What to Know About Kamala Harris’s Foreign Policy Positions
Hundreds of former Democratic foreign policy leaders this week backed Vice President Kamala Harris in her bid for the White House, vouching for their party’s presumptive nominee despite her limited experience in matters of diplomacy.
Her rapid trajectory to the top of the ticket just days after President Biden announced he would exit the race comes at a time of increased global tension, leaving voters to wonder where she stands on critical foreign policy issues, including military support for Israel and Ukraine, the migrant crisis, and threats from an emergent China.
Ms. Harris has played a narrow role in the Biden administration’s shaping of foreign policy, even in the areas where she is involved, most notably in the administration’s approach to illegal migration along the southern border. Nevertheless, the campaign of former President Donald J. Trump has sought to tie her to the influx in migrants, while simultaneously painting her as inexperienced.
Here is what we know about her key foreign policy positions.
The War in Gaza
Ms. Harris has largely been in lock step with Mr. Biden regarding U.S. support for Israel in its war with Hamas in Gaza. She has reaffirmed the administration’s position that Israel has a right to defend itself, but she has struck a sharper tone about the suffering of people in Gaza.
“What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating,” Ms. Harris told reporters after a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Thursday.
“The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time — we cannot look away in the face of these tragedies,” she said, adding, “I will not be silent.”
Ms. Harris did not attend Mr. Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on Wednesday, but she denounced protesters who burned an American flag and painted anti-Israel graffiti on statues near the Capitol on Wednesday.
After meeting with Mr. Netanyahu, Ms. Harris also said she met with the families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas since the group’s Oct. 7 attack. “I stand with them,” she said.
In March, she called for an “immediate cease-fire” in Gaza and said the situation in the enclave was a “humanitarian catastrophe.”
In an interview later that month, Ms. Harris echoed the Biden administration’s opposition to an Israeli invasion of Rafah, the city in southern Gaza where more than one million people have fled.
“There’s nowhere for those folks to go,” she said.
The War in Ukraine
Ms. Harris’s full-throated support for Ukraine in its war against Russia represents an important moment for the vice president on the world stage and is a sharp contrast with Mr. Trump.
At the Munich Security Conference in February, Ms. Harris assured world leaders that she and Mr. Biden stood with Ukraine but could not guarantee the unwavering support of the U.S. Congress.
She also accused Russia of “crimes against humanity” in its invasion of Ukraine and said that it must be held accountable for its “barbaric” actions in the war.
Ms. Harris also warned China against providing Russia with support.
Migration
When Mr. Biden entered office, he relaxed some of the measures Mr. Trump had put in place at the southern border, which included separating families and constructing a wall.
Those Biden-era policies coincided with an increase in global migration leading to a pronounced bump in the number of undocumented migrants crossing the southern border into the United States. Mr. Biden assigned Ms. Harris to addressing the root causes of migration in Central America, such as poverty, crime rates and corruption.
On a visit to Guatemala in 2021, her first foreign trip as vice president, she said the United States would work to investigate corruption in the country but warned migrants hoping to reach the U.S. border.
“Do not come,” she said.
Republicans have sought to blame Ms. Harris for the high numbers of migrant crossings, branding her the “border czar.”
“We are very clear, and I think most Americans are clear, that we have a broken immigration system and we need to fix it,” Ms. Harris said in March.
She recently endorsed a bipartisan border security proposal that was killed by Republican lawmakers at Mr. Trump’s urging. The deal would have closed the U.S. border with Mexico if crossings hit a fixed number and would have funded more Border Patrol agents and asylum officers.
Indo-Pacific
Ms. Harris has spoken of the threat China poses to U.S. allies and interests in Asia.
During a speech in Singapore in 2021, she condemned China’s maritime actions, which included intimidating the fishing fleets of other countries and building artificial islands in the South China Sea.
“We know that Beijing continues to coerce, to intimidate and to make claims to the vast majority of the South China Sea,” she said.
At speech aboard a U.S. Navy ship off the coast of Japan in 2022, Ms. Harris reiterated America’s unofficial policy to back Taiwan against Chinese aggression.
“We will continue to support Taiwan’s self-defense, consistent with our longstanding policy,” she said.
Ms. Harris has also made comments on matters outside of China. At a summit in September in Indonesia with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Ms. Harris called for Myanmar’s military regime, which staged a coup in 2021, to “end the horrific violence” and “re-establish” democracy.
Africa
Africa is in the middle of a population boom that may force the United States to change its relationship with the continent.
The vice president took a weeklong trip to Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia in 2023 to counter the narrative that the United States viewed Africa as only a pawn to guard against Chinese and Russian expansion.
“African ingenuity and innovation, I am certain, will shape the future of the world,” she said in Ghana.
Ms. Harris’s trip occurred amid efforts to cut back L.G.B.T.Q. rights in the three countries, and she had to navigate her longstanding commitment to gay rights. When asked about changes to L.G.B.T.Q. rights during a news briefing with the Ghanaian president, Nana Akufo-Addo, Ms. Harris said she had “raised the issue,” but did not specify with whom or in which country.
“This is an issue that we consider, and I consider, to be a human rights issue, and that will not change,” Ms. Harris added.
The year after her trip, Ms. Harris announced a partnership aimed at bringing internet access to 80 percent of the continent by 2030.
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