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EXPERT COMMENT

Harris’s energizing candidacy means her words on Gaza are being carefully scrutinized by those hopeful for a new direction. But policy change is unlikely before the election.

On matters of foreign policy, the US president’s powers are considerable. Scholars and pundits note that the power of US presidents has been ‘relentlessly increasing over decades’. This is especially true when it comes to matters of war and peace.

US presidents have access to unparalleled military and economic statecraft that gives them the potential to exert considerable influence on other states by using, or threatening to use, economic sanctions or military force. Even US allies are wary that they could become the target of secondary sanctions. The threat to withhold US military or economic assistance can also be very powerful in certain situations.

Given this enormous power, and the fact that Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have radically different world views, the election matters, a lot, for foreign policy: the rest of the world is on tenterhooks.

The messages Harris has provided so far, at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) and during her CNN interview, suggest that her presidency would promise a large measure of continuity from the Biden administration’s foreign and economic policy. 

But she will come under pressure on both counts. Bidenomics continues to divide the US public. And on foreign policy, Biden has been framed by Republicans as a president who will leave office with two major wars raging.

The one area where Harris may wish to take a different approach is Gaza. But the pressure to tread a careful line will be immense: the war is the one area that could yet threaten Harris’s powerful new status.

Click here to continue reading the full version of this Expert Comment on the Chatham House website.