Now that US Vice President Kamala Harris is set to face Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump in the November election, her foreign policy positions, including military support for Israel and Ukraine, The threats of a rising China and the migration crisis on the US-Mexico border are under increased scrutiny.
In her speech at the Munich Security Conference in February, Harris laid out elements of what one White House official described as her worldview.
“I believe it is in the fundamental interest of the American people that the United States fulfill our longstanding role of global leadership,” Harris said.
Trump and his allies say Harris will be weak against America’s adversaries and continue what they call Biden’s disastrous policies in various regions of the world and on illegal immigration.
“She was a bum, a failed vice president in a failed administration,” Trump said at the Turning Point Summit in Florida late last month. “With millions of people crossing. And she was the border czar.”
Harris was tasked with coordinating diplomatic relations to address the root causes of the migration of thousands of Central Americans who try to enter the United States each year across the border, but she was not the administration’s border “czar.”
But he has brought a tough message to the campaign trail, highlighting his experience as California attorney general pursuing “transnational gangs, drug cartels and human traffickers” who entered the United States illegally.
“I prosecuted them case after case and I won,” she said earlier this week during her rally in Atlanta. “Donald Trump, on the other hand, has been talking a lot about securing our border, but he doesn’t walk the talk.”
Conflict in the Middle East
If elected, Harris will inherit the administration’s current effort to prevent, if not manage a wider war in the Middle East while continuing to support its ally Israel.
That effort has required extensive diplomatic resources and military deterrence by the administration sinceHamas attack on October 7 which triggered the war in Gaza.
Analysts predict Harris is unlikely to deviate from Biden’s long-term policy goals: a two-state solution that guarantees Israel’s security and Palestinian statehood, and regional integration of Israel and its Arab allies to counter Iran and its proxies.
Administration officials stress that a ceasefire in Gaza is a crucial first step. Following the assassination of the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, its Iranian-backed proxies, this week, Harris reaffirmed her support for Israel’s right to self-defense and called for an immediate halt to fighting.
But with much of the Democratic electorate angered by the president’s staunch support for Israel, she appears to be projecting a much more sympathetic tone toward the Palestinians.
“We cannot afford to become numb to suffering,” she said in remarks after her meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week. “And I will not remain silent.”
European security
In Europe, Harris has been a staunch advocate of Biden’s policy pillars: helping Ukraine defend its sovereignty while preventing direct conflict with Russia and maintaining unity in transatlantic alliances.
The White House official declined to speculate on what U.S. policy toward Ukraine would look like under a Harris administration, but pointed to its record of defending kyiv.
“You’ve seen her stand up to dictators like Putin, you’ve seen her work with our allies in Europe to ensure that Ukraine has what it needs to defend itself,” the official told VOA. “She’s been a critical component in keeping NATO together.”
In her two meetings with Volodymyr Zelenskyy this year, in Munich and at the Peace Summit in Switzerland in June, Harris assured the Ukrainian president of the administration’s commitment to supporting his country’s fight against Russia, despite growing Republican opposition in Congress.
If Republicans were to retain control of the House of Representatives and Democrats were to lose their slim majority in the Senate, Harris would face an uphill battle to keep U.S. funds flowing to Ukraine.
Rivalry with China
Harris has been the administration’s leader in shoring up alliances in the Indo-Pacific, where China is expanding its diplomatic and economic influence. She has been to the region several times and has met with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Asia Pacific Economic Forum.
She has been outspoken in opposing Beijing’s increasing aggression in the South China Sea, stressing the US’s commitment to upholding “international rules and norms” and reaffirming support for the Philippines, a treaty ally.
In 2022, Harris became the first senior US official to visit the tiny Palawan island chain in the Philippines, just 330 kilometres east of the disputed Spratly Islands, claimed entirely by China and in part by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
She will continue to strengthen these partnerships and alliances, said Robert Daly, director of the Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute on China and the United States.
On trade, Harris has said she will continue to work to reduce risks from China by continuing trade and investment activities but reducing dependence on a single supplier.
“We know that when she ran for president in 2020, she was quite averse to tariffs,” Daly told the VOA“Like President Biden, she appears to have changed her mind on this. Hence, more continuity.”
The vice president has also been outspoken on human rights issues and, as a senator, worked on legislation targeting abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, another red flag for Beijing.
Non-traditional security threats
Harris has focused on nontraditional security threats, chairing the National Space Council and promoting the administration’s policies on artificial intelligence and climate in various global forums.
“She’s been very important on these technology issues, on space and on climate,” said Linda Robinson, a senior fellow for Women and Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“That’s where you might expect to see a real effort to try to get people to understand that climate change, if not addressed quickly, we’ll be past that point of no return,” he told the VOA.
Before her tenure as senator, Harris served as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general with little foreign policy experience. But in her three and a half years as vice president, she traveled to 21 countries and met with 150 leaders.
Still, Trump and his allies have sought to portray her as an inexperienced, unsuccessful candidate and “a radical leftist lunatic who will destroy our country.”
In response, Harris goaded Trump, who has yet to accept her challenge to a presidential candidates debate, saying: “If you have something to say, say it to my face.”
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