Tougher
tone on Israel, steady on NATO: how a Harris foreign policy could look
By Matt Spetalnick and Simon Lewis
July 22, 20244:37 PM GMT+2Updated 21 hours ago
WASHINGTON, July 22 (Reuters) - Vice President Kamala Harris
is expected to stick largely to Joe Biden's foreign policy playbook on key
issues such as Ukraine, China and Iran but could strike a tougher tone with
Israel over the Gaza war if she replaces the president at the top of the
Democratic ticket and wins the U.S. November election.
As the apparent frontrunner for the nomination after Biden
dropped out of the race and endorsed her on Sunday, Harris would bring
on-the-job experience, personal ties forged with world leaders, and a sense of
global affairs gained during a Senate term and as Biden's second-in-command.
But running against Republican candidate Donald Trump, she
would also have a major vulnerability - a troubled situation at the U.S.-Mexico
border that has bedeviled Biden and become a top campaign issue. Harris was
tasked at the start of his term with addressing the root causes of high
irregular migration, and Republicans have sought to make her the face of the
problem.
On a range of global priorities, said analysts, a Harris
presidency would resemble a second Biden administration.
"She may be a more energetic player but one thing you
shouldn't expect – any immediate big shifts in the substance of Biden's foreign
policy," said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator for
Democratic and Republican administrations.
Harris has signaled, for instance, that she would not
deviate from Biden's staunch support for NATO and would continue backing
Ukraine in its fight against Russia. That stands in sharp contrast to a pledge
by former president Trump to fundamentally alter the U.S. relationship with the
alliance and the doubts he has raised about future weapons supplies to Kyiv.
I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused
women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for
their own gain.
STAYING THE
COURSE ON CHINA?
A lawyer by training and a former California attorney
general, Harris struggled in the first half of Biden's term to find her
footing, not helped by being saddled early on with a major part of the
intractable immigration portfolio amid record crossings at the U.S.-Mexico
border.
That followed a failed 2020 presidential campaign that was
widely considered lackluster.
If she becomes the nominee, Democrats will be hoping Harris
will be more effective at communicating her foreign policy goals.
In the second half of Biden's presidency, Harris - the
country's first Black and Asian American vice president - has elevated her
profile on issues ranging from China and Russia to Gaza and become a known
quantity to many world leaders.
At this year's Munich Security Conference she delivered a
tough speech slamming Russia for its invasion of Ukraine and pledging an
"ironclad" U.S. commitment to NATO's Article 5 requirement for mutual
self-defense.
The Kremlin said on Monday that Harris had made no
noteworthy contribution to relations with Moscow except for statements
"unfriendly towards our country." She has accused Russia of waging a
"barbaric and inhumane" war in Ukraine.
On China, Harris has long positioned herself within
Washington's bipartisan mainstream on the need for the U.S. to counter China's
influence, especially in Asia. She would likely maintain Biden's stance of
confronting Beijing when necessary while also seeking areas of cooperation,
analysts say.
Harris has made several trips aimed at bolstering relations
in the economically dynamic region, including one to Jakarta in September to
fill in for Biden at a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN). During the visit, Harris accused China of trying to coerce smaller
neighbors with its territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea.
Biden also dispatched Harris on travels to shore up
alliances with Japan and South Korea, which have had reason to worry about
Trump's commitment to their security.
"She demonstrated to the region that she was
enthusiastic to promote the Biden focus on the Indo-Pacific," said Murray
Hiebert, a senior associate of the Southeast Asia Program at Washington's
Center for Strategic and International Studies.
While she could not match the "diplomatic chops"
Biden had developed over decades, "she did fine," he added.
However, like her boss, Harris has been prone to the
occasional verbal gaffe. On a tour of the Demilitarized Zone between South and
North Korea in September 2022 to reassert Washington's support for Seoul, she
mistakenly touted a U.S. "alliance with the Republic of North Korea."
If Harris becomes her party's standard-bearer and can
overcome Trump's lead in pre-election opinion polls to win the White House, the
Israel-Palestinian conflict would rank high on her agenda, especially if the
Gaza war is still raging.
Although as vice president she has mostly echoed Biden in
firmly backing Israel's right to defend itself after Hamas militants carried
out a deadly cross-border raid on Oct. 7, she has at times stepped out slightly
ahead of the president in criticizing Israel's military approach.
In March, she bluntly stated that Israel was not doing
enough to ease a "humanitarian catastrophe" during its ground
offensive in the Palestinian enclave. Later, she did not rule out
"consequences" for Israel if it launched a full-scale invasion of
refugee-packed Rafah in southern Gaza.
Such language has raised the possibility that Harris, as
president, might take at least a stronger rhetorical line with Israel than
Biden, analysts say.
While her 81-year-old boss has a long history with Israeli
leaders and has even called himself a "Zionist," Harris, 59, lacks
his visceral personal connection to the country.
She maintains closer ties to Democratic progressives, some
of whom have pressed Biden to attach conditions to U.S. weapons shipments to
Israel out of concern for high Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza.
But analysts do not expect there would be a big shift in
U.S. policy toward Israel, Washington's closest ally in the Middle East.
Halie Soifer, who served as national security adviser to
Harris during the then-senator's first two years in Congress, said Harris'
support of Israel has been just as strong as Biden's. "There really has
been no daylight to be found" between the two, she said.
Harris is expected to have a previously scheduled meeting
with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to Washington
this week, her first encounter with a foreign leader since Biden ended his
re-election bid.
IRAN NUCLEAR
THREAT
Harris could also be expected to hold firm against Israel's
regional arch-foe, Iran, whose recent nuclear advances have drawn increased
U.S. condemnation.
Jonathan Panikoff, formerly the U.S. government's deputy
national intelligence officer for the Middle East, said the growing threat of
"weaponization" of Iran's nuclear program could be an early major
challenge for a Harris administration, especially if Tehran decides to test the
new U.S. leader.
After a series of failed attempts, Biden has shown little
interest in returning to negotiations with Tehran over resuming the 2015
international nuclear agreement, which Trump abandoned during his presidency.
Harris would be unlikely to make any major overtures without
serious signs that Iran is ready to make concessions.
Even so, Panikoff, now at the Atlantic Council think tank in
Washington, said: "There's every reason to believe the next president will
have to deal with Iran. It's bound to be one of the biggest problems."
Reporting By Matt Spetalnick and Simon Lewis; Additional
reporting by Jonathan Landay; Writing by Matt Spetalnick Editing by Don Durfee
and Rosalba O'Brien
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