Virtually unknown to the general public and criticized by the media during her time as vice president, Kamala Harris has catapulted to the candidacy at lightning speed in a development that would inspire screenwriters, yet remains unknown to Americans and the rest of the world alike.
In her run-up to the presidency, Harris has often represented the interests of the United States to foreign partners. It was she who met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February 2022 and convinced him that he should believe that Vladimir Putin was determined to invade his country. It was she who visited France again in November 2021 to finalize the US-France reconciliation after the Australian submarine scandal. Harris spoke at the Paris Peace Forum, launched space cooperation, and participated in summits on Libya. In these meetings, partners praised Harris for her seriousness and ability to work, but she was never able to really articulate her foreign policy views, which often led them to mistakenly believe that a Harris administration would be fully aligned with the Joe Biden administration. However, this undoubtedly underestimates the developments that are sweeping the United States on foreign policy. Harris, although loyal to the president, is still a new generation Democrat with a different view on the world and America's place in it.
Read more Subscribers Only Ukraine, Gaza: Joe Biden's foreign policy mired in contradictions
Sometimes called the “last Atlanticist president,” Biden epitomizes the Democratic Party's foreign policy thinking, believing in a noble role for American leadership on the world stage, backed by strong international institutions and robust military alliances. Heirs to the Cold War-era liberal internationalists, these “leaders” advocate a rational yet ambitious use of American power to combat Russian and Chinese revisionism and ensure a stable world order. Hillary Clinton, Obama's Secretary of State in his first term, called this “smart power.”
Defence budget protests
But fierce debates are forcing a rethinking of mainstream foreign policy. Criticizing a militaristic and warlike America, “progressives” believe that foreign policy must above all serve the interests of the American middle and working classes, devastated by two decades of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and by trade agreements that have driven deindustrialization. Inspired by the labor and racial justice movements, progressives want U.S. foreign policy to prioritize combating climate change and fighting poverty, rather than further inflating the defense budget. More recently, Gaza has become a major issue for progressives. At the Democratic National Convention, both Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders stressed the urgent need for a ceasefire, echoing the views of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters outside the convention.
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