Fatshimetry —
The foreign policy rivalry between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump often seemed to take a back seat in an election focused on domestic concerns.
Yet with two ongoing wars, growing global instability, and a right-wing trend toward isolationism — in the United States and abroad — it will be difficult for Biden and Trump to avoid the topic during the debate Thursday evening in Atlanta.
Biden’s campaign hopes to make domestic issues such as the economy and reproductive rights central points in the argument for the president’s re-election. But it was foreign policy that largely occupied his time during his first term, including in the period directly preceding Thursday’s debate, and during which Biden undertook back-to-back trips to Europe.
His close advisers have frankly acknowledged, particularly since October 7, that events abroad have more than once – and more than his team would like – diverted the president’s attention from important domestic issues.
Unlike previous election cycles, there is no planned debate solely on foreign policy, which previously served to highlight the stark contrasts on world affairs between Republican and Democratic candidates.
Instead, Biden’s advisers expect those questions could arise as part of the broader discussion that will take place on the debate stage in Atlanta on Thursday. With that in mind, Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, was one of more than a dozen senior advisers who joined Biden at Camp David this week to lead the group’s foreign policy discussions, according to a source informed of the preparations.
As much as Biden’s team would prefer to focus on domestic issues, it has also long viewed foreign policy as one of the clearest ways to demonstrate a contrast with Trump when it comes to presidential leadership.
A campaign official told CNN that if and when foreign policy issues come up Thursday night, the contrast Biden will try to paint couldn’t be starker.
“President Biden opposes dictators and defends freedom – Trump is too dangerous and reckless a loser to ever approach the Oval Office again,” the official said.
Trump has repeatedly accused Biden of presiding over a chaotic world that he said was much calmer during the four years he was in office.
A potential difficulty for Biden and his advisers could be identifying Trump’s positions on several areas of foreign policy. He has not said much about the war in Gaza, although he was mildly critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the start of the conflict and encouraged him to end it.
On Ukraine, Trump claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion would never have happened during his time in office and promised to resolve the conflict within a day – without specifying how.
And although he took a tough tone toward China, promising to implement harsh tariffs on all Chinese imports, his record as president was more conciliatory, striking a trade deal that Beijing later broke.
The ambiguous positions Trump has taken on foreign policy reflect his approach to office, when he often cited personal feelings and hunches to explain tactics like meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
That could, however, make it more difficult for Biden to lay out a clear line of attack. Instead, the president should highlight the ways he has strengthened American leadership on the world stage, solidified American alliances and defended democracy abroad, according to the campaign official.
As for Trump, Biden is expected to deploy a broad accusation: that Trump has abandoned America’s allies, moved closer to dictators and generally made the world less safe.
“Donald Trump constantly praises authoritarian leaders and dictators, promises to sell out our allies and undermines our democracy,” the official added.
As in other areas, Biden’s team relied on Trump’s own words to frame its attacks. For example, Trump’s statement that he would “encourage” Russia to “do whatever they want” to NATO allies if they don’t spend enough on defense is a moment that Biden seized on several times. times to argue against the leadership of his predecessor.
And Trump’s promise to act as a “dictator” from the first day of his presidency gave Biden the opportunity to warn of the global consequences if Trump returns to power.
However, political risks abound for Biden when it comes to foreign affairs. The war in Gaza has sparked anger among progressives, with many accusing Biden of fueling the humanitarian crisis by supplying weapons to Israel.
But he received little credit from Republicans either, who accused the president of abandoning Israel after suspending deliveries of some heavy bombs.
Netanyahu hasn’t made Biden’s situation any easier by accusing the administration of delaying arms deliveries and taking ambiguous positions on a proposed U.S.-backed ceasefire that Biden hopes will end the fighting .