Biden vs Trump foreign policy: Political scientist Stephen Walt weighs in

Transcript

Listen: On this episode of GZERO World Podcast, Ian Bremmer and Harvard Kennedy School Professor Stephen Walt discuss foreign policy differences between a second term for Biden or Trump on issues like China, Ukraine, and the Middle East. Walt argues that American foreign policy under a second Trump term wouldn’t be so different from the last four years under Biden. “The daylight may not be as great as people think,” Walt tells Ian. For instance, Walt says, “It's hard to see a big change between the Trump administration's approach to the Middle East and what the Biden administration was doing up until October 7." On China, Ukraine and the Mideast, Walt doesn’t see a big difference between the last two US presidents.

That hasn’t been Ian Bremmer’s view, to say the least. Well, that sounds like the makings of a good discussion. So let’s have it.

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TRANSCRIPT: Biden vs Trump foreign policy: Political scientist Stephen Walt weighs in

Steve Walt:

Trump is fundamentally a nationalist, fundamentally a unilateralist. Whereas Biden is very much a sort of globalist or internationalist, and that's our key difference. The Biden administration has tried to frame world politics as democracies versus autocracies. Trump doesn't care about that one way or the other.

Ian Bremmer:

Hello and welcome to the GZERO World Podcast. This is where you'll find extended versions of my conversations on public television. I'm Ian Bremmer and today I am looking ahead to the November presidential election. Aren't we all? And asking a simple question, what do voters care about? The answer, as you might expect, depends on who you ask. Political strategist, James Carville's famous mantra back from 1992, "It's the economy, stupid", has become so widely accepted, that I'm now embarrassed to say it again.

But it wasn't always thus. When pollsters started asking Americans in 1948, what they viewed as the "Most important problem facing the country", foreign policy and international security issues were at the top of the agenda and they stayed there for decades. Are we now heading back to an era where foreign conflicts and conflicts over foreigners, like immigration, dominate the political landscape? And how would a second term for either Biden or Trump, change not just the country, but the world?

Joining me today to discuss all that and more, is Harvard Kennedy school professor Steve Walt. He's argued that American foreign policy under a second Trump term wouldn't be so different from the last four years under Biden, which hasn't exactly been my view. So, let's talk about it.

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Ian Bremmer:

Steve Walt, good to see you, man.

Steve Walt:

Hey, nice to be with you.

Ian Bremmer:

So we've had a couple of decades now where people say "It's the economy, stupid", but we're talking a lot about foreign policy, not just you and me, but given the nature of the global order right now, a couple of active wars going on, and we can't forget Afghanistan, which was a debacle for Biden's first year. How much of a role do you think foreign policy is going to play in the 2024 election ultimately?

Steve Walt:

More than it usually does. Partly because the economy doesn't seem to be helping Biden as much as it should be, partly because it's hard to look at Biden's foreign policy and tout a lot of successes, a lot of big success stories. They tend to be things that people like us know about, but the public only sees a war happening in Gaza, a war we're not winning in Ukraine. And then most importantly, I think the war in Gaza is going to hurt Biden in a couple of states with Arab American populations, but also with progressives who aren't going to vote for Trump, but they may not turn out in as large a numbers and they may not help the campaign with the same enthusiasm, the same numbers that they did in 2020. I think those things could actually hurt. So, indirectly, foreign policy may have a much more significant role than it usually does.

Ian Bremmer:

And if Trump wins, you say foreign policy is not going to change?

Steve Walt:

Not what I said. It's not going to change as much as people think it's going to change. No question it's going to be different in a number of different ways. But on a bunch of big issues, the daylight between him and Biden just isn't that great.

Ian Bremmer:

So, the easy one to talk about is China, right? Because, I mean that's where Trump's foreign policy that everyone was sort of agitated about in the first administration, which was fairly hardball. Biden largely stuck to, and it's now the one area where Congress is all coming together, right?

Steve Walt:

That's exactly right. And in fact, the Biden people refined the Trump approach in a number of ways, focused it very much on high-tech. But have, if anything, doubled down on the policies that Trump adopted, starting in 2017. So, I don't see a big shift when Trump comes in.

The big difference is that, Biden has done this multilaterally. He's been able to get lots of international support for his policy from the Dutch, from the South Koreans, and he's worked very hard to build partnerships in Asia, to try and contain China. I worry that Trump is going to take a much more unilateralist approach, and it's not likely to be as effective.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, that's a fair point. The other one I wanted to push you on a little bit is Taiwan, right? I mean, in part because, if it's true that Trump is going to leave Ukraine in the dust, that clearly concerns a lot of people, that, well, what would American commitments to Taiwan look like? And they're just general issues with an America first approach, that implies the United States shouldn't be sending men and women to defend a little island really far away.

Steve Walt:

Right. No and Trump has waffled on this. He's been asked directly if he would defend Taiwan, and he didn't say he wouldn't, but he didn't say he would. Whereas the Biden people have hinted in a variety of ways, and Biden himself has said on a number of occasions, that he would in fact defend Taiwan. So, I think that is at least a potential point. But again, if you're really serious about containing China, and Trump appears to be, can you really afford to then let Taiwan go down the tubes? Something that would then have shockwaves for Japan, for South Korea, for Australia, for others. And it seems to me, if he starts to move in that direction, he'll get lots of pushback, including from some of the people he is likely to appoint in the next administration. Again, if he's elected.

Ian Bremmer:

But is he really serious about containing China or is he just really serious about bringing the trade deficit down and reducing American trade with China and dramatically expanding? Again, we hear the 60% tariffs on Chinese exports to the United States. That seems to be the focus, not containment writ large.

Steve Walt:

Yeah, that's probably going to be Trump's focus, because he's tended to concentrate on that throughout his career. But again, he's going to be bringing in a number of other people who have, I think a much more confrontational approach towards China. People like Matt Pottinger, likely to be in the second term as he was in the first term. And of course that is an issue, as you said a while back, where there's a bipartisan consensus in Congress, increasing support within the American business community, certain parts of it, and of course lots of support within the broad national security community. So, he may only care about the trade deficit, but everyone else around cares about more than that.

Ian Bremmer:

Let's move on to Russia, where certainly if you were going to argue that there's a big difference between a Biden and a Trump administration, you would start there, right? In part because Trump sees Zelenskyy as a personal thorn from having not been willing to open the investigations into Biden and Hunter, when he demanded that Zelenskyy do. And secondly, because he continues to say that I'm going to end this war in a day, and the way he apparently seems to intend to end the war is by stopping all support for Ukraine. Now, that has not been where Republicans and Democrats have been, but the Freedom Caucus in the house, most aligned with Trump, has been doing everything possible to stop that money from going to Ukraine.

Steve Walt:

Yeah, I think this is the clearest place you'll see a difference, but the daylight may not be as great as people think. And it's not because Trump isn't likely to be much less supportive of Ukraine. He certainly won't spend any political capital trying to get big aid packages through the Freedom Caucus or anybody else. But, I believe that, in a second term, a Biden administration would also be trying to end this war sooner rather than later. They realize, even though they won't say it publicly, that Ukraine is not going to be able to reconquer its lost territory. It's not getting back Crimea, it's probably not getting back any part of the Donbas. So, if the war continues in a second term for Biden, it's just a war in which Ukraine is getting hurt more and more and more and more.

So, I think, although they can't say it during the campaign, once Biden's reelected, you'll see a move towards some kind of ceasefire, some kind of settlement as well. The difference is that Biden's going to try to support Ukraine to help them get the best deal they can in a peace arrangement. And Trump, you run the risk that he would in fact abandon Ukraine and force Ukraine to rely only on the support they can get from Europe, which of course is what Trump has wanted all along. You get the Europeans to do more of the heavy lifting when it comes to European security.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, the other difference though, goes back to your first point. When we're talking about China, which is unilateralism versus multilateralism. I mean, Biden would be trying to engage in this policy construct, this policy with European allies, where Trump is working with Viktor Orban, his buddy who's most irritating to all of the Europeans, has been the most Euro-skeptic of the European leaders. Isn't this a more existential threat to NATO or are you're not worried about that?

Steve Walt:

Well, I don't think Russia constitutes an existential threat to NATO for a whole series of complicated reason. But you're absolutely right on this point, that Trump is fundamentally a nationalist, fundamentally a unilateralist, whereas Biden is very much a sort of globalist or internationalist, and that's our key difference.

There's also the key difference in that, the Biden administration has tried to frame world politics as democracies versus autocracies, the need for the former to stand together, demonstrate that they perform better than autocracies. Trump doesn't care about that one way or the other, that framing will be completely lost. If anything, he seems more comfortable with people like Viktor Orban, than with most European leaders. So, that, I think, will also shape his basic approach to Europe. I don't think Trump was going to leave NATO, but you're certainly going to see a less supportive America under a Donald Trump second term.

Ian Bremmer:

So, the fact that the Europeans are worried not just that the Ukrainians would be left out to dry, but that NATO itself, that Trump wouldn't be committed to it, that he might be willing to unilaterally, not necessarily leave the alliance, but certainly be unwilling to uphold security guarantees, if say, the Baltic States were to face asymmetric challenges from the Russians on the ground. We just saw in recent days, inside Lithuania, an apparent terrorist attack against a senior aide of Navalny. That's a NATO country. Russia is plausibly behind that. Are you saying that the Europeans are hyperventilating here?

Steve Walt:

No, I think the Europeans are concerned and they have reason to be. I think Trump's basic view, and he's not alone in this, is that Europeans have been "Free riding for a long time", that there's a serious need in Europe to both cooperate more, to create genuine defense capabilities, as opposed to largely paper capabilities, and also work together to deal with those low-level problems, like the ones you mentioned in places like Lithuania. That doesn't necessarily require a direct American role, a direct American participation.

So, Trump may in fact move to a situation where the United States is no longer seen as the first responder in Europe, but rather as sort of the ally of last resort that's there in the case of a genuine emergency, there in the case of a direct attack upon NATO. And if he does that in a measured way, that might not be such a terrible development. It certainly doesn't necessarily lead to the breakdown of NATO, although I'm sure it will cause a lot of hair tearing in Brussels.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, if I wanted to be cute about this, I'd say, "Don't worry, Europe. Putin's not going to get a green light under Trump. He's just going to get a flashing yellow."

Steve Walt:

Well, again, a flashing yellow to do what? Remember, that the Russian army has been badly beaten up in Ukraine. If Donald Trump gets another four years as president, the likelihood that Russia is going to be able to reconstitute some kind of serious military threat to Europe, where the United States is still engaged to some degree, I think is pretty far-fetched. So, Europe ought to worry about it, but Europe also has plenty of time in which to start building the capabilities it might need.

Ian Bremmer:

It's a useful reminder in terms of the basic conventional forces. I'm not sure how much that helps them on the cyber, on the asymmetric, those little green men, that kind of thing. I think that would probably worry him. Let's turn now to the Middle East, where you don't see a lot of daylight between the administration and Trump.

Steve Walt:

Yeah. In fact, the Biden and Trump administrations have been almost identical in terms of their Middle East policy. Remember, Biden said he was going to go back to the nuclear deal with Iran. That never happened. He said he was going to reopen the US consulate in Jerusalem. That didn't happen. Nothing was done on the Israeli-Palestinian front until October 7th occurred. And in fact, what Biden was doing was essentially continuing what Trump had done with the Abraham Accords, trying to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia as part of a sort of complicated diplomatic bank shot, that would also involve security guarantees for the Saudis. That of course, all got put on hold when October 7th happened, but it's hard to see a big change between the Trump administration's approach to the Middle East and what the Biden administration was doing up until October 7th. Since then, of course, there's been very little daylight really between the United States and Israel.

Lots of stories about how the Americans are frustrated, but support is continuing. There's no sense that we're really actually going to condition American aid and we're just waiting to see when the fighting actually stops in Gaza. So, I don't see either a future Biden administration or a future Trump administration, having a fundamentally different policy towards most of the Middle East and probably not even on Iran. I think, almost everyone who's looked carefully at this, realizes that a further expansion of the war in the Middle East to include Lebanon, bringing in Iran possibly, would be a disaster for everyone. So again, I just don't see a whole lot of difference between how Trump would probably handle the Middle East and how the Biden administration has handled it up until now.

Ian Bremmer:

The last point's the most interesting, of course, because in a considerably less unstable environment at the end of the Trump administration, Trump decided to assassinate Qasem Soleimani, who was the head of the Iranian Defense Forces. Now, here we have an environment where the Iranians are engaging actively in a proxy war against US interests across the region, and indeed with three American servicemen and women getting killed in Jordan in the past weeks. Now, Biden's response was very careful, very cautious, back-channeling to the Iranians, try to make sure that there wasn't an expansion escalation. You think that Trump would act similarly in that environment?

Steve Walt:

Yeah, I think, again, assassinating Soleimani was probably the boldest thing that Trump did. There were other planned attacks on Iran that he actually vetoed at the last minute on a number of occasions. And most of what the Biden administration has done has been to respond against Iranian proxies, most notably the Houthis in Yemen. But again, I don't think that either side, either the Iranians or the Americans, want to get into a serious test of military strength there, particularly given what has happened already in the Middle East, the damage that that's done to America's image elsewhere in the world. For the United States to get involved in yet another large Middle East war, it seems to me is contrary to our interest. But it's also contrary to most of Donald Trump's instincts. He doesn't mind demonstrations of military strength, dropping bombs, sending cruise missiles in small numbers, things like that. But big wars are one of the things he ran against in 2016, and he's continued to oppose.

Ian Bremmer:

So, if there was a Steve Walt book on the 2024 Foreign Policy and Election, would it be like, how I learned to stop worrying and love Trump?

Steve Walt:

Not at all, because there are a number of issues where Trump is likely to be very different than Biden. Certainly on the environment, right? He'll abandon the Paris Climate Accord agreement. Again, he probably will reverse or try to reverse the Inflation Reduction Act and the various things Biden has done to hasten a green transition. So, that clock will get turned back another three or four years as well. What has he said, that, "Day one, we're going to drill, drill, drill." So, that's clearly one. To the extent that the United States still stands for human rights, that's going to drop.

Ian Bremmer:

You're making me push back on the Trump side now. I mean, Biden administration, you drill, drill, drill. I mean it's the highest level of energy production, fossil fuel energy production in the history of the planet is happening right now under Biden. Is that the same policy for Trump?

Steve Walt:

Well, now you're supporting my position, that there won't be that much difference between the two of them. No, but I think, clearly, Trump has basically been, if not a climate change denier, pretty close to them and won't do anything, I think, to encourage the United States to accelerate its weaning itself off of fossil fuels. And that's one of Biden's signature accomplishments so far. As I said before, the other thing you'll see is, you won't see any rhetorical or meaningful support for democracy promotion, unity among democracies. If anything, you might worry that Trump is going to be supportive of people like Orban, of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, other populist leaders in a variety of places, whom he sees as kindred spirits in a variety of ways.

So, there are going to be clear differences between the two of them. And the last thing to point to is just, who he appoints and what the overall level of competence and chaos is. The first term was not a smooth running machine. Four secretaries of defense, four national security advisors, two secretaries of state, enormous amounts of turnover in the White House. You could argue maybe they'll do better in a second term, they've got a list of loyalists to put in. But I think, people have found that, working for Donald Trump is not a whole lot of fun. So, I think the other thing to worry about is, you're going to get a highly chaotic, very unpredictable environment, nothing that we should actually be looking forward to.

Ian Bremmer:

So before we close, broader discussion for a moment, on just how you think US foreign policy and influence around the world is going. Do you see the United States in a reasonably stable position globally right now? Are you seeing US foreign policy starting to decline?

Steve Walt:

Well, the United States is an extraordinarily fortunate country. Given how safe we are in the Western hemisphere, given our economic diversity, overall economic resources, the fact that the US economy has outperformed all the other industrial powers over the last several years, I think all of this suggests that, events in other parts of the world, do not affect us nearly as much as we often think. So, in that sense, things look pretty good.

And I do give the Biden administration credit for having smooth relations with our principal long-term allies. That's been fine. Unfortunately, they've mismanaged a number of other relationships, most notably in the Middle East. And I think, mismanaging the conflict with Ukraine, which has of course put them in a position where suddenly American foreign policy doesn't look all that successful. Ukraine has not gone as well as we all hoped. The situation in the Middle East, of course, is a disaster.

And where this is really hurting us, as you well know, is in the global south, where the United States now looks, I think, remarkably hypocritical. And all these ideas about a rules-based order that we were trying to get the rest of the world to subscribe to, that's all looks like a lot of hooey to most people in Brazil or South Africa, India, other parts of the world. And I think that does undercut American influence substantially, and it's going to make it harder to elicit cooperation from those countries going forward, regardless of who's president.

Ian Bremmer:

The India alignment with the United States seems to be pretty strong irrespective of Biden or Trump becoming president. And the new architecture the US is building geopolitically in Asia, is probably an area of stabilization. But generally, on the Global South point, I agree pretty strongly with you there.

How do you think Biden has mismanaged Ukraine specifically? And I mean, it's a really challenging response to Marshall. There was much stronger coordination both inside the US and with NATO allies than there appears to be today. And certainly, the Ukrainians are not performing as well on the ground as they were, say, 6, 9, 12 months ago. What do you think the US should have done differently and when?

Steve Walt:

Well, I think we should have worked harder to prevent the war from happening in the first place. I think the American position when the Russians sort of attempted to coerce some kind of negotiated settlement, was to flatly reject it. I don't think they took sufficiently seriously, the possibility of cutting a diplomatic deal before the war started. Then, the United States was not particularly supportive of the early discussions on a ceasefire, involving Turkey, involving Israel, where there seemed to be some progress being made on maybe getting the war over sooner rather than later. I think that ultimately would've been better for Ukraine, better for all of us.

Finally, I think they mismanaged the Ukrainian counteroffensive. We should have been much firmer telling the Ukrainians not to attempt a counteroffensive that wasn't likely to work, given the amount of training they had, given the preparations the Russians had made. And that, of course, weakened Ukraine substantially has put Russia in a much better position as well. So, you put all of those things together, I think, now the Ukrainian position is much weaker than most of us had hoped it would be. I blame the United States in part for some of those mistakes.

Ian Bremmer:

What should the West, what should NATO do now, given that? It's been my view that Ukraine is going to get partitioned one way or the other. But, given that there needs to be much harder security guarantees from the west of the remaining Ukrainian territory that they still actually occupy, do you think that that is viable? Is that the best policy? Or should we do something else?

Steve Walt:

No, I think that's basically where we're going to end up. So, I think we should be continuing to support the Ukrainians, so that they don't lose any additional territory, and so they're in a good bargaining position when it comes time for the partition you outline, which I also agree is the likely outcome here. And then the question of exactly what sort of security guarantees Ukraine is going to get going forward, I think is actually quite an important one and also somewhat tricky one.

I disagree with those who think that, the thing to do now is bring Ukraine into NATO immediately, or promise it'll be in soon, because I believe that's part of the reasons the war broke out. And if that's their position going in, Russia will just keep fighting to prevent that from happening. So, something short of NATO membership is going to be necessary.

But Ukraine is going to need some assurances that it can still get weapons from the outside world, possibly get training from the outside world, and that in the event of a resumption of hostilities, support from other powers can come immediately to Ukraine as well. So, it won't get full NATO membership, but it's going to have to have some set of assurances. That's a tricky thing to negotiate, when you're negotiating with Russia, which is why I also think the negotiations are likely to be quite a difficult and protracted affair.

Ian Bremmer:

And they're not going to start anytime soon. No question about that. Well, Steve Walt, as always, really good to see you.

Steve Walt:

Nice to talk to you too.

Ian Bremmer:

That's it for today's edition of the GZERO World Podcast. Do you like what you heard? Of course you did. Why don't you check us out at gzeromedia.com and take a moment to sign up for our newsletter? It's called GZERO Daily.

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The GZERO World Podcast is brought to you by our lead sponsor, Prologis. Prologis helps businesses across the globe scale their supply chains with an expansive portfolio of logistics real estate, and the only end-to-end solutions platform addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today. Learn more at prologis.com.

And from our friends at Foreign Policy, each week on Foreign Policy Live, Editor-in-Chief Ravi Agrawal, sits down with world leaders and policy experts to discuss the issues that matter most, from the US-China relationship and the Israel-Hamas War, to the Global South's growing clout. Listen and follow on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.