Foreign Affairs - The Fight for the Future of Democratic Foreign Policy Which Debates Matter Most for 2028 - Thomas Wright - November 3, 2026

 Foreign Affairs 

The Fight for the Future of Democratic Foreign Policy

Which Debates Matter Most for 2028

Thomas Wright

November 3, 2026

At a Democratic rally in The Villages, Florida, October 2026

Maria Alejandra Cardona / Reuters

THOMAS WRIGHT is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He served as the Senior Director for Strategic Planning at the National Security Council during the Biden administration.

The midterm elections mark the beginning of the Democratic Party’s 2028 presidential campaign. After two years of debate over the lessons of Kamala Harris’s defeat in the 2024 election, it promises to be one of the most open contests about the future of Democratic policies, including foreign policy, in generations. It also promises to be one of the most consequential. The strategic environment in 2029 is on track to be the most difficult and unforgiving since the height of the Cold War.

Democrats must therefore lay out their ideas early and see how they fare both with voters and against the trajectory of world events. The party is generally split into two camps: centrists who, when it comes to foreign policy, are focused on strategic competition, restoring the United States’ national power, and deepening alliances; and progressives, who propose a more affirmative agenda emphasizing shared challenges and global cooperation. In many ways, this divide has become familiar. But as the second Trump administration continues its project of overturning the post–World War II global order, the debates within each camp are at least as important as the disagreements between them.

If the party’s major foreign policy disagreements—on the future of the international order, on Israel, on artificial intelligence, on China, and on the global economy—are not litigated by prospective candidates, former officials, and prominent thinkers now, and voters are not given the chance to make an informed choice between coherent options, the first year of a Democratic administration could be consumed by indecision and infighting. Democrats must therefore understand where they stand on each of those questions, where centrists and progressives converge, and where the sharpest divisions now lie.

AFTER BIDEN

The three Democratic presidents since the end of the Cold War have all made some version of a U.S.-led international order a cornerstone of their foreign policy. But although former President Joe Biden’s rhetoric, with its emblematic “America Is Back” catchphrase, gestured at restoring that order after Trump, Biden did not govern like a restorationist. For the Biden administration, in which I served, the intensifying strategic competition with China and Russia and the onset of shared challenges such as the pandemic marked an external unraveling of the old era that necessitated major changes in U.S. strategy. Biden shifted foreign economic policy away from free trade and globalization toward industrial policy, resilience, and technological leadership, and he pushed back more assertively against Beijing and Moscow than did his Democratic predecessors.

As they reflect on the Biden administration, centrists are actively debating whether a future Democratic administration can restore and reform the U.S.-led international order or whether the United States must adapt to a prolonged period of geopolitical upheaval. For now, the differences are more pronounced in diagnosis than in policy prescriptions. All favor deepening alliances and partnerships, modernizing the military, fixing the defense industrial base, strengthening deterrence, tackling transnational challenges such as global public health, and pursuing hardheaded diplomacy with rivals.

Centrists also agree that Trump has severely weakened U.S. power and institutions, although they remain relatively optimistic about the country’s capacity to recover. But most recognize that the world the next Democratic president would inherit in 2029 is not the world that Biden inherited in 2021. Winning an election will not mean the end of Trumpism. The “America first” movement will likely remain a dominant force in the Republican Party, and the United States’ allies and partners will have to hedge against dramatic shifts in U.S. foreign policy from one election to the next. Even if a Democratic president can rebuild American power and repair damaged institutions, restoring international confidence in the durability of U.S. commitments will be much harder.

Winning an election will not mean the end of Trumpism.

The party’s progressives argue that the U.S. foreign policy establishment failed over the past 25 years by pursuing U.S. primacy at all costs. They see the U.S.-led order as deeply flawed in its design and track record, arguing that Washington’s selective application of the “rules-based order” undermined the order itself. As Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of New York, put it at the Munich Security Conference in 2026, “In a rules-based order, hypocrisy is vulnerability.” They favor a rules-based order that applies its principles consistently, even if doing so constrains the United States.

Many progressives, led by Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, also believe that a global oligarchy poses a threat to democracy and see big business in defense, technology, and finance as part of a corrupt system. They believe that corporate interests have driven excessive military spending, misguided interventions, and a global economy that favors multinational companies over workers.

Progressives see the turmoil of the past two years as accelerating the emergence of a multipolar order, in which the United States has an important, but more limited, role to play. According to the progressive thinker Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, Washington should “re-engage the world as something other than a hegemon.” Americans are accustomed to seeing the country as an overall force for good, even when it uses military power, but progressives point to U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza, and the Trump administration’s actions in Iran and Venezuela as evidence of the enormous damage that interventionism can cause. Many argue that the United States should go to war only in self-defense—and with congressional authorization, as the Constitution requires. They also favor cuts to what they see as a bloated defense budget that encourages presidents to default to military action instead of diplomacy.

New debates, both between and within the various camps of the Democratic Party, are emerging.

Most progressives believe that the greatest threats to American security and prosperity are increasingly transnational rather than geopolitical: runaway artificial intelligence, climate change, and widening inequality, as enumerated by Sanders earlier this year. They argue that the threat from China is often overblown and that deterrence can be achieved and U.S. interests protected with existing capabilities and without a ratcheting up of tensions. As such, most progressives would prioritize cooperation with other powers, especially Beijing, on existential challenges over competition.

A distinct group of thinkers, usually aligned with the progressive camp, identifies with the restraint school of foreign policy. They tend to agree with the centrists about the centrality of geopolitics but want to reduce the United States’ exposure to it. They argue that Washington’s pursuit of military primacy has overstretched the country, unnecessarily embroiling it in conflicts and crises, and favor a more selective approach that focuses on a smaller number of vital interests, reduces overseas commitments, and emphasizes diplomacy, even if it leads to outcomes abroad that conflict with their values.

Despite these differing worldviews, there is much agreement between centrists and progressives. Both camps support NATO, the EU, and Washington’s alliances in the Indo-Pacific. Both want to stand up to Russian President Vladimir Putin and help Ukraine. Both oppose the Iran war and both want to root out corruption. But new debates, both between and within the various camps of the Democratic Party, are steadily emerging alongside those that have historically divided the party.

SHOCK OF THE NEW

One of the most important debates currently unfolding in the party is the United States’ relationship with Israel and Washington’s role in the Middle East more generally. This is likely to be the most pronounced break from the Biden administration. Many Democrats blame Biden for not doing enough to restrain Israel in the Gaza war and some former senior Biden administration officials even acknowledge that they should have done more.

Many centrists identify Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the driving force behind a series of Israeli actions that have hurt U.S. interests, such as advocating all-out war against Iran, using excessive force in Gaza, and undermining the Palestinian Authority, and they recommend adjusting U.S. policy accordingly. They believe that Netanyahu’s departure could create an opening for a broader regional settlement, but that Washington would still need to exert pressure on Israel to make progress toward Palestinian statehood. The potential presidential candidate Rahm Emanuel, for instance, has proposed a regional initiative in which the United States would support a Palestinian state in exchange for full Arab recognition of Israel and closer strategic and economic ties across the region. Such an initiative would include forceful U.S. opposition to effective Israeli annexation of the West Bank, backed by sanctions on violent settlers and the entities that build or finance illegal settlements. Emanuel would also end U.S. defense subsidies for Israel, making it purchase weapons on the same terms as other allies.

Other centrists go further. Jon Finer, the former principal deputy national security adviser to Biden, has argued for more sustained pressure on Israel regardless of whether Netanyahu is replaced. The United States must make Israel choose “between the abundant and irreplaceable benefits of the U.S. relationship and the indefensible policies that are driving a wedge between our societies,” Finer wrote recently in The New York Times. This would include treating the occupied territories as different from Israel proper, imposing sanctions on individuals and entities involved in settlement expansion, and conditioning arms sales on Israeli compliance with international humanitarian law.

Progressives have largely welcomed centrists’ changes on Israel.

Few elected Democrats still argue for unconditional support, but a group that emphasizes the value of the U.S.-Israeli alliance and favors lower levels of pressure on Israel will likely remain by 2028. For instance, these centrists would sanction violent settlers, as the Biden administration did, but may not target the banks that finance the construction of new settlements. They would give a new prime minister the benefit of the doubt, should one successfully form a coalition. But if Netanyahu remains in power during the U.S. primary campaign, their position would be hard to sustain.

Many centrists aim to reduce the U.S. military commitment to the Middle East, but they reject the idea of simply walking away from the region. As Philip Gordon, the former national security adviser to Vice President Harris, put it in Foreign Affairs, the United States should “defend a narrower set of core interests with a smaller military footprint, more diplomacy, more alternatives, and more partners.” Centrists are divided over how exactly to do this; some would be open to a defense treaty with Saudi Arabia if it were part of a broader move toward a Palestinian state, whereas others want to avoid new defense commitments. A small group of centrist dissenters, especially those who are primarily concerned about China, see the Middle East as quicksand that stymies U.S. interests in Asia and are more willing to countenance a significant reduction of forces.

Progressives have largely welcomed centrists’ changes on Israel, even if many are skeptical that they would actually follow through on their rhetoric once in power. They tend to see Finer’s support for more sustained pressure on Israel and increased engagement with Palestinians as a good starting point. But many go further. Intraprogressive arguments focus on whether to support Israel’s access to defensive weaponry, such as the Iron Dome missile defense system and whether a Palestinian state should be recognized on day one of a Democratic administration or should be the ultimate goal of a diplomatic initiative. Others favor more radical change. The progressive commentator Peter Beinart, for example, has argued that a two-state solution is no longer viable and progressives should support a single state with equal rights for Palestinians and Jewish Israelis. Some progressives question whether Israel is an ally at all and believe it has little to offer the United States.

AI safety could become one of the most consequential issues in the primary.

More generally, progressives increasingly favor a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Middle East and distancing the United States from its Gulf allies. As Michael Fuchs, Harris’s former deputy chief of staff, wrote in Foreign Affairs, it is “long past time for the United States to withdraw its forces from the Middle East, stop arming governments that violate U.S. and international law, and end its role as guarantor of regional order.”

Israel may be the source of the most contentious division among Democrats, but it is not the only one. AI has also emerged as a source of disagreement, although the battle lines are not so neatly drawn. One group of influential centrists, which includes many Biden administration officials, sees AI as a technology whose benefits are as world-changing as its risks. They believe that the United States must win the race with China—often citing the cyber-capabilities of the Mythos model as an example—but also favor slowing down AI development to ensure that the models are safe and the economic effects, particularly on jobs, can be managed. To do this, they advocate strengthening U.S. export controls over China to provide the breathing room to “pace the frontier” and regulate leading labs. They want to negotiate a common position on AI with allies and partners (including by distributing AI infrastructure to the United States’ closest allies, such as Australia and Canada) and to open a dialogue with China to manage safety risks.

There were, however, significant disagreements within the Biden administration over how to compete technologically with China, which are likely to reemerge in the 2028 campaign. Biden’s Treasury Department questioned whether export controls could prevent China from catching up, arguing that maintaining Chinese dependence on American technology would preserve U.S. leverage and discourage Beijing from developing alternatives. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo shared this skepticism, telling The Wall Street Journal in December 2024 that “trying to hold China back is a fool’s errand,” and that investing in industrial capacity in the United States mattered more than export controls. Other centrist Democrats, such as former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, have argued that the United States and China should negotiate an agreement to freeze AI models in place.

Progressives, meanwhile, are generally unpersuaded that the United States can win, or even needs to win, the frontier race against China. A minority are skeptical of the technology, dismissing the claims of frontier labs as hype, and believe that it can largely be managed with existing legal frameworks. Others, however, believe that the United States should halt AI development, impose a moratorium on new data centers, take an aggressive stance toward the technology companies, and negotiate a grand bargain with China resembling a comprehensive arms control agreement. Sanders and Representative Ro Khanna, of California, have both called for a binding agreement with Beijing to restrain the development of potentially dangerous AI systems, explicitly drawing parallels with Cold War nuclear arms control. Progressive members of Congress have mostly voted in favor of export controls on China, although it is unclear whether they would renew and strengthen them if China were to threaten retaliatory escalation early in a new administration.

AI safety could become one of the most consequential issues in the primary, creating new coalitions that cut across the traditional centrist-progressive divide. The pace of AI development and the likelihood of future AI-driven cyberattacks or loss-of-control incidents mean that the issue will remain particularly fluid in the lead-up to 2028.

OLD GRUDGES

Several long-standing debates between and within Democratic factions, including on some of the most important issues that the next Democratic president will face, remain unresolved, too. Chief among them is China.

Most centrists see China as the most significant strategic and economic challenge facing the United States, believing that it has a technological and manufacturing lead in many critical areas. They worry about a war over Taiwan but believe it can be avoided if the United States restores its national power, deepens its alliances, strengthens Taiwan’s self-defense and resilience, selectively pushes back against China when necessary, and injects some stability into the relationship through high-level diplomacy—an approach that the Biden administration called “managed competition.” They are actively debating how to expand Biden-era efforts, particularly with respect to alliances and export controls, and how much the United States should dial up its competitive efforts without undermining diplomacy and risking a spiral into confrontation. Although most centrists favor some variant of Biden’s managed competition strategy, some associated with the camp, such as Ryan Hass, who served on Obama’s National Security Council, have cautioned that “attempting to restore or make minor updates to the status quo that existed before Trump’s second term—or to go even further in an effort to project ostensible strength—would be misguided.”

Progressives see centrists’ strategic competition frame as excessively hawkish and as a self-fulfilling prophecy. They believe that Washington and Beijing have a shared interest in tackling shared challenges, particularly AI safety and climate change and that détente is an achievable goal. Some, including Jessica Chen Weiss, a professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School for Advanced International Studies who served on the State Department’s Policy Planning staff during the Biden administration, think that Washington should pursue that goal by deepening economic ties with China, ceasing discussion of the strategic competition, and nurturing moderates in the United States and China. Most progressives do not recommend accommodating China’s geopolitical ambitions, but they believe that Washington can reduce the risk of Chinese aggression by exercising restraint and engaging in high-level diplomacy. For progressives, deterrence can be more readily accomplished than centrists believe, both because the United States’ existing military power is sufficient and because China is not an aggressive revisionist power like Russia.

There are significant divisions among progressives over the economic threat from China.

The debate over China is closely linked to another debate over foreign economic policy and trade. Biden’s shift toward industrial policy and supply chain resilience was partly driven by a belief that China’s unfair trading practices merited a fundamental change in U.S. policy. Many centrists now argue for an expansion of industrial policy to cover a wider variety of critical goods, such as robotics. They want to make common cause with Europe to respond to Chinese overcapacity, including by coordinating tariffs and import bans on emerging technologies and by integrating their manufacturing efforts to compete with Beijing. Some, such as the former deputy national security adviser Daleep Singh, have advocated for a sovereign wealth fund to kick-start investment in new technologies. They are perturbed by Trump’s use of coercive economic power against allies and are developing their own doctrine of economic statecraft with appropriate safeguards. Some centrists want to grant allies and partners more access to the U.S. market, not through the expansive multilateral agreements that defined the 1990s and early 2000s but through smaller, more targeted agreements.

There are significant divisions among progressives over the economic threat from China. Elected officials on the left tend to see trade policy toward China very similarly to centrists. Lawmakers such as Khanna, Sanders, and Senator Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, are also concerned about deindustrialization and China’s dominance of advanced manufacturing and favor stronger measures against Beijing’s unfair trade practices. But progressive foreign policy thinkers are often more skeptical of economic confrontation and favor closer ties with China. Some support industrial policy but are uneasy about framing it principally around competition with China. They recommend pursuing industrial policy for other reasons, such as tackling inequality or climate change, and believe that the United States and China can work together on global economic issues, including Sanders’s proposal for a global minimum wage.

Democrats are likely to disagree on what to do with Trump’s tariffs toward allies and partners, although few talk about it openly. Some say that the next president should describe Trump’s tariffs as an unfair tax on American consumers and lift them immediately and unilaterally. Others may favor keeping some of the tariffs to protect certain industries or as a revenue stream to fund their own domestic priorities. And a third group says that the next administration should lift them as part of a quick negotiation with allies on a common position on economic and technological issues relating to China, including dealing with the overcapacity problem and restoring export controls on China’s compute power.

Different perceptions of China also inform the party’s internecine debates on climate policy. Progressives see climate as one of the top priorities for a new administration, not subordinated to national security goals, and thus prioritize cooperating with China, including on electric vehicles and clean technology. Centrists, however, are skeptical that China will be a reliable climate partner, oppose Chinese electric vehicles on national security grounds, and favor cooperation with smaller groups of like-minded nations as a more dependable way to advance clean technologies.

This disagreement is just one dimension of a deeper split on how best to address climate change. Centrists tend to argue that Democrats should connect climate to affordability, jobs, and energy security rather than making it the organizing principle of the governance agenda. They favor investing in clean technology, although some are more open to natural gas and permitting changes that they say will speed construction. Progressives believe that supporting clean technology is necessary but insufficient and call for policies that reduce the supply of oil and gas.

WORK IT OUT

The centrist-progressive debate runs deeper than a disagreement over policy. It is a question of how the United States can achieve peace and prosperity: by managing geopolitical rivalries and the instabilities stemming from the unraveling of the international order or by overcoming geopolitics through cooperation.

If the party does not have these debates openly and consistently over the next two years, a Democratic president risks entering office in 2029 much as Jimmy Carter did in 1977. Carter inherited an international environment in which the Nixon-Kissinger framework of détente was under increasing strain. His administration was divided between the competing worldviews of National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, who favored a more confrontational approach to the Soviet Union, and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who emphasized diplomacy and arms control. Heated disagreements between the camps repeatedly complicated Carter’s efforts to develop and implement a coherent strategy toward Moscow.

A repeat of the situation in 2029 could be even more damaging. The next president will inherit frayed alliances, mounting Chinese pressure on Taiwan, deepening integration and cooperation among Washington’s adversaries, and potential wars in Iran and Ukraine, not to mention new crises that may emerge over the next two years. Failure to settle on a clear agenda could paralyze U.S. decision-making at precisely the time when a new administration will want to provide strong leadership and direction.

Fortunately, centrists and progressives have considerable common ground. They both are committed to rebuilding the foundations of American power, supporting alliances, backing a just peace in Ukraine, taking transnational challenges seriously, and eschewing unnecessary military interventions. They may not reach a partywide consensus on every issue. But a spirited, productive primary debate will allow voters to make an informed choice and ensure that the first year of the next administration is spent acting on a vision, not arguing over one.

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