The Trump-Harris worldview divide: Fly solo, or with allies?

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However little American voters prioritize foreign policy, surveys indicate they want the United States engaged with the world and favor seeing the U.S. play a leadership role.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump appear to offer distinct foreign policy visions. For many analysts, the biggest difference between them can be boiled down to two words: multilateral vs. unilateral. And how their policies might diverge is probably clearest in the case of Ukraine.

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U.S. foreign policy may not be a top priority for American voters this year, but it is certainly a concern around the world, much of which is riveted by next week’s election. A key question: how the next U.S. president will treat allies and alliances.

Calling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a threat to European security and democracy, candidate Ms. Harris has echoed President Joe Biden’s vow of “support as long as it takes.” Mr. Trump, on the other hand, has insisted he could end the war in a day, based in part on his relationship with Russia’s president.

“I’m not sure that at the end of the day there’s all that much difference between Harris and Trump on some of the big foreign policy issues, but where there is lots of daylight is on Russia and Ukraine,” says Michael Desch at Notre Dame.

“Harris would continue with the establishment consensus on supporting” Ukraine, he says. “But Trump is a different story. He’s not committed to helping Ukraine … and he thinks he can do business with Vladimir Putin.”

In most polls asking voters to list the issues that will influence their choice in next week’s presidential election, foreign policy fares little better than an also-ran.

The economy, immigration, reproductive rights, and threats to democracy come out on top.

Yet at the same time, some surveys, such as the Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ annual gauge of public opinion and foreign policy, show that Americans still want to see the United States play a leadership role in international affairs.

Why We Wrote This

A story focused on

U.S. foreign policy may not be a top priority for American voters this year, but it is certainly a concern around the world, much of which is riveted by next week’s election. A key question: how the next U.S. president will treat allies and alliances.

Moreover, some voters suggest that a candidate’s worldview and actions on the world stage provide evidence of his or her character and leadership style, and whether that fits with their own vision of how American leadership should be exercised.

Viewed through that prism, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump appear to offer distinct foreign policy visions that spring from very different worldviews.

In the case of Vice President Harris, a range of foreign policy experts use these words or phrases to describe her worldview: multilateral, cooperation, security through alliances, continuity, or Biden-lite. But words like “nebulous” and “undefined” also pop up.

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