump that ‘dictators and autocrats are rooting for you to be president again because they’re so clear – they can manipulate you with flattery and favours.’
The fact that foreign policy has catapulted to the top set of issues in the presidential debate is telling. Most Americans will vote on issues that are far closer to home. But for better or worse, America has found a new determination to reconsider its place in the world.
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