A friend in Western Ukraine who worries about the power being shut off daily and air alarms all night usually pays little attention to politics. But from the vantage point of this one family, there is laser focus on the outcome of U.S. elections tomorrow as a perceived determinant of what that one family’s life will become depending on the outcome.
The surprise to those feeling the direct effects of missile attacks and wartime conditions is only that the American election is seen as a toss-up for our country. Our being removed geographically from the effects of the Russian invasion may make concerns there seem less than existential.
Family in Israel and South America follow American politics and how it will affect everything from international peace efforts to the specifics involved in the Middle East law. Local newspapers carry much of the American electoral debate. In Buenos Aires, my uncle’s weekly men’s group meeting sees the election as a question both about a pending global trade war and a referendum on backing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Indeed, to the degree that we consider it, the view from abroad is that these elections matter a great deal, and that the possible return of Donald Trump to the White House will initiate a worldwide need to adjust everything from currency and trade to issues of refugees and war and peace. The generic view seems to be that choosing Kamala Harris will assure a continuing of basic Joe Biden values that respect and kindle international alliances and business arrangements.
It’s a viewpoint that feels far different than the sniping over “garbage” comments, ethnic slurs and migrant ridicule that seem to dominate our own domestic political discussion. While certainly self-referential to each country’s concern, the discussion seems focused on more long-term values than our own horse-race flagellation.
No, we should not have foreign leaders and interests choose our own leadership. But we also should not reject what they reflect about how they perceive our choices. Indeed, a lot of effort is underway against efforts to intervene in U.S. elections with other misinformation campaigns aimed at disrupting the American experiment.
For U.S. adversaries like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jun-Un, the Ayatollah in Iran, we can see real interest in promoting and preferring a Trump who seems committed both to sowing division within the United States and in undercutting international alliances protecting Ukraine and Taiwan. The foes clearly see Trump as more malleable to their own interests, however ill-intended.
Among our friends, there seems palpable apprehension about a world with a Trump return that promises trade wars and American isolationism.
Continuity vs. Isolationism
Most European leaders prefer Harris as the US president, several news outlets have concluded.
They see Harris, whom they have come to know through international security negotiations, conferences and diplomatic work, as a better choice for alliances. They fear Trump’s threats to leave NATO, to abandon Ukraine and cave to Russian territorial demands, to support for a growing global right-leaning turn towards authoritarianism.
Statements by Trump like that In February, when Trump suggesting anew that he would tell Russia to attack NATO allies whom he considered “delinquent” in paying more into national defense, as outlined in NATO agreements, are cited over and over.
In some countries, like India and Turkey, where leaders are active in trying to balance U.S. relations with newer efforts in outreach to Russia, the preferences for U.S. leadership are less easy to recognize immediately. As with Saudi Arabia, much of international word is seen more as transactional, depending on what kind of investment needs the countries may perceive than on more basic value commitments to ways of governing. In India in particular, there seems special interest in Harris’ ethnicity as part of a larger South Asian diaspora.
Trump’s antagonistic views towards Asia and the competition from Asian business interest seem almost more important than his views about the perceived need to defend Taiwan from Chinese takeover. The most lasting impressions are Asian leaders see Harris as someone who values long-term alliances and democratic procedures in a complicated world that Trump tends to compress into slogans that will be hurtful in South Korea, Japan and even China.
In issues like climate change and environment, migration and immigration, the spiraling growth of refugees, Trump is feared in places like Australia for flopping on long-term commitments already under way.
In the Middle East, Trump is seen as someone who will back Netanyahu fully, regardless of humanitarian concerns, while Harris is regarded as someone more likely to break with Israel. All of it is overstatement and too dependent on changing conditions to be meaningful, but it is interesting that Netanyahu has maintained private lines of communication with out-of-office Trump.
The list goes on, but the meaning is clear. From afar, the U.S. elections are being seen through a critical lens focused on direction that will tip towards continuity over an image of chaos. It ought to make us think twice about voting.
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