Trump doesn’t make the grade in foreign policy, say US experts

International Relations (IR) scholars at US colleges and universities who were surveyed on the consequences of the 2024 US Presidential election for American foreign policy, felt that the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, would be more effective at managing international challenges.

In mid-October, the Teaching, Research, and International Policy Project at William & Mary’s Global Research Institute, with support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, surveyed several IR scholars in the US. The survey’s results were published in the latest issue of the journalForeign Policy.

The experts found “stark differences” between the foreign policies of the Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris and the Republican Party candidate Donald Trump. The differences are on climate change, US membership in NATO, nuclear cooperation with Iran, trade, and foreign aid. The experts noticed a sharp difference in their ability to manage foreign policy, command US forces, and implement their agendas on the global stage.

Climate Change

The surveyed scholars said that there is an 80% chance that Trump would withdraw from the Paris Agreement (PA) on climate change mitigation and management. On the contrary, there is only a 4% that Harris would withdraw from the Agreement.

The PA is a legally binding international treaty on climate change. It was adopted by 196 parties at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris on 12 December 2015 and came into force on 4 November 2016. Its overarching goal is to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” by 2030, and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, ” by the end of this century.

Implementation of the PA requires economic and social transformation and the funding demands are huge. Since 2020, countries have been submitting their national climate action plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Each successive NDC is meant to reflect an increasingly higher degree of ambition compared to the previous version.

In their NDCs, countries communicate actions they will take to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in order to reach the goals of the Agreement. Countries also communicate in their NDCs actions they will take to build resilience to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

The PA provides a framework for financial, technical and capacity building support to those countries which need it. It says that developed countries should take the lead in providing financial assistance to countries that are less endowed and more vulnerable, while also encouraging voluntary contributions by other parties.

The PA establishes a technology framework. It places great emphasis on climate-related capacity-building for developing countries and requests all developed countries to enhance support for capacity-building actions in developing countries.

But commitment to climate change mitigation is not uniform. While the poorer countries have no money or resources for it, the rich countries do not want to contribute much.  According to a YouGov survey, 19% of Americans say that climate change is not real or man-made. Trump has said that climate change is a “hoax” and that those who talk about it as “prophets of doom perennially predicting an apocalypse.”

However, The Guardian quotes Chris Bowen, Australian Climate Change Minister, as saying that Trump would be unlikely to live up to his anti-climate rhetoric. “It’s hard to legislate in the United States, but it’s also hard to un-legislate. So the Inflation Reduction Act (which includes an extraordinary US$ 370 billion in clean energy support) is the law of the land and will remain the law of the land unless it gets repealed, which will be very difficult to do. Furthermore, in the United States, regardless of federal mandates, the private sector knows that climate action is good business.”

NATO

The international relations experts give a 38% chance that a Trump-led US will withdraw from NATO. In 2018, Trump had told his top national security officials that he did not see the point of NATO, which he saw as a drain on the US resources. In contrast, the foreign policy experts interviewed gave Harris only a 1% chance of withdrawing from NATO.

On nuclear cooperation, the experts gave a 35% chance that the US will sign a new nuclear agreement with Iran if Harris is elected but only a 7% if Trump is elected. In 2020, Trump had said: “As long as I am President of the United States, Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.”

Trade

The predicted differences between the candidates extend to trade. Respondents, on an average, saw a whopping 80% chance that the US will raise tariffs under Trump but only a 30% chance of that under Harris.

IR experts estimate that the prospect that US foreign aid will increase under Harris to be 56% but only 20% under Trump.

Israel

Military assistance levels will differ, as well, the expert say. As Vice President, Harris has been clear about her view that Israel has a right to defend itself, but she has also been critical of its military operations in Gaza. Not surprisingly, IR experts see a considerable difference between the candidates on the question of increasing military aid to Israel. They give a 75% chance that Trump will “increase” US military assistance to Israel if elected, and a 54%  chance of the same thing happening under Harris.

Russia

According to the scholars there is a 63% chance that Harris will increase US military aid to Ukraine to fight Russia. Only 16% said Trump Harris will beef up Ukraine’s military. Though there are stories galore about Trump being in cahoots with Putin, no IR expert said that Trump and Putin have a deal.

Asked which candidate “would use military force abroad more often,” 26% of the respondents selected Harris, compared to Trump’s 14%. Trump is seen as a non-interventionist.

China

But on the all-important issue of China, the scholars saw similarities between Trump and Harris.  When asked to estimate the probability that China would use force against Taiwan under a Trump or a Harris administration, the experts said there was a 32% chance under Trump and 25% under Harris.  

Experts also predict that defence spending will increase regardless of the winner. There is a 76% probability in a new Trump administration, compared to a 67% likelihood in a Harris administration.
Asked to comment on the statement: “More states will become involved in direct military conflict in the Middle East” the experts said that there are 41% chances under Harris and 50% under Trump.

Harris Outperforms

According to the experts, regardless of specific issues, Harris outperforms Trump on effectiveness and competence in the foreign-policy arena. The experts also overwhelmingly expressed greater faith in Harris as head of the U.S. military. On the question of how confident they were in each candidate’s ability to be an effective commander in chief, the gap between the two candidates was striking, 87% of experts said they were either “very confident” or “somewhat confident” in Harris’s ability, but only 6% said the same of Trump.

When asked, “Which of the following Presidential candidates do you think would most effectively manage foreign-policy issues facing the United States today?” a resounding 92% of the Internal Relations experts chose Harris, while only 8% selected Trump.

A decisive 84% of the IR experts said that foreign governments would be more willing to cooperate with a Harris administration. Ninety percent also said that they would vote for Harris if the election were held today. Only 4% said that they would vote for Trump.

“The overwhelming consensus among these International Relations  scholars is that Harris would be more effective at managing international challenges,” Foreign Policy said in conclusion.