Q&A with James Goldgeier
The U.S. presidential election is less than three weeks away, and the polls show a very tight race. We spoke with Visiting Fellow James Goldgeier about how a Kamala Harris administration or a second Donald Trump administration might approach Europe.
Either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will take the oath of office nearly three years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. What do you expect that might mean for the outcome of the war?
Marking the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine will be sobering indeed. To date, the United States and its allies have done enough to help Ukraine stave off defeat, but Joe Biden placed limitations on Ukraine’s ability to strike targets in Russia for fear of sparking “World War III.” These constraints have reduced Kyiv’s ability to raise the costs to Russian President Vladimir Putin of his devastating war. The big question that will face either Harris or Trump is: can there be a negotiated outcome to this war that will allow Ukraine to preserve its sovereignty, freedom, and independence while also protecting it against future attacks? How such a negotiation could or would take place is highly uncertain, particularly given that Putin has consistently signaled a clear lack of interest in any serious negotiations.
Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence may not be important to Trump. As with many other issues, his unpredictability makes it difficult to say what his approach will be. He has claimed he will bring Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Putin together to solve the war in “24 hours” but that is highly unlikely. And while he is more likely to pressure Zelenskyy than Putin to cede to the other, Ukraine doesn’t have a choice other than to keep fighting for its existence if the two sides cannot strike a peace deal.
Harris will support Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence, but she will have plenty of incentives to seek a negotiated solution. To achieve one that is fair to the Ukrainians will require inducing Putin to taking negotiations with Kyiv seriously. She will be more likely than Trump to build an international coalition for these purposes, but in the end she will need to figure out how to increase the costs to Russia of continuing the war effort. Allowing the Ukrainians to use American weapons systems to strike more targets in Russia to try to bring the Kremlin to the negotiating table is one way to do that.
If Donald Trump returns to the White House, how might his approach to Europe and the NATO alliance differ with regard to his first administration, and how do you expect the Europeans might respond?
In Trump’s first term, his top advisers, including two of his national security advisers, his secretaries of state, and his secretaries of defense, were strongly supportive of NATO. He is unlikely to surround himself with similar foreign policy internationalists if he becomes president again, and Europeans are trying to brace themselves for that. Given his statements about tariffs, they should also worry about his protectionist economic policies. A major fear in the first term was that he would withdraw the United States from NATO, and there would be nothing stopping him from doing so in the second. Former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was masterful in managing Trump during his presidency; Mark Rutte will try to do the same in order to keep the United States engaged with NATO.
How might a Harris administration differ from the Biden administration on Europe policies? What issues could cause tensions in trans-Atlantic relations over the next four years if she is elected?
A Harris administration is not going to question the U.S. commitment to NATO as will be the case in a Trump administration. It will continue to work with NATO allies to support Ukraine, since even if there were to be an end to the fighting, Ukraine will need massive assistance for reconstruction and defense.
But even a Harris administration, which will believe in the importance of the trans-Atlantic relationship, will want Europe to take on more of the burden of the continent’s defense given American commitments elsewhere, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. It will be important for a sustainable trans-Atlantic relationship that we see a transition from a U.S.-dominated European security order to a U.S.-assisted European security order. The U.S. will continue to play a significant role, but Europe has to reduce its dependence on the United States for its security, and the United States in that process will have to grow more comfortable with ceding to Europe more of a decision-making role for managing security on the continent.
