The first Republican presidential debate is fast approaching on August 23rd, where candidates will hope to close the gap on former president Donald Trump and separate from the rest of the pack. In this series, Up For Debate, the Washington Examiner will look at a key issue or policy every day up until debate day, and where key candidates stand. Today's story will examine foreign policy.
Republican presidential hopefuls will assemble for the first presidential primary debate of the 2024 election season just days before the second anniversary of the chaotic and tragic United States withdrawal from Afghanistan, to face a GOP electorate that continues to evolve away from the legacy of the Iraq War but still values Uncle Sam’s status as a global superpower.
UP FOR DEBATE: WHERE TRUMP, DESANTIS, AND REST OF REPUBLICAN 2024 FIELD STAND ON KEY ISSUES
Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin have demonstrated their belief that geopolitical power is up for grabs. The so-called “new world order” that George H.W. Bush inaugurated after the Cold War — in which peerless American power would ensure “the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle” — has given way to Russia’s war in Ukraine, China’s threats toward Taiwan and assertion of sovereignty over vast swathes of international shipping lanes, and simmering risk of nuclear proliferation among rogue states.
Republican presidential candidates must navigate the paradoxes of a GOP voter base convinced that the U.S. needs to project more strength, take on fewer commitments, but uphold traditional alliances and friendships, especially with Israel. Former President Donald Trump threaded that political needle in 2016, but his iconoclastic approach has left room for rivals to appeal to more traditional GOP voters.
“The ‘peace through strength’ crowd ... the shining city on a hill [crowd], that is up for grabs,” a GOP campaign data strategist said. “It won't get you the nomination, but it might get you ten to 12%, which is a substantial number.”
Donald Trump
Trump returns to the presidential debate stage after four White House years marked by intense trade disputes with China and also U.S. allies in Europe, the U.S. withdrawal from Barack Obama's Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal, the signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel and a pair of Gulf Arab states, and an impeachment arising from Rudy Giuliani’s attempt to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accuse Biden of corruption in 2019.
His current campaign reprises those themes. He has proposed to revoke China’s “most favored nation” trade status and impose “universal baseline tariffs” on most imports, even though he also pledges to “build on” the NAFTA free trade update his administration negotiated with Mexico and Canada. He promises to end the war in Ukraine in “one day” by threatening both Zelensky and Putin, and declared Biden a “Manchurian candidate” in light of Hunter Biden’s lucrative foreign business dealings.
“He's a dove, except for he doesn't want America screwed with, and in the case of China, he's been a hawk,” the GOP data strategist said. “He really used his China hawkishness to keep people at bay on his right on the issue of strong national defense — [China] and the U.S.-Israeli relationship.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis
DeSantis, a second-term governor, brings to the contest a three-term congressional record as a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a Bronze Star dating back to his deployment to Iraq in 2007 as a Navy lawyer.
He reflected the nationwide suspicion of China even from Tallahassee, where he signed multiple bills to “counteract the malign influence of the Chinese Communist Party in the state of Florida.” That legislation included a ban on donations or investments in higher and secondary education from based in or “controlled by a foreign country of concern” (a measure galvanized by China’s establishment of Confucius Institutes at schools around the country), a restriction on Chinese government-affiliated farmland purchases, a move to block state and local government use of applications that “present a cybersecurity and data privacy risk.”
DeSantis also urges a revocation of China’s privileged trade status but led a state trade delegation to Israel, Japan, South Korea, and the United Kingdom in April.
DeSantis has struggled to navigate Ukraine-related political pressures. He faulted Obama’s “policy of weakness” for tempting Putin to seize Crimea in 2014 and favored the provision of “defensive and offensive” equipment to Ukraine. He renewed his denunciation of Putin’s aggression in March, days after questioning the geopolitical significance of the “territorial dispute,” and he opposes “escalating with more weapons” to Ukraine.
“People have conflicting, conflicting priorities: Republican voters love killing Russians,” a Republican strategist who works on behalf of a rival candidate told the Washington Examiner. “They hate paying for it. They do not want it to escalate into a broader conflict . . . or any risk to American lives.”
UP FOR DEBATE: TRUMP, DESANTIS, AND 2024 GOP HOPEFULS' STANCES ON ABORTION
Sen. Tim Scott
Scott joined the campaign fray in May, an effort presaged by his appointment to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January.
He sees a “vital national interest” in Ukraine’s resistance to Russia and argues that Biden has undermined the effectiveness of U.S. aid by "waiting too long to provide too little.” He describes China as “the biggest threat to America's security” and deems the fentanyl crisis an especially pernicious form of that hostility. His proposal to sanction the drug’s Chinese supply chain will pass in this year’s national defense authorization package, along with legislation to require the U.S. universities to disclose “gifts and grants … from entities in the Chinese military-industrial complex,” and he thinks China should not enjoy the privileges of “developing nation” status at the United Nations.
Yet Scott remains skeptical of tariffs — he faulted Trump’s administration in 2018 for restoring tariffs that they’d acknowledged had a “harmful economic impact on these importers and our economy” — and he has a reputation for using his authority as the top Republican on the Banking Committee to weaken legislation that would curtail the U.S.-China economic relationship.
That’s an unfair criticism, his supporters would argue, but Scott, in any case, cautions that “policymakers must think beyond the Washington bubble and ensure that when the government uses its economic security tools, it evaluates the economic impact on communities and small businesses across our country.”
Nikki Haley
Haley, the former South Carolina governor who appointed Scott to the Senate in 2012, herself accepted Trump’s nomination to lead the U.S. mission to the United Nations at the outset of his presidency.
Declaring herself “a new sheriff in town,” she spent two years policing what she deemed “ridiculous” bias against Israel at the UN, adding diplomatic pressure on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (which Trump exited in 2018). She also campaigned for tighter sanctions on rogue actors — including one flap in which the White House abandoned an internal push to blacklist the Russian backers of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons program after Haley had already announced the punishments.
She argues that “a Russian defeat would be an enormous loss for China – and a true victory for peace.” Her campaign intends to undermine Trump’s credibility as a China hawk by arguing that he had a myopic focus on trade issues.
“Trump did too little about the rest of the Chinese threat,” she said in June. “He did not stop the flow of American technology and investment into the Chinese military. He did not effectively rally our allies against the Chinese threat. Even the trade deal he signed came up short when China predictably failed to live up to its commitments.”
Vivek Ramaswamy
Ramaswamy, a biotech Ivy Leaguer, branded himself a “traitor to his class” as a rising star opponent of “Woke, Inc.”
His bid to become the youngest president ever has necessitated a foray into foreign policy. Ramaswamy maintains that the war in Ukraine jeopardizes necessary efforts to prioritize China. The fast-talking businessman offers a simple solution to the war, which he thinks could be achieved by cutting off aid to Ukraine and forcing Zelensky to make "major concessions" to the Kremlin. He believes that in exchange, Putin would give the United States his promise to betray Xi, who joined hands with Putin to demand a “transformation of the global governance architecture and world order” just weeks before the Kremlin chief launched his bid to overthrow Zelensky.
Others
Former Vice President Mike Pence and former Gov. Chris Christie, former Trump allies both, also have criticized his foreign policy. Pence traveled to Kyiv in June, the first GOP candidate to make the trek, and Christie followed in early August. Pence maintains that Trump and DeSantis “just don’t understand Americans’ national interest in supporting the Ukrainian military” and says that a Russian defeat would discourage Chinese Communist aggression. "I don't think we have to choose between solving problems here at home and being the leader of the free world," Pence said in July. Christie has excoriated Trump for the many compliments he has paid Putin and Xi.
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North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, an entrepreneur-turned-politician little known outside his state, visited the U.S.-Mexico border on Tuesday, just days after Scott made a border tour. The trips allow Republican aspirants to attack Biden while implicitly underscoring that "the wall's not done," despite Trump's promises, as the first GOP strategist put it.
"I don't think anybody has cemented themselves as the alternative to Trump on foreign policy just yet,” the data strategist said.