Less than a month before the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have yet to provide much, if any, substance to their vaguely defined policy agendas. The cost of their platforms remains economically wooly. And neither candidate has come close to defining a coherent foreign policy in a turbulent world. 

Seeking to broaden the appeal of their respective campaigns, Trump and Harris are poaching on the other’s issues. Mindful of his deficit among female voters, Trump is pitching himself as the “protector” of women. Intent on overcoming her perceived disadvantage in the economy, Harris is promising to create new manufacturing jobs. Both candidates, however, persist in making promises that defy sound economics.

The centerpiece of Trump’s campaign to make America great again is the imposition of tariffs. For Trump, trade barriers possess a talismanic quality that will reduce Chinese imports, produce American jobs, staunch the flow of immigrants, and force European allies to increase defense spending. Realistically, however, they will provoke retaliatory tariffs—the cost of which will be absorbed by American businesses and consumers—and undermine the stability of the international trading system. Imposing tariffs on countries such as Brazil that prefer to settle cross-border trades in alternative currencies will not ensure the dominance of the dollar Trump imagines. Instead, it will reduce other countries’ dependence on the dollar for trade payments.

Harris champions an “opportunity economy” to help the middle class. To pay for increased fiscal expenditures, she would raise taxes on corporations and Americans earning more than $400,000, including those with unrealized capital gains on wealth exceeding $100 million. However, subsidies for home buyers will increase the demand for housing and make home purchases more expensive—ditto for price controls on food. And raising taxes on the rich would restrict investment and capital formation without raising enough revenue to cover expenditures. 

Harris is rightly critical of Trump’s protectionist policies, starting with an across-the-board 10 percent tariff on all imports. But she conveniently ignores the Biden administration’s industrial policy, including a 100 percent tariff on Chinese EV imports, her own plan to expand government-led industrial investment, and her opposition to the sale of U.S. Steel to Nippon Steel, which risks alienating Japan. 

Weighing the fiscal prudence of a Trump or Harris presidency, the Penn Wharton Budget Model predicts that Trump’s policies, especially a corporate tax rate of 15 percent, would increase the deficit by over $5.8 trillion. Harris’ tax plan would rack up another $2 trillion. Talk of deficit reduction from either candidate cannot be taken seriously.

Vaguer still is the position of either candidate on foreign policy. Notwithstanding Trump’s magical boast that he will end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza in short order and Harris’s resolute defense of Ukraine, neither candidate possesses the interest or experience in foreign affairs to navigate the shoals of a world in turmoil. 

Trump and Harris see the world in binary terms that are derived from America’s exceptionalist self-image. For Trump and the jingoist right, it is to be avoided lest it exploit the nation’s generosity and corrupt its innocence; for Harris and the missionary left, it is to be reborn as a reflection of America’s liberal-democratic values. 

Like every president since the end of the Cold War, what Trump and Harris fail to see is that the liberal international order that has sustained the world for the past seventy-five years is coming to an end. Stimulated by the growth of nationalism after the Cold War, the competition with China is part of a panoramic upheaval on the part of emerging and developing countries such as India, Turkey, and Indonesia that seek to share global power with the West. 

To preserve international stability in an emerging multipolar world, the United States and the West will need to devise new rules of the road in concert with other powers—autocracies as well as democracies—so they will become stakeholders in a sustainable global order. 

Deterring the unwelcome actions of major adversaries such as China and Russia that threaten international stability will require the United States to maintain a robust military capability, strengthen relations with allies in Europe and Asia, as the Biden administration has done, revive its commitment to arms control agreements, and expand UN Security Council membership to the developing world. 

Restoring America’s commitment to the United Nations as the forum for political debate and conflict resolution will help contribute to a stable world order. Stability will depend on a mutuality of interests rather than the vague rules-based order that lacks validity in international law.

Maintaining a dialogue with China is essential in a turbulent world both because of Beijing’s increasing military buildup and its vital role in international trade and investment. Ending the protectionist policies of the Trump and Biden administrations will lessen bilateral tensions and curtail the growing trend toward deglobalization. 

Mindful of China’s managed trade-distorting export subsidies, the United States should seek to gain a comparative advantage in science and technology. Increasing government R&D spending in semiconductors, robotics, quantum computing, and AI would help to improve America’s competitive posture. Increased investment in medical science will also ensure the development of vaccines that would benefit the world in future pandemics.

Finally, the United States can still be a model of reform for countries that seek an alternative to China. To do so, we must abandon the culture wars that tarnish America’s image. The Left and the Right must reject their self-destructive jousting and find a middle ground to reduce crime, resolve the immigration issue, increase educational opportunities for women and minorities, and provide infrastructure aid, as China has done, to the world’s most vulnerable societies. 

Hugh De Santis is a former career officer in the Department of State and a national security strategist at the National War College. He is the author of The Right to Rule: American Exceptionalism and the Coming Multipolar World Order.

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