If Kamala Harris wins, it will be England’s big problem

Democratic presidential candidate may not have a particular love for Europe

26 October 2024 11:00

We British attach great importance to this US presidential election. Maybe too much After Trump campaign complaint A lawsuit was filed this week alleging Labor Party’s “interference in foreign elections”.

At least Labor activists are in line with public opinion on their fight. Donald Trump And Kamala Harris. Polls show two in three of us want Harris to win. Only one in six wants Trump’s second term.

It’s clear why the UK and its EU allies may have to fear another Trump presidency. Dark possibilities range from stunting growth and imposing tariffs of up to 20 percent on exports to withdrawing from NATO and appeasing Russia’s war forces advancing westward across our continent.

The hope is that Europe and America will return to business as usual with President Harris. Maybe. He will represent a new generation of leadership in the United States that is less concerned with what is happening here. Those hoping for much warmer special relations in London, Paris or Brussels are likely to be disappointed unless emergencies force their political allies to cooperate closely again.

Harris was born on October 20, 1964 in Oakland, California. His father was of Jamaican descent, his mother was Indian. His career was focused entirely on domestic policy and law enforcement until he became a U.S. senator in 2017. He would be the first post-baby boomer president, and neither the Cold War nor the collapse of the Soviet Union is likely to significantly affect him. .

Being vice president of the United States is often a crash course in foreign relations. Harris met with more than 150 world leaders while deputizing for Joe Biden, but all that handshaking appears to have had little effect on her. When asked on US television in 2021 why Biden, as border czar, did not go to the border, he gave a surprising and very remarkable answer. “And I didn’t go to Europe,” he countered.

Harris caught this break in her four years as Vice President. He traveled to Europe and represented President Biden several times at the Munich Security Conference, including most notably in meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. She did not make a strong impression even on some of her fellow female leaders. Isabel Schnabel of the European Central Bank called it “invisible”.

He was sent to Paris to sort out ruffled feathers after France lost submarine construction contracts to the AUKUS security agreement. In November last year, Vice President Harris shadowed Rishi Sunak’s AI Security Summit. He gave his own speech before opening in London, 50 miles from the Bletchley Park conference, where he declared that—thank you very much—the United States would take the lead in regulating its own tech giants.

This fall, Harris took time out of her campaign to come to New York to meet with world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly. For whatever reason, Sir Keir Starmer did not make the short trip to Washington DC to see her, but spent two hours there. Dining with Donald Trump.

In European capitals, Harris merely followed the familiar script of U.S. administrations of both political colors. Democratic presidents may not go as far as Trump’s neo-isolationist “America First” approach, but they will still always put the interests of the United States first. America’s relationships, both collective and individual, with European countries are based not on emotions but on “what this means to us.”

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This basic common perspective does not mean that the outcomes of President Harris or President Trump will be the same for Europe.

Domestic pressures suggest that the US Congress is ready to reduce defense aid to Ukraine, regardless of who is in the White House. Only Trump is inclined to push for an immediate agreement on terms sympathetic to Putin’s territorial expansion.

For Starmer and other Western allies, the biggest difference between Harris and Trump is a matter of democratic values. We cannot know how far Trump will go in implementing his wild rhetoric in his second term. If the leader of the free world gets his way, he plans to trash democratic values ​​with unilateral authoritarian actions at home and abroad. Europe’s far-right parties would be joyful and strong with election victory.

Trump’s worldview is oppressive. This week, two of America’s top military commanders, both of whom have worked closely with Trump, Branded him a “fascist”. US Marine Corps General Mike Kelly was Trump’s chief of staff and said the former president was “definitely” in “far-right territory”, was “authoritarian” and “admired dictators”.

Harris, who continues to lead the United Kingdom in terms of senior female politicians, will be the first woman and black woman to become the US president. There is no mistaking that the MAGA Republican campaign against him has reactionary undercurrents of racism and misogyny. Trump’s victory would be a reactionary defeat across the “free world.” His crass disregard for niceties must present an obvious challenge to barrister Starmer, who, like fellow prosecutor Harris, values ​​the rule of law above all else. Will the Prime Minister oppose the returning Trump or bow to him?

What starts in America tends to come here. Harris may not have a particular love for Europe, but she at least shares and respects common democratic principles that are variously valued in former colonial power Britain as well as in the breakaway constitution of the United States. Those who know him best say Trump has no knowledge of or interest in these core values.

british people They are advised to stay away from the US presidential elections but we should care. The consequences will affect us all.  

Adam Boulton presents Sunday Morning on Times Radio