By JOHN LESLIE and CARLOS SAPIR
As the presidential election approaches, Kamala Harris’s and Donald Trump’s campaigns are trying to articulate their visions for U.S. policy abroad. Their appeals are not just directed at the general public; to a great degree, their plans for the future of U.S. imperialism are constructed for the benefit of the monied capitalists who stand to benefit directly from the U.S. policy outside of its borders. It is for this reason that the two capitalist parties’ visions have more in common than they have differences.
Foreign policy a la Trump
As president, Trump’s foreign policy was marked by his chaotic and unpredictable management style. He was, at times, at odds with allies of the U.S. and heaped praise on authoritarian heads of state. But now, listening to the former president as a campaigner, it is perhaps an exaggeration to say that Trump successfully articulates anything. His campaign discourse resembles a badly written radio Western, a world full of “bad guys,” “real bad guys,” and racial caricatures—and facing them all down is an American with a gun.
The “official” 2024 platform of the Republican Party is only slightly more coherent. It primarily subordinates foreign policy to the priority of “securing the border” (itself a fabricated, xenophobic scandal): “Before we defend the Borders of Foreign Countries, we must first secure the Border of our Country.” Elsewhere, however, it makes various vague commitments to “rebuilding our Military and Alliances, countering China, defeating terrorism” without specifics as to how any of these goals will be pursued.
Project 2025 provides additional details of the potential policies of a Trump presidency. Most of the Project’s “Mandate” manifesto is focused on domestic matters, and its foreign policy is summarized in meaningless blathering such as the claim that it rejects both “interventionism” and “isolationism” but instead strives to protect the national interest (read: the interests of U.S. capitalists). Its approach to foreign trade and economic policy is similarly self-contradictory, with some of its authors advocating protectionism and others calling for more free trade policies. It does, however, propose one clear and significant foreign policy detail—the massive expansion and renovation of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
There is little new here. Policies of rearmament, anti-immigrant fearmongering, and an overtly hostile stance towards China are consistent with Trump’s track record in office. They are also consistent with Biden’s track record.
Has Biden been any different?
As president, Biden sought to return to the old postwar alignments in his rhetoric, but his actual policies continued a path that was similar to Trump’s. The hallmark foreign policy initiative of his presidency was supposed to be a “pivot to Asia.” Unlike in the Obama years, however, when the U.S. government sought to increase trade with China, Biden now mirrored Trump in naming China as the country’s primary rival. Economic policies tailored to pressure China were seen by the imperialist allies of the U.S. in Europe as an attempt to subordinate the European economy to that of the United States. Biden’s attempts to carry out this supposed pivot, however, were stymied by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Israeli genocide against Palestinians.
In Ukraine, Biden’s words have often been at odds with his actions. Rhetorically, he has repeatedly praised the Ukrainian resistance and called for it to defeat Russia. In practice, however, while the U.S. has given some military support to Ukraine, its support has been measured, consisting primarily of the offloading of outdated surplus onto Ukraine in order to provide a pretext for U.S. rearmament with new next-generation weaponry. Biden’s administration and the EU have saddled Ukraine with debt, and taken over a significant amount of military production in Ukraine itself. Rather than producing arms as needed around the clock to defeat the invasion, these factories are operating for a lucrative profit, all while Ukrainian workers are forced to deal with attacks against their working conditions that Zelensky’s government has put into place.
The Biden administration’s response to Ukraine has particularly displayed its hypocrisy when contrasted with its response to Israel’s invasion of Gaza. In Gaza, suddenly, the U.S. military flung open its arsenal, and Israel has received a deluge of munitions (as well as critical logistical support) to carry out a genocide. Weapons that could have defended Ukraine are now being used to slaughter Palestinians. Biden’s claims to support a ceasefire are belied by Washington’s ongoing logistical support to Israel; if the U.S. were to stop providing this support, Israel would be unable to continue its assault. Every death in Gaza is cosigned by U.S. weaponry. Meanwhile, the Biden administration has at every turn used its diplomatic clout to impede UN institutions and other international bodies from intervening.
Finally, there’s Biden’s immigration policy. Challenged by Republicans blathering about a border crisis throughout his presidency, Biden ended up running to the right of them, acknowledging rather than refuting the xenophobic lies about chaos along the border, discontinuing U.S. compliance with international asylum law, and repeatedly threatening to close the border outright. Structurally tied as they are to the Democratic Party apparatus, the non-profit organizations that currently lead the immigrant rights movement have been unable to respond effectively.
Will Harris be any different?
Throughout the Biden presidency, Kamala Harris has stood by the president’s policies and helped articulate and implement them as the second-in-command. It is entirely likely that her policies will continue in the same mold as those of her two predecessors.
For example, while Harris has spoken about abuses of Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli state, she has fully committed herself to Israel’s “right to self-defense,” and her campaign has stated that an arms embargo is already “off the table.”
Although the Democratic National Convention (DNC) hosted the party’s first ever panel on Palestinian rights, the issue of Israel’s genocide in Gaza remained out of sight excepts for protests in the street outside and a few disruptions by pro-Palestine advocates inside the convention hall.
The DNC rebuffed the Uncommitted Campaign’s requests to participate in the Democratic National Convention. It would have been a trivial gesture to allow a vetted representative of Uncommitted to speak, and thus maintain the thin pretense that Harris cares about Palestinians. Instead, Palestinian speakers were rejected, while the family of an Israeli hostage and anti-abortion (but anti-Trump) Republicans were given the floor. Harris rejects the slightest association of her campaign with a defense of Palestinians.
While the Democratic Party’s platform waxes poetic about nuclear nonproliferation, the party’s actual policy, as analyzed by and for the bourgeoisie, is the continuation of longstanding policies of “deterrence.” As we have written previously, nuclear deterrence is not a peacekeeping tool but rather an imperialist threat and a never-ending menace to human life on Earth. With regard to non-nuclear weaponry, Harris is straightforward: the U.S. is to have the “strongest military in the world,” securing its place as military hegemon once more.
Ultimately, both Trump and Harris promise to increase the footprint of U.S. imperialism to the detriment of workers everywhere. While they may not react identically to every situation, their priorities are clear—to use military might and economic pressure to subordinate the world for the benefit of the U.S. ruling class. We cannot pretend that Harris is somehow protecting us by presenting an alternative to Trump. At the end of the day, her program is just as lethal, and it is equally committed to asserting U.S. supremacy in an era of increasing inter-imperial competition with China, Russia, and Europe.
To defeat U.S. imperialism, militarism, and war, workers and the oppressed need to decisively break with the Democrats, the Republicans, and the entire two-party political charade. This means rejecting the entreaties of “left” charlatans who would lead us back into the arms of the class enemy’s party. We need to build our own party, a fighting working-class party that doesn’t just contest elections but fights every day of the year for the oppressed and exploited.
Photo: U.S. has ramped up its military presence in the Pacific. (U.S. Navy)