Election 2024 and US foreign policy

One of four commentaries from the 16 October 2024 event in the Panel Discussion Series: American Election 2024, from The Finsbury Institute, City International Policy Studies, and the Research Group on Global (Dis)Order.

By Maria Ryan, University of Nottingham

It is undoubtedly the case that the two candidates for the Presidency, Kamala Harris (Democrat) and Donald Trump (Republican), are polarized on domestic political issues, particularly cultural politics, such as trans rights and abortion rights. Trump is also a fundamental threat to the democratic aspects of the US political system. If he wins a second term in office, it will likely mean the further erosion of democratic norms, such as the removal of civil servants deemed disloyal to Trump.

No doubt Trump and his supporters in the party would be more prepared for government this time round and this would likely make their domestic agenda more radical and more regressive. Authoritarian leaders around the world would see this as license to do the same.

When it comes to some of the main issues in international relations, however, the differences between Harris and Trump are less sharp. There are differences between them on security and defence policy, but they are not polarized on these issues.

If Trump is elected, he will likely give Israel carte blanche to continue its war in Gaza and the wider region. There is a strong domestic constituency in support of this: Christian evangelical voters and supporters of Israel in Congress. The question is whether the war will continue with enthusiastic support from Trump or lukewarm support and some criticism from Harris. History suggests that the United States does not cut off aid to Israel when it is fighting a war.

Support for Ukraine may well also continue, whoever is in the White House. Although Trump claims he would end the war and high levels of aid to Kyiv, the Republican Party is not united behind Trump on this. In April 2024, Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, was able to rally a sufficient number of Republicans around a $61B package of US aid to Ukraine. Republicans are also likely to take control of the Senate, where support for Ukraine is especially strong.

The Ukraine question also highlights Republicans’ particular sensitivity to burden-sharing in alliances. Trump continues to express scepticism about the value of alliances. This is the hallmark of his ‘America First’ approach to the world and the critical difference between Trump and all other post-WW2 US Presidents, Republican or Democratic, who saw alliances as force multipliers. But Republicans in Congress are not united behind Trump in questioning the value of US alliances.

While they remain very wary of allies ‘free-riding’ on US security guarantees, the majority of Congressional Republicans are still strongly committed in principle to the NATO alliance; the National Defense Authorization Act passed in December 2023 included bipartisan legislation making it impossible for a President to unilaterally withdraw from NATO.

If Trump is elected, however, the tone of US alliances will change again. The US would become a much more difficult and demanding partner. There would be more tension its European and Asian alliances, even as most Republicans remain committed to them in principle.

Finally, there is a bipartisan consensus that the chief foreign policy goal is to confront the generational challenge to US primacy posed by China and preserve US dominance of the international system for as long as possible. Any lessons from the Iraq War on the limits of American power seem to have been forgotten as Washington edges closer to a commitment to defend Taiwan directly if attacked. In this respect, both parties seem increasingly out of touch with what the US public is willing to support in terms of foreign interventionism.

• International politics at City, University of London