Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Welcome to this evening’s roundtable, for those of you who are in London. For those of you joining us from the United States, welcome to this afternoon’s roundtable. I’m Leslie Vinjamuri, I direct the US and Americas Programme here at Chatham House. It is a really big honour for me to be chairing such a distinguished panel. We have four tremendous thinkers that are going to talk with us about the US elections, balancing domestic priorities with foreign policy priorities. We know that this is the name of the game.
Before I introduce them, I just also wanted to let you know that we have just published our own report. In fact, two of the authors, Sir Peter Westmacott, who’s written the foreword for us, Amy Pope, who’s written a chapter, I’ve written for this as well, have contributed. I hope you’ll take a look, it’s on our website, “US Foreign Policy Priorities: What difference can an election make?” and I also hope, and I mean this very sincerely, that you will take the liberty of emailing me, Courtney, and our US and Americas Team directly and let us know what you think, ‘cause we take it very, very seriously.
We all know that this election is going to be a very significant one for many people. We believe that it will be the election of a generation. America, as we know, is in, like the rest of the world, the midst of dealing with the pandemic. I think the numbers – I didn’t check today, it’s very upsetting that you have to continue to update yourself on the numbers, it’s at around 214. It’s even hard for me to get my mind around the hundreds of thousands of people who have died in the United States, and we have more than 30 million people who have registered for unemployment.
It’s safe to say, I think, that the next US President will be incredibly constrained by domestic priorities. Nonetheless, obviously, there are some really big foreign policy issues on the agenda, and one of our goals tonight is to try and understand how much difference the election will make when it comes to those big foreign policy issues, whether it’s China, the global economy, in particular trade, Iran, climate change, public health, or if an American President, who’s looking at home and sees hundreds of thousands of Americans having died very sadly from the pandemic, has it within his bandwidth to actually engage on foreign policy.
We have with us tonight to talk about these issues Mark Landler, who is the London Bureau Chief for The New York Times. Mark was previously White House Correspondent from 2011 to 2019. So, in addition to the last year of covering the UK and Brexit, he certainly knows a lot about Washington. He is the Author of Alter Egos, which is a comparison of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy and Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy. We are delighted to have you, not only at Chatham House this evening, but we’re delighted to have you in London, Mark.
We then have Sir Peter Westmacott. Sir Peter is very well-known to all of you at Chatham House, he is a Senior Advisor to Chatham House. He is not only a Senior Advisor on the US and Americas Programme, but he’s, I’d say, a colleague and a dear friend and supporter of us. He’s written the foreword to the report, and, of course, as you know, Sir Peter was previously the UK Ambassador to Turkey, France, and the United States. So very, very well-equipped to talk to the question of the elections and what they mean for America’s foreign policy.
Amy Pope, I always love to start with people’s Chatham House associations, which I think are the most important, but not everybody does. Amy Pope is an Associate Fellow at Chatham House. She was, during President Obama’s administration, the Deputy Homeland Security Advisor and, in that role, she did a lot of work on co-ordinating America and America’s international response to Zika, to Ebola. She’s dealt with the refugees and migration issues, and she’s written a fabulous chapter, a very important chapter, on pandemics and global health in the report that we’ve just published today.
Peter Trubowitz, dear friend, dear colleague, also an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, happens to be the Director of the US Centre at The London School of Economics, as well as a Professor of International Relations there, and a very distinguished Author of many books, most recently Politics and Strategy: Partisan Ambition and American Statecraft, and I will plug the LSE US Centre website, which are doing fabulous work on the US elections, and you should follow their work as well as ours.
And let me start with you, Mark, since you’re, I guess, newest to London, and most recently in Washington. Are these elections really the big deal that we make them out to be? What – when you look back at America, having really only left a year ago, and having really been steeped in the Obama administration, covering it, what do you think is most at stake, what should we be watching? Do they matter, or is American foreign policy, you know, more same-same than different in the long run?
Mark Landler
Well, first of all, Leslie, thank you so much for having me, it’s great to be at Chatham House, and I think the short answer to your question is, they always matter, and they may never have mattered as much as this one. There’s a cliché that every American political candidate uses on the stump where they say, “This is the most important election of your lifetime,” and it happens to be the year where you might honestly argue that that’s true for all of us, even those of us who’ve been around for a while.
I think it’s not an exaggeration to say that this is an election that will determine the future of American democracy and the republic. That’s the kind of language that would have seemed utterly overblown eight years ago or 12 years ago. Perhaps it might have seemed appropriate around the time of World War Two, but certainly, in the last few decades, I don’t think we’ve ever seen an election where the outcome could be so profound for so many of the institutions that we, as Americans, care about, and that the rest of the world cares about, as well. I mean, another cliché is that foreign countries watch American elections almost as closely as we do, they just don’t have a vote in the election, but they’re deeply affected by what comes out of it, and that’s certainly just as true in this case.
I think I’d make just a couple of observations about this election. One you made before, just now, Leslie, when you said it’s happening against the backdrop of this once-in-a-century pandemic, and that has led to all sorts of, you might call them innovations, but I think many people are frankly terrified of them, such as mail-in voting, absentee voting, which make the very outcome of the election, how it’s going to be decided, and whether certain actors will try to impede the results of the election, you know, a very real issue as we get closer to election day.
One thing we know is that more than ten million Americans have already voted. That’s a mindboggling number. It suggests that we’re going to smash most historic voting records for participation, and, by all accounts, a pretty large number of these advanced voters are Democrats. And the reason for that is that Joe Biden and the Democratic Party has made mail-in and advanced voting a very big part of their message. They did this for legitimate reasons, recognising that voting on election day might actually be hazardous to your health, given the pandemic.
But the Trump administration and the Trump campaign, has gone in a different direction. They’ve not actively encouraged mail-in voting, until just the last couple of days. They’ve pushed hard for the faithful to show up on election day, and, if history is any guide from 2016, they will also get a resounding turnout. So, I don’t think Democrats are taking particular comfort from the fact that these mail-in numbers look very good for the Democrats, because they know that the Republicans will turn out in force. And that, in turn, will lead to a very dramatic, suspenseful, I would say an election day, but it’s more likely to be an election week, because some states, by law, count mail-in and absentee ballots on election day, but other states, including some of the key battlegrounds, allow for mail-in ballots to arrive one, two, three days after the election and still be counted.
So that means that, while we may well know the outcome in Florida on election day, we probably won’t know the outcome in Pennsylvania. So, one of the things to watch is whether we’ll even be able to get a sense for the trajectory of the race on election night. If it’s close, the answer’s almost certainly no. If it is a Biden blowout, we might get an early sense for that, if, for example, the networks are able to call Florida for Joe Biden on election night, so that’s one of the things to look out for.
Couple of just other points to make about this election. It’s happening, of course, against not just the backdrop of the pandemic, but a national reckoning on race and police brutality that is, again, a sort of, a once-every-decade experience that gives, that lends, this election a sort of, a much greater resonance, makes it much more emotionally raw for many people, will probably drive an extraordinary turnout among African Americans.
And it’s also happening in the immediate aftermath of the likely confirmation of one of the most Conservative members of the US Supreme Court that a President has nominated in recent years, and, of course, I don’t need to tell you, in a circumstance that Democrats find particularly galling, because President Obama, when faced with a similar set of circumstances, faced a Republican leadership in the Senate that simply refused to give his nominee a hearing, and yet, now seems determined to ram a Republican nominee down the throats of not just the Senate, but an American public, that, if you look at the polling, thinks that it’s not a good idea. So, you have all of those emotions that are also flowing into this one big exercise.
Just a couple of final points I’ll make. One is that, for all of this drama, for all of these once-in-a-lifetime circumstances, a few things about this election have not been very dramatic. One is that the great ideological schism within the Democratic Party, the battle between the progressives and the moderates, really didn’t turn out to be much of a battle at all. The Democrats very quickly rallied behind the person they viewed as the most electable choice. He, in turn, picked a running mate that, again, was viewed as the most politically appealing choice, given the need to reach out to a multiracial coalition of voters in Senator Kamala Harris.
And the other thing that hasn’t shifted much for months is the actual shape of the race, the contours of the race. Joe Biden has extended his lead somewhat in the polls. He’s now in the high single and low double digits, depending on which poll you look at, but that situation hasn’t really changed for months and months, and that, by the way, is highly unusual. If you go back and look at most recent elections, even those that were won by a candidate with a decent margin, it’s more usual to see the lead traded now and again, to see a candidate make a kind of a rally and then perhaps be left in the dust again. That hasn’t happened at all in this race, and that suggests that President Trump has a very solid floor of support in the low 40s, but he may also have a very solid ceiling of support in the mid or upper 40s, and so, it’s been interesting to watch how that’s been such a static number.
Now, most Democrats will tell you that they can’t bear looking at these polls because they’re so traumatised by relying on these polls in 2016 and being caught by surprise, and I’m very, very sympathetic. And, indeed, as one who wrote a book about Hillary Clinton on the expectation that she would be President, I, more than anyone, understand the trauma of what happened in 2016, but I do think it’s important just to point out a few important differences, and then I’ll end on this.
Unlike 2016, Joe Biden has had a pretty durable and rising favourability rating. Hillary Clinton never had a good favourability rating at any point in the election. She was not as polarising a figure as Donald Trump, but she was always underwater on her favourability ratings. Joe Biden is now, by all accounts, 51/ 52% in favourability. That is a uniquely strong position for a challenger to be in, in a Presidential election. The other thing is the number of undecided voters at this point in the election is much smaller. We’re, sort of, talking about five to 6% versus eight to nine or 10% in 2016, which suggests that, if there is a late shift toward one candidate or the other, it’s probably not enough, in Donald Trump’s case, to close the gap with Joe Biden.
And the last point is that there’s not a significant third-party candidate in this campaign, either. Jill Stein and the Green Party were strong enough in 2016, people sometimes forget that they actually were a pivotal presence in some of these battleground states, and Hillary Clinton only lost Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin by a combined 80,000 votes. So, Jill Stein played a role in syphoning off enough votes to change the outcome. She wasn’t the only thing that did that, but she was a factor. By all accounts, you’re not going to have that factor this time. So, I think, for Democrats, who are understandably not going to be complacent about this, it is important to point out this race is different, it’s been different for quite a long time, and although the actual suspense of knowing when we have a winner might extend over a couple of days, it could be that the outcome, like the race itself, is less surprising than we think it could be, which is to say Joe Biden could win this election. Thank you.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
I’m going to ask you a question and I want you to give me a one or two-word answer only, and the question is, how worried are you about the period between November 3rd and December 3rd? One word, or maybe two.
Mark Landler
Very worried.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Okay, thank you. We’re going to come back to that. Okay, so that was fabulous. You’ve really got us, I think, in a good place for understanding, and I have zero doubt that you’re – we’re going to get a lot of questions about the elections themselves. But you’ve set us up incredibly well, not only in terms of the current context, but also, the comparison to the last election, which you’re right, it definitely – it’s definitely the word of caution for those who are hoping for a Democratic outcome, that you can see people feeling. People are very reserved in what they will anticipate or say, regardless of what the polls are telling us.
But I want to pivot now to foreign policy, and who better than somebody who’s been an Ambassador, not only to the United States, but to two other countries that certainly have had very long, deep, and sometimes troubled relationships with the United States. But certainly, to Mark Landler’s point, have watched the US elections and watched them very carefully, and I’m sure they’re watching them now. Sir Peter, you wrote a fabulous foreword to our report, and I should say, as an aside, the Editor of our report, Jo Maher, is on the call. We have the most fabulous – we’ve had the most fabulous Editor for this report. Thank you, Jo, honestly, hats off to you and your team.
But, Sir Peter, you wrote a fabulous foreword, you raised all the big questions, but tell us – I know – I want to talk to you about Iran and about the Middle East, a deep area of expertise for you. Sanam Vakil wrote a terrific chapter for us about the need for regional security in the Middle East, regardless of who the next administration is, that they really need to look at the region as a whole, not to just look at Iran, but to look at Iran, to look at both sides of the Gulf. Obviously, people are very concerned in this country about whether or not there will be a new negotiation, or whether – you know, that we’re far too late for that, but tell us how you think this election might affect America’s strategy in the Middle East.
Sir Peter Westmacott
Well, thanks, Leslie, thank you for having me, and thanks to all those who’ve tuned in to see what we’ve got to say between us, and I hope we make your time worthwhile. For all the reasons that Mark’s just said, this is obviously not only a hugely important election, it’s also an election about domestic politics. It’s an election about American democracy, it’s an election about a whole lot of more things than usual. And so, I think we have to be honest about this, it’s not much of a foreign policy election, but there are a few, I think, important pointers that we should flag, partly because of the way in which they’ve popped up during the campaign, and partly, as you say, Leslie, because of what different results, on the 3rd of November, or whenever we get the result of the election, could mean for those big issues.
So, during the campaign, and let’s take President Trump first of all, this has been very much about him, it’s about continuity, it’s about not really laying out what his programme is for the next four years, but, you know, “Trust me, I’m your guy, I speak for the underdog. Give me four more years and we’ll keep America wonderful again.” And, in terms of international affairs, apart from chipping away at the international institutions for which he’s got very little time because he’s fundamentally a unilateralist, I think I would say there’s only two or three other parts of the world that have featured.
One, of course, is China, and we’ll come back to that in a moment, where he’s had his tariff wars, which seems to me has not been very good for either employment, or for consumer prices, or for GDP in the United States, but we can talk about whether that has or hasn’t worked. And then, of course, not very long ago, we’ve had quite a spurt of activity around what we used to call the Middle East Peace Process. In other words, Israel, Palestine, and then Jared Kushner came up with his plan for a solution to the Palestinian issue in the West Bank, which did not go down very well with anyone, other than the Israeli Government.
And then, boom, a little surprise saying, “Well, in exchange for not implementing my plan, we’ve now got the establishment of diplomatic relations between old foes: Israel and United Arab Emirates, Bahrain following, and other people in the wings, Saudi Arabia, Israel were quite pleased,” and so there’s suddenly a moving around of what used to be tectonic plates in the Middle East in a way which is not insignificant. I think most observers would say this is about everybody ganging up on the one country that they all love to hate and, to some extent, fear, which is Iran, and that, of course, is front and centre part of what the Trump administration’s foreign policy in the region has been about, and I’ll come back to that in a moment.
But there is a little bit of a sideshow, which I’ve detected from talking to others from the region, which is that, for some of them, probably not so much for President Trump, this is also about trying to put Turkey in a box, because the relationship between Turkey and the territories which were, once upon a time, part of the Ottoman Empire, and a Turkey which is deemed by others to be a bit too soft on the Muslim Brotherhood, and a bit too friendly with Qatar for the other Gulf states, which have put Qatar on the naughty step recently, and perhaps a little bit too transactional, shall we say, with Iran, and then a little bit too keen to be recreating the caliphate, in a way which doesn’t go down a storm with some of the former subject peoples of the Ottoman Empire. And all that is part of the back lost to what’s been going on there, and we could explore that perhaps a little bit more. For – and so, Iran I’ll come to, that’s going on around the Gulf area.
I think that for a President, it’s not about putting Turkey in a box. Turkey has been problematic, complicated, lately, there’s a lot of domestic political issues going on inside Turkey, and there’ve been issues around buying Russian air defence systems, which undermine NATO security and the S-400s. There’ve been bilateral spats between the United States and Turkey. There’s even talk now of the United States, which would be quite a big deal, moving its military base from Incirlik in South-Eastern Turkey towards perhaps the island of Crete, which would take with it the unmentionable option of basing nuclear weapons no longer in Turkey, important NATO ally, and perhaps somewhere else.
But I think, overall, we should not lose track of the fact that this is a relationship, a bit like the President’s with Russia, which is geared by personal relationships. There’s a strong personal link between President Erdoğan and President Trump. We’ve all read in the newspapers how the one person who can call him on the golf course and be sure of getting an answer is Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, even when the leaders of other allied nations can’t get through to the President because he is busy. And the sons-in-law are very close, Albayrak, the Deputy Prime Minister, who looks after the economy, Jared Kushner in the White House, and there are various other relationships, which are quite personal and quite important.
But I think for the President at the moment, the Middle East is largely about putting Iran in a box, and, of course, recently they’ve put further sanctions on Iran, as an additional part of what they call maximum pressure, supposedly designed to get the nuclear deal back on the table, the one which President Trump walked away from. But probably designed to put so much pressure on the people, the economy, the regime, that some sort of regime change would flow from it.
I’m not convinced myself that maximum pressure is going to produce regime change in Iran. Iran is a proud, tough nation, and even if, for an awful lot of people in that country, the regime is not hugely popular, it is a regime, which will stop at nothing to stay in power. So, I think – personally, I think it was a mistake to walk away from the nuclear deal with Iran, which was the flagship achievement of President Obama’s diplomacy. But that is what the President has done, and this is all part and parcel of putting further pressure on a state, which is not only, he sees, Iraq America’s enemy, but also, an enemy of lots of his chums in the region.
For President Biden, again, there has not been a huge amount of foreign policy out there, but we have, in the last few days, had a pretty clear statement from him that the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia will not be the same if he becomes President, but he will wish to reassess what’s been going on. But he’s unimpressed in the way in which he thinks the President has given Mohammed bin Salman a pass on the murder of Khashoggi in Istanbul and a number of other things, which have been going on there.
I don’t think he’s going to be much tougher on Turkey, we touched on Turkey just then, even though the Turks are alarmed because somebody raked up an interview that he gave for The New York Times six months ago, saying that he thought a bit of regime change might not be a bad thing. And the Turkish media, many of which are now, you know, pretty firmly under government control, said, “This is terrible, we can’t possibly have a President who doesn’t like Turkey, and this is an outrageous intrusion into our domestic politics and our sovereignty.” Actually, you know, I know the President, I know the Vice President quite well, I know that’s not the view he takes of Turkey. He’s actually very interested in what happens in that part of the world, and he knows President Erdoğan well, he knows a lot of people in that part of the world. But I think a more measured, and a less, if you like, personality-driven relationship with Turkey, as with Saudi Arabia, and certainly with Russia, you haven’t asked me to talk about Russia at the moment, but we can, are likely to be hallmarks of a Biden foreign policy.
And I think the last thing I would say on that is that, whereas this is a President at the moment who has tended to go it alone, whether it’s dealing with China, whether it’s dealing with Russia, whether it’s dealing with what’s going on in the Middle East, with Joe Biden, I think you would see a conscious effort to rebuild support for international institutions and frameworks and structures and alliances like NATO,. There’ll be no more talk of withdrawing from NATO, for example, if Joe Biden becomes President, than we have seen beforehand. And a readiness to engage with allies, partners, and even those who are not allies and partners, but with whom there are issues, which need to be resolved, in a way which leaves everybody in a better place than if they remain unresolved.
So, I think more multilateralism, probably more personal engagement, more deployment of longstanding personal relationships, which the Vice President has built up over 40 years in the Senate, and many members of his team have also developed. But, as I started out by saying, this is not a campaign and it has not been an election, which is primarily about foreign policy, and we shouldn’t delude ourselves. But I think it will look and feel different if there is a President Biden, and I think that’s enough for starters.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
That’s great. I should mention that there is a great chapter in the report by Heather Williams on Russia, well worth having a look at, who makes a very strong and powerful argument that the U – the next US President needs to reengage on questions of arms control, but also, on deterrents. So, it’s really very much worth having a look.
Sir Peter, I want to ask you a question. You get two words to answer it, and we’ll come back to it, before I come to Amy. When it comes to US foreign policy in the Middle East, how much does Europe – how much does this election matter for Europe’s interests? A lot? Not at all? Just two words. How much does this election matter? How much does it change? How much is at stake for Europe, when it comes to US foreign policy in the Middle East?
Sir Peter Westmacott
A lot, because we can’t…
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Thank you.
Sir Peter Westmacott
…figure it on our own.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
That’s fine. Okay, we’ll come back to you on that. A lot, so, so far, everything – so far – what Mark Landler started us out with, which is that it really is an important election, so far we’ve got 100% confirmation. Amy – I will let you say more about both of those questions. Amy Pope, you have written a fabulous chapter for us on the pandemic, on the earlier efforts, by previous administrations, to try and develop and institutionalise the basis for a response that hadn’t gotten all the way there yet, but it was headed in that direction. You’ve talked about what’s happened in this administration and where we’re going. Tell us what your – what you think is at stake in this election when it comes to – I mean, obviously, whoever comes into office, whether it’s President Trump or a President Biden, on January 20th is still going to have the pandemic front and centre, but what’s at stake? How much different will things look, and where do you see the direction of travel?
Amy Pope
Well, I think everything is at stake. I mean, this is a perfect example of how domestic politics are actually impacted by foreign policy, and there’s no greater example than the fact that we have seven million – 7.9 million cases in the United States, over 216,000 people have died, and much of that is because of actions that this administration failed to take, with regard to its engagement with partners and with China, specifically. And there’s no question, everyone knew a pandemic was coming. There was countless articles and predictions about what it might look like, about where it might come from, about how it might impact the United States.
I can tell you, from my own experience at the White House, we knew one was coming. We had dealt with Ebola, and we realised, when responding to the Ebola outbreak, that our capacity to respond was actually much more limited than we had really appreciated, and it came in a number of different ways. One was the ability of American hospitals and the healthcare system as a whole to respond if a infectious disease outbreak came to the United States. But it was also our ability to have the surveillance in place to detect when an outbreak was happening, and third, to marshal an international response to help mitigate the impact of a pandemic or an infectious disease outbreak.
So, with that in mind, and we did numbers of after action reports, we left office with a pandemic playbook that laid out all of the questions that the next administration needed to ask, and it was because we recognised that there was still a lot of work that needed to happen, and that we hadn’t yet hit the big one. So, in some ways, we felt very lucky that we had only had to deal with Ebola, but we wanted to pass along the lessons that we had learned.
Unfortunately, what we’ve seen in the US response is a complete failure to take those lessons to heart and to put them into place, starting with the fact that the United States took down the one directorate in the National Security Council responsible for monitoring infectious disease outbreaks. They withdrew funding from places like China, where CDC had been funded to act as, effectively, an extra set of eyes and ears, to figure out what was happening there and to report back, and from a failure to really engage its international partners early on to come up with a comprehensive plan to manage the disease. And we saw the United States really take a go-it-alone approach.
They did de – you know, the President did decide to shut down travel to China, and that was quite controversial, but what he didn’t do was come up with a plan, with other countries, to identify ways to mitigate the spread of the disease. And so, as we all know, there were travellers coming from Europe and elsewhere into the United States, who continued to bring the disease with them, and there was no way to test them, there was no way to identify them, to track and trace them, and so, the United States ended up in a really difficult position, where it was effectively left only with the ability to shutdown communities because there were so few options at the point that they really reacted.
So, we see – I mean, even now, in terms of an international response, we see a vacuum, in terms of leadership. That’s not to say that there aren’t countries who haven’t done a decent job in responding. South Korea, for example, I think learned, from its past experience with MERS, that it really needed to aggressively respond. But we don’t see the kind of leadership you would expect around a whole host of issues, around development and distribution of medical countermeasures, around sharing of surveillance data, and information on outbreaks, around information on mitigation, and what’s going to become a really big issue is around the distribution of a vaccine.
And so, instead, we see governments really involved in an arms race to get there first, without a plan for protecting the world, which matters because our world is so interconnected. So, we end up in a place where – I don’t think this is going to happen, but we end up in a place where there are no COVID cases in the United States for a moment in time. If there are COVID cases in Central America, South America, or any of other major supply chain partners, it’ll quickly undo whatever efforts there are – have – that have been made in the United States, particularly as the economy begins to open up again.
So, the election matters here. I mean, this is one case where the American leadership needs to recognise that they are really only as safe as their partners, as their neighbours. They need to come up with a plan. They need to lead a plan for engagement, on a whole host of issues, whether it’s development of countermeasures or vaccines, distribution of those, and even just an establishment of basic norms around the response. Right now, we’re just not seeing them. It’s also very dangerous to watch the United States play around with the World Health Organization, to suggest that it’s withdrawing from the WHO, and that’s particularly because the WHO is the one place, really, internationally, that can funnel the information, that can provide guidance, that can set standards. But they really suffer from a lack of leadership, they suffer from a lack of resources, and so you need instead for US engagement to push the WHO forward and to hold it to a standard that ultimately helps keep all citizens safe, and that’s just not happening here.
And I think that the final thing is that the – this is not ending anytime soon. I mean, no matter what Donald Trump says, this is something we’re going to be living with well into the future, and we need a situation, we need a government, where we have the kind of engagement between the private sector actors, the public actors, the partners, and then a plan for dealing with countries that are less transparent, who may not necessarily share the kind of information, who may not have the capacity to respond, ultimately, because this is the kind of threat that will impact the United States if it doesn’t operate from an international point of view.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Amy, thank you. I think it’s pretty clear from what you’ve said that you see the election as quite extraordinary, in terms of the impact that it will have. Of course, there are a lot of good news stories that have come out of the US too, in terms of the research and the Scientists, some of the Governors, some of the Mayors. But there is this question of, you know, in the absence of co-ordinated leadership at the federal level, how much can those positive forces really make the difference? Maybe we’ll come back to you a little bit on that, and also, I guess, the question of, you know, we’re very longways in to this pandemic, and so there is a question about, you know, how much can a new administration move the needle? Okay, I would imagine that your answer is – well, go ahead, give us your answer in two words.
Amy Pope
A lot.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Okay, a lot, so there we go. So – and maybe we’ll have people in the audience who disagree, but I think it’s interesting to certainly get your perspective. Peter, we’ve left the really easy question to you, so, China. You know, it’s become quite commonplace, and I imagine it’s not wrong, but what does it tell us to say that President Trump has done a good thing by getting America and the world to think very, very hard about its relationship with China, and in general about a rising China and its role on the global stage, and secondly that there is a bipartisan consensus within the United States behind taking a tougher line on China. But, beyond that, beyond those – that sense that there’s perhaps continuity, regardless of the outcome of the election, tell us how you think this election matters, or maybe it doesn’t matter as much, when it comes to the question of US foreign policy towards China and that relationship.
Professor Peter Trubowitz
Right, thanks, Leslie. It’s good to be with you and everybody else on the platform tonight. I think, you know, what I’m going to do is I’ll make three points about the election and US policy towards China, but maybe take a step back first. And a first point that really has been alluded to, but I think bears repeating and helps, kind of, frame how we should think about US policy towards China, whether it’s Trump being re-el – you know, under a Trump administration, or a Biden administration, ‘cause I think whoever wins, the next President is going to be focusing the lion’s share of their time on domestic policy. At least to the extent that international events permit, because, you know, you can want to do it and not be able to do it because of stuff happening internationally.
I mean, this is already true of Trump. Trump is a domestic policy President, whatever you want to say about his performance on the domestic front. That’s where the lion’s share of his time has been, I think, and it will be true of Biden, I think, as well. And the reasons don’t really require much elaboration, I mean, Mark, kind of, laid ‘em out early on, and that [audio cuts out – 39:54] by Amy, we’re in the middle of a pandemic, it looks like possibly, you know, where a more lethal wave is about to crest, you know, kind of, just after election day, to say nothing of the economic devastation that it’s left behind, and then there are the racial tensions that are roiling the United States.
There’s also the issue that really hasn’t been mentioned yet, that Trump got traction on in 2016, which is anti-globalism. That issue has not gone away. If anything, I would argue it enjoys more support in the United States today. Now, this places limits, I think, on how much political capital the next President can invest in foreign policy, and it means that they’re going to have to set some foreign policy priorities, and what that means is some countries are going to get short shrift, we’re sitting here in the UK. Others will be prioritised, and it’s a sure bet that China will be in the latter category, and I say that for domestic, as well as geopolitical reasons.
I think one thing that Trump understood better than most US Politicians is that China could be turned into the poster child for anti-globalism, that China’s rise basically could be exploited for domestic political gain. You know, I mean, his use of let’s say the China card pales in comparison to his use of racism and xenophobia, but he’s nevertheless played the China card with considerable success. I mean, rarely have we seen a party do a 180 on foreign policy so quickly and so completely. I mean, in 2016, to the extent the Republicans were jumping up and down about national security threats, it was Russia and Iran, that’s who they were principally concerned about. It’s now pretty much China 24/7.
What I would expect if a Trump administration – from a Trump administration, let’s say, in the first 100 days is basically more of the same, but on steroids. He likes steroids now. If Trump wins, he will conclude that he can pretty much treat the outcome as a vindication of his approach towards China, Peter’s points notwithstanding, those are important points that Peter made about, you know, the relative success of Trump’s policy, but he will treat that as vindication of the policy towards China. He will treat it as vindication of his approach towards the pandemic, and Amy’s points are well-taken, but that is also the case, and probably everything else. I mean indeed, he will have effectively proven, I think, that he can shoot somebody in broad daylight in Times Square and get away with it. That will be the takeaway by Trump. Republican lawmakers, and alas Xi Jinping, and his close advisors. Beijing, I think, would assume, if it ha – does not already, that America’s international trajectory has fundamentally shifted for the foreseeable future, and all that means for existing US international commitments. I would expect a lot of testing of those commitments by Beijing and by others.
But what about if Biden wins? The temptation is to say that everything will revert back to the way it was pre-Trump. Not exactly that it’ll be kumbaya, but that Biden would reset relations with China. I think this is unlikely. And to be sure, I think Biden would drop the Trump administration’s veiled threat, Pompeo’s veiled treats of regime change, and I think he would also likely dial back a bit of where this administration is right now on Taiwan, but I don’t think a Biden reset would be in the offing. And, you know, Biden’s repositioning of himself on China, during the Presidential campaign, already suggests that he’s aware of the fact that he would open himself up domestically if he went for a reset. I think Republicans would pounce. Meanwhile, I would say that Biden also has incentives, if he gets elected, to make use of the anxiety about Chinese ambitions that now exist in the US and many OECD countries to get leverage on important – other important international and domestic goals, basically as a means to other ends.
Internationally, I would not be surprised if Biden offered America’s allies a deal. Greater co-ordination on security, economic health, climate, and other issues, in return for a co-ordinated trade and investment policy towards China. And the German leaders aren’t going to like this, but I think they might be isolated on it. I mean, negative views of China. I know people have looked at the recent Pew polls, it’s stunning. I mean, negative views of China have spiked across Western democracies, including in Germany, since the pandemic broke out.
Domestically, I would look for Biden to push a version, some kind of version, of the new Schumer-Menendez bill that is in the Senate, that’s calling for about 350 billion to confront the clear and present threat, the clear and present danger, that China poses to our economic prosperity and national security, as a way to reward sectors, companies and initiatives connected to the Democratic Party, but I think, even more broadly, to move the country down the direction of an industrial policy. And this, I think, is really – and I’ll end it with this. I think this is the biggest challenge that the United States faces on foreign policy. It is reconnecting liberal internationalism to a domestic, economic strategy. That has been lost, and in no small part because of the policies that Republican as well as Democratic administrations followed towards China. Trump was not wrong about that, he just didn’t do a damn thing to fix it, and I’ll leave it there.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
That was great, Peter. I want to ask you a quick question. I don’t know if you can give a two-word answer, but try to, before we open it up. We are going to come back to that first question I gave Mark, but I want to bring in a few people from the audience, so be prepared, John, and Olivia, and then Andrew Payne. Peter, I like what you say, but it leaves one with the impression that America, under a President Biden, if that’s what we have after January 20th, would – if Europe didn’t step up and if Germany didn’t step up, would say, “Okay, fine, we won’t do climate. Okay, fine, we won’t do public health.” And that seems very unlikely. Biden, as we know, is very passionate. If you watched that first Presidential election, my take was the moment when he was most passionate was when he talked about climate. I guess that the question is whether – you know, what would the threat be if Europe didn’t play ball? And maybe those are your two words, what would the threat – what would the credible threat to withdraw support on be, which issue area? Two words.
Professor Peter Trubowitz
Trade.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Trade, okay, there we go, trade. So, if Europe…
Professor Peter Trubowitz
One word.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
…doesn’t play ball on China…
Professor Peter Trubowitz
One word. One word.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Sorry?
Professor Peter Trubowitz
One word.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
One word. If Europe doesn’t play ball on China, with a Biden administration, if that’s what we get, then America pulls the plug on co-operating and playing…
Professor Peter Trubowitz
Yeah, and the whole thing.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Okay, we’ll let you flush it out.
Professor Peter Trubowitz
Both points it’s strong.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Trade. Trade.
Professor Peter Trubowitz
Yeah, right.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Okay, trade. We’re going to come back to these different points, ‘cause they’re all really, really good ones. I want you to write that – your remarks up for us, Peter, but let’s turn to John. John, can you very, very briefly introduce yourself, tell us who you are, and then ask your question.
John Kavulich
My name’s John Kavulich with the US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council in New York, and my question is what do the panellists believe will be, if President Trump is re-elected, the bilateral relationship between the United States and the UK?
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Okay, I’m going to take all three of those questions at once, and then we’ll come back to the panel. So, Olivia, you’re next [pause]. Olivia Brink.
Olivia Brink
Right, hi, I’m Olivia. I’m an international relations student. My question was, is there any – to all the speakers, what they think the extent of Trump’s America First policy was, and his decision to, kind of, isolate the US, rather than co-operate with international institutions on their response to COVID?
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Great, thank you, and Andrew Payne. I’ll introduce Andrew Payne. Andrew Payne, in addition to being a Oxford Scholar and Lecturer, is also a very important member of the Chatham House Council, doing a huge amount for us on our next generation work. Andrew, over to you.
Andrew Payne
Thanks, Leslie, that’s too kind. I want to pick on Sir Peter’s comments around the need to rebuild diplomatic relationships around the world, and especially in Iran. It strikes me that the kind of process required to do that takes time, but the American political system often doesn’t give a new US President the time to do that. You know, there’s often a honeymoon period of six months or so, where they get this permissive environment, but that erodes. We saw that with Iran, and there’s the added factor, in June, of next year, when President Rouhani will stepdown and potentially be replaced by a more conservative figure. So, my question is, given these constraints, what realistically can be achieved in the very narrow window of time, in the first six months of 2021, to repair that relationship, and how can the new administration ensure that any steps they take carries sufficient bipartisan support to protect it at home? Thanks.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Why don’t we let you take that first one, Sir Peter? Why don’t you – would you like to begin with that on a run?
Sir Peter Westmacott
Okay, I’ll have a go. It’s a very good question and, of course, it’s not even going to be that straightforward because, unless we get something resembling a landslide, then we may well have a bit of muddle for a few weeks after the elections are over, and there may well be some attempts to try to delegitimise, or at least complicate life for an incoming administration, coming from the direction of the Trump team. I hope not, but there’s been quite a lot of noise about that, so we’ve got to keep that in mind.
I think otherwise, would there be a honeymoon on issues like Iran? The first thing I would say, Andrew, is that I think the Iranians are going to have to make a certain amount of an effort, if there is a President Biden, to make it politically attractive for him to try to renew negotiations on a nuclear deal or broader security issues. And, to be really honest, they’ve been sitting out the rest of the Trump four years and waiting to see what happens, and, I think, trying to be careful not to provoke the administration into having some sort of casus belli October surprise, which they’ve been reading is one of the options that the President might have gone for if he was, you know, desperate to be able to wrap himself in the flag, kind of, wag the dog kind of scenario. Might sound ridiculous, but there has been talk of it, and, of course, President Trump did wrongly accuse President Obama of going to start a war with Iran, in order to get himself re-elected in 2012, which he never did.
So, I think it could be quite complicated, but Iran continues, unfortunately, to take innocent civilians, dual nationals, and others, hostage for political purposes. Some other governments, including my own, actually, in the United Kingdom, have not moved that quickly, in terms of paying some financial debts which we have got going way back to the Shah’s time, which might complicate things a bit more. But some of the human rights and other abuses inside Iran are pretty egregious, and, as you rightly say also, the chances are, not least because of the policy of a Trump administration of maximum pressure, that we could have a hard-line President taking over from Rouhani to follow a hard-line parliament, which will make resuming negotiations potentially complicated whatever happens. I don’t think there’ll be much of a honeymoon.
On the whole, China is a bigger concern, as Peter was saying just now, than Iran, but it’s not long ago that a Senior Republican Senator was telling me that the game on Capitol Hill is who can out-hate Iran. It’s not so true now, but it has been, not very long ago, and so I think some of the movement, if they want to make progress, would have to come from the Iranian side. And then, from the point of view of the Biden team, and my guess is that he will be advised by a number of veterans of the old JCPOA team who put together the nuclear deal under President Obama, will be, “Okay, if we are going to go back into this territory, we’d better be pretty sure this time that it’s going to work, that there is a deal to be struck, that the Iranians will comply.” They did, of course, comply with the last one, until President Trump walked away from it, so perhaps that is an area where there is hope for progress, but it will be difficult. His instinct will be to try to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, but it will not be, “Oh, well, we can just go back to pre-May 2018 and everything will be fine.” It’s going to be more complex than that. Do you want me to have a crack at the question about…
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Oh, yes.
Sir Peter Westmacott
…President Trump?
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
I think we’ll leave – maybe come to Mark on the…
Sir Peter Westmacott
Okay.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
…US-UK question.
Mark Landler
Sure, and I guess the question was, if Trump is re-elected, what does that mean for US-UK? I mean, in the – the immediate thing it means is that the dreams of a US-UK trade agreement are probably still very much alive, although not without all the, you know, hurdles that would happen anyway, one of which is the fact that, if Trump’s re-elected, he may face a united Democratic-controlled Congress, which’ll make the passage of any trade agreement more problematic for him.
But trade talks would probably pick up, and, you know, Trump would champion that as a symbol of his relationship with Boris Johnson, and I think, you know, for all sorts of reasons, it would be useful for Boris Johnson to have a President in office – continue to have a President in office who fundamentally supports the Brexit project, who thinks that Brexit was a great thing to do. So, it’s not a surprise that I think there’s considerable anxiety in Downing Street about the idea that they may be facing a new President who has been on the record as saying he thinks Brexit is a bad idea and would have voted against it if he was a member of the British Parliament in Joe Biden.
The other issue is that, if Biden were elected, a trade agreement would be far down the list of priorities, not because I think he’s inherently hostile to doing a trade deal with the UK, but just that he will have so many other things on his plate that will probably be viewed as more important, and Peter Trubowitz, kind of, got at this earlier. The UK would face the, sort of, sad reality of not being all that important to a Biden White House, perhaps somewhat less important than it would be to a Trump White House, for the symbolic reasons I mentioned.
I would mention one potential real source of friction, if Trump were re-elected, which is that I think, in the category of multilateral organisations, that he might do real damage to in a second term. He may well pull out of NATO, and if he pulls out of NATO that puts Britain into an extraordinarily tough position. NATO is now Britain’s greatest, in some ways, multilateral organisation that it is still a member of, a key member of, and watching Boris Johnson deal with the possibility of the US leaving NATO would be a tremendous challenge. So, I don’t think it’s smooth sailing under either Joe Biden or Donald Trump, frankly, for the UK.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Peter, I want to get your reactions to this question on US-UK on trade, and especially on NATO, to the – you know, the broader question, but also to Mark’s comments that, you know, perhaps a Tr – a second Trump administration would be better for the UK, with the major exception of the fact that it might pull out of NATO. But your reactions, and then we’ll come to Amy on the question about international institutions, and I don’t know if Peter, if you want to weigh in on…?
Professor Peter Trubowitz
Sure. I actually don’t have – I agree with Mark, I don’t have very much to add on this. I mean, I would say that, on the – again, it would just be, for Biden, it’s an unnecessary lift, the payoff is so low that, if he’s going to do a trade deal, do a big one somewhere else. I mean, reconsider going into TPP or TTIP. I don’t think he’s going down that path, certainly not right out of the box, and I don’t know why you absorbed the cost of bringing this up.
And I would just say, on Trump, you know, I think Mark’s point is, you know, excellent. A lot of this depends – it depends more on the House than it does on the Senate, you know, and it’s possible the Democrats even run the numbers up higher in the House, but the big issue there is frankly Nancy Pelosi. And Nancy Pelosi, if this – if the way they get out of Brexit, you know, is problematic, with the Good Friday Agreement and so forth, he can kiss that goodbye, it’s not happening. Not strong, I know, but I mean, it would be a very heavy lift. He would have to make a lot of concessions to get the Democrats to come onboard, I don’t see it. She said that when she was here in London, and I think that’s a pretty consistent position, so, yeah.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
And before we come to Amy on the international institutions question, Sir Peter, would you like to add anything on US-UK? You’re muted, you have to un…
Professor Peter Trubowitz
You’re muted, Peter.
Sir Peter Westmacott
Sorry. Yes, a word, I don’t disagree with what the others have been saying. I agree that trade policy, free trade agreement with the United Kingdom is not going to be a high priority for an incoming President Biden. But equally, I’ve been saying for the last four years or so, that a free trade agreement between the United States and United Kingdom is not a very high priority anyway. It was always going to be difficult to negotiate. It’s never going to make up for the loss of export earnings to the Single Market, which we are about to leave, and even if you did get down into serious negotiations, how the heck do you deal with pharmaceutical, Biomerica legislation, public procurement, fight over sanitary requirements, agriculture, chlorine-washed chicken, you know, all this stuff, which has been talked around for a long time? It’s not going to, as we say here, you know, change the price of fish very rapidly or very significantly, even if fish isn’t in the deal. So, I think that’s not a top priority.
The one other thing that I would add is that I think, with an incoming President Biden, for all his being, you know, part-British as well as part-Irish, and having had very close relations with previous UK governments, he will have noticed that the current British Government has made a big fuss of Donald Trump over the last few years. He will take a very dim view of an outcome on Brexit, which messes around with the Good Friday Agreement and goes down badly in Ireland and with 50 million Irish Americans, and that will not help things very much.
And on a number of the issues where Donald Trump has been taking a firm line, you know, like digital taxation of internet companies in the United States of America and, to some extent, the use of dollar as an instrument of US foreign policy, which drives the rest of us crazy sometimes, I don’t think that’s going to change very dramatically either way. So, those who think it’ll be dramatically different could be in for a nasty surprise. Although I think that there will be fewer surprises, in terms of the conduct of US foreign policy, and less of this, “Let’s pull out from NATO,” and less, if you like, accidental, gratuitous, whatever is, unhelpful comments to British Prime Ministers from the peanut gallery about how to make a success of Brexit, which made Theresa May’s life so difficult, even though Donald Trump claimed to be a huge supporter of what she was doing, and making Brexit happen. Thanks.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
That’s a great opportunity for me to say read the chapter on trade that Marianne Schneider-Petsinger wrote, which she makes this point, right, regardless who’s elected, the focus on digital services taxation is going to be a mainstay and the politics of trade are going to continue to be really difficult, it’s a great chapter. Amy, in addition – when you’re answering this question, it’s also an opportunity – you’ve done a lot of work on refugees, migration, borders, homeland security, that part of your portfolio, and maybe you can say something about that, as you take this question, before we come back to the audience.
Amy Pope
Sure thing. So, I think Olivia asked, “How much does Trump’s America First policy play a part in his decision to isolate the United States, with regard to COVID?” I just think this is the animating policy here. I mean, if you look, for example, at, you know, we were talking just about NATO. He tends to view international engagement, in terms of what immediate benefit is it going to have for the United States? And he defines benefit in very, very narrow terms, and we saw – we’ve seen that playout in South Korea, in terms of, you know, he’s constantly threatening to pull US troops out of South Korea, without really recognising that they’re playing a pivotal role, in terms of our ability to influence and engage very quickly in that region.
So, I think his response on COVID is more of the same. He doesn’t seem to recognise that, you know, our border wall is not going to keep out an infectious disease. I mean, really, you know, I hate to be so glib about it, but he really seems to think that, if the United States is sufficiently fortified, it doesn’t need to rely on its partners, and I think, ultimately, that’s his undoing. I mean, frankly, if you look at where we were, in terms of the election before COVID hit, most experts would have said that Donald Trump was going to be re-elected, and I say that as someone who has a tremendous amount of respect for the Vice President and thinks he’s a wonderful person and legislator, but the cards were such that it looked like Donald Trump was going to win, and COVID has been his undoing. So, I tend to think of it as his view is so narrow, in terms of what’s ultimately in the United States’ best interest that he fails to see how we’re actually very, very closely knit into an international community, and those solutions require some sort of international engagement.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Thank you, Amy, it’s been very interesting to watch, during the pandemic, how many of the older voters have begun to peel off, and I would imagine that that has something to do with concerns over health and the reaction to the President’s handling, because that older vote was, you know, usually with the Republicans, and it really has shifted. Split, but it’s shifted.
I’m going to come to Domenic and Brishney, and I’ll take both of those questions at the same – at one and then the other. Dominique, if you unmute [pause]. A little bit louder.
Domenic Carratu
Okay, can you hear me now?
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Yes.
Domenic Carratu
Okay, a short question. Given how large China looms as an issue, let alone the need to resolve the outstanding issues in the Middle East, would it make sense for the next President to deal with a [inaudible – 65:01] to Russia akin to Nixon opening up of China?
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Thank you, great question, and Brishney
Brishney
Sure, thank you, Leslie, and thank you everybody for sharing your insights. My question to the panel is, given the move of educated suburban voters away from the Republicans towards Democrats, and conversely vice versa, blue-collar workers moving more towards the Republican Party, can we see a flip in the economic policies? Can we see the Republican Party espouse more nationalist economic policies and the Democrats conversely espouse greater globalisation? Thank you.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
I think I’m going to come to Peter Trubowitz on the Russia question first, if that’s okay, Peter?
Professor Peter Trubowitz
[Pause] Sure. I think probably the short ans – it’s an interesting question. I think the short answer is, I wouldn’t expect it. For all kinds of reasons, but, you know, I mean, that’s a very – that kind of realpolitik, I think, kind of, open right now in the United States would be a very, very hard sell. I mean, you know, Russia’s stock is not too high, except in the White House. But, in general, it’s not very high, and I don’t even think among Republicans in Congress, but I do think that your question raises an important point.
If – the larger issue here, it seems to me, is that, if you had a Biden administration, he’s going to be constrained. He’s going to have to focus principally on domestic policy and so, to the extent that he does focus on foreign policy, I think he’s going to be looking for ways to combine policies from different regions. So that’s, kind of, what Nixon and Kissinger did when they – you know, with the opening towards China, right, is they tried to mix up the game that way, and they did it because it was very economical, at a time when the country was retrenching, they were retrenching, they were trying to get out of Vietnam. And so, you know, it’s, kind of, trying to use diplomacy and instruments and recombinations. So, to me, what I suggested, what I think is more likely, is to see a Biden administration, if there is a Biden administration, use China and the concerns about China to move the needle elsewhere, which is why I was focusing on Europe, because I think that’s actually very real. I do think there’ll probably be a contest and divisions inside the Biden team about this, but those who are more realpolitik would want to make the Europeans pay a little bit more for what they get from the United States, rather than just to give it up.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
I also have to use this opportunity to say that there’s a great chapter, there are so many good chapters, but there’s a great chapter on Latin America in this report, and one of the things that my colleague, Chris Sabatini, talks about is the fact that a lot of what’s going on between America, China, America, Russia, a lot of that’s playing out as we know, across the globe. And the story that he tells and the analysis he delivers in that chapter, especially about China’s role in Latin America, is really very interesting, so read the report.
Let me come to you, I guess, Mark, on this question about the Republican Party, really interesting question, and anybody else who wants to perhaps weigh in on that, but, Mark, what’s your opinion?
Mark Landler
It is a very interesting question, and it, sort of, called to mind a conversation I had with Steve Bannon early in this administration when he was, sort of – I didn’t know him well, and he was trying to explain what it was that the Trump people stood for, and one of the things he said was, you know, “If I had my way, I would raise taxes on wealthy Americans and give middleclass Americans a big tax cut.” And, you know, if you go back to the early days of the Trump Presidency, there were definitely strands where you could see the administration going in a direction that would have felt like a kind of, a very populous Democratic administration. In the end, it didn’t playout that way. The Wall Streeters, kind of, seized the influence, and to the extent that there were tax cuts, they tended to go to hedge funds and wealthy Americans, which felt very traditionally Republican.
Some of the other early things that Trump talked about doing also would have felt like traditional Democratic policies, massive public works projects in infrastructure, remember he was going to build bridges and highways. In the end, Trump didn’t do that either and, likewise, his trade policy was not Republican after all. It was, sort of, old-fashioned union protectionist Democrat in tone and, to that extent, he did deliver. He actually proceeded very strongly down a path that would have been suited to a – kind of, a populous Democratic President.
I think – where I think that the idea doesn’t quite hold up is on the Democratic side, because I’m more with what Peter said earlier about the forces of anti-globalisation, which I think are really bipartisan. I think that it’s hard for me to conceive of a new Democratic platform built around the marvels of multilateral trade deals and, you know, deep engagement with the rest of the world. I just – and that would be a nice thing to dream of, but I don’t think there’s a political constituency for it.
If you go back to the Democratic primary debates, you wouldn’t have found any of the candidates on that stage really evangelising about free trade, you just really can’t do that in today’s Democratic Party. Likewise, on, kind of, traditional global foreign policy issues that Republicans like George H W Bush would have been very comfortable with, there’s really not a constituency for that in today’s Democratic Party. I remember listening to Elizabeth Warren in one of the debates saying that she thought the US should just pull out of the Middle East, full stop.
So, while I think you could conceive of a Republican Party that found a way to turn some of these Democratic populist issues into, kind of, a new compact, it’s harder for me to see the Democrats of today becoming that kind of internationalist, pro-free trade party, at least as constituted today. And I think that one of the themes of Biden’s Presidency, should he be elected, is going to be the tension between the moderate internationalist wing of the party that he very much symbolises and the progressive Elizabeth Warren AOC wing that will not be interested in these kinds of policies and will militate against them, and it’s hard to know who’s going to win that battle. I’d almost put my money on the progressives at this point.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
So, we’re coming right to the end. I’m going to give everybody a minute, but I want you to answer very specific questions. Sir Peter, I’m going to start with you, and I’d really like you to tell us what Europe has at stake, when it comes to America, the Middle East, and this election, ‘cause I didn’t let you finish. Amy, I’m going to ask you to talk about the transition between November 3rd and January 20th, and how badly could things go, when it comes to managing the pandemic through what might be, regardless of the outcome, a very difficult transition, either from Trump 1 to Trump 2 or from Trump 1 to Biden 1. Peter, what might China do during this period of uncertainty? I mean, a lot of people say that this is a period when there’s a lot of scope for great powers from around the world doing all sorts of things ‘cause America’s distracted and will be much more distracted, once we hit November 3rd. Are you worried? And Mark, you know, the question I asked you about the transition, if you could say a word on that. So, Sir Peter, over to you, and we don’t have very much time, so sorry about that.
Sir Peter Westmacott
Well, thanks. Not much to add to what I said before. I think that, from the broader perspective of European interests and a stronger transatlantic relationship and strengthening international institutions, be it WTO, WHO, United Nations, NATO, Europe is looking at this election and saying to itself it will be very relieved if it’s a Biden victory rather than a Trump one. I mean, that’s very clear from the polling, which you see across Europe, it’s, sort of, two to one at least, if not more than that, in favour. So, I think it’s, kind of, going back to a degree of what they would call normalcy, even though people are perhaps forgetting that it’s not going to be that straightforward, and many of the issues on which President Trump has touched on are not going to go away, and there is going to be economic nationalism, there is going to be a degree of America First.
Americans are not going to be any keener in the future, whoever’s President, to lay down their lives for the security of countries far away that may have been recently. I mean, President Obama was already touching on that, so I think the Europeans have got to be pretty realistic about security and start getting their own act together, and I regret that, as the UK leaves the European Union, there is not even any structured arrangement for continuing foreign and security policy co-operation. So Europe itself is going to be looking a little bit weak and will need, I think, a certain amount of support from America, whichever America it is, but it’s more likely to get it from a multilateralist Biden than it is from a continuing America First unilateralist Trump.
The British Government, the present one, I think would be in some ways relieved to have President Trump still there. There’s a personal relationship between Boris Johnson and Donald Trump, and he does, indeed, talk a good talk about saying how marvellous Brexit is, but much will depend on how we end up at the end of this year. If we leave European Union with no deal, many things become more difficult. We’ve already taken a bigger economic hit from coronavirus than anybody else in the OECD. If, in addition, we’re going to damage our economy even further, and at a time when, frankly, the UK’s voice is going to matter less in the United States than it did if we hadn’t left the European Union, that relationship, from the UK’s perspective, is going to be more complicated. But, generally speaking, I think Europeans will be looking for, or will be preferring, a victory by Biden rather than four more years of a somewhat impulsive and unpredictable Trump administration.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Thank you. Amy.
Amy Pope
[Pause] Did that work? Okay. So, look, I think the period of time, as you forecast, Leslie, between the election and inauguration is probably the most dangerous time in the United States, both because we have a President who, for the first time ever, has really raised doubts about whether he’s willing to accept the outcome of the election, but also because, you know, if we take a look at Mark’s paper, The New York Times, right now, it is – the front page is that we’re hitting a third wave in the United States, and that cases are surging in 17 states right now. And so, that means that we’re entering a period where there is going to be increasing distrust of the government, an increasing trust – distrust of the advice that government is giving to citizens about how they should behave, in the face of this next wave of the pandemic, and we’re going to be at a moment in time where there is a lot of confusion about who’s in charge and whose policies are going to take precedence. So, if anything, that’s a point in time that I’m most concerned about because there are clear rules about who’s in charge at that moment in time, and I think that President Trump is going to do everything he can to muddy the waters, if he is not the winner of the election.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Thank you. Peter Trubowitz.
Professor Peter Trubowitz
And my – the question was the possibility of some kind of foreign crisis while the United States is distracted. So, this is a possibility. It’s a, kind of, known, unknown, I would say, you know, I want to use Rumsfeld’s formulation. There was a very good piece about this, for people that are interested in it, in the Washington Post a couple weeks back. Look, the obvious candidates here are China, Iran, and Russia, and I think one has to think about this not only after the election, there’s still a couple weeks to go here. You know, I think, in the case of Russia, if Russia wanted to cause mischief, it would be in its best interest to do it before the election, not after the election. I say that because they can create an opportunity, I mean one can imagine this, I’m not predicting this, but to create an opportunity for Donald Trump to be able to – a, kind of, October surprise scenario and so forth.
I think, in the case of Iran, I see little incentive for them to do it before an election or after the election, especially if it’s a Biden team coming in, they can hope that there’ll be some kind of movement at least, some kind of dialling back of things. And I think – I guess where I come down on this, I mean, these are very tough questions, in a – you know, in the case of Xi Jinping, I would think that the Chinese, if – will – would keep their powder dry during the, kind of, interregnum that you’re talking about. Whether it’s Trump getting re-elected, but just in this – if we have a contested period, and we may not, but if we do have a contested period, rather than to, kind of, ratchet up tensions, I think this is especially true if they had reasons to believe that Biden would be coming in. So, you know, so, I’ll leave it there.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Thank you. I mean, I asked these questions because I think it’s important for us and for our audiences, you know, we’re so focused on November 3rd, but November 3rd’s going to be over in a flash, and there’s a lot that happens before January 20th. So, Mark, tell us about that period.
Mark Landler
Well, if any of you haven’t seen it and want to read something that’ll keep you up late at night, there’s a very long cover story in The Atlantic Monthly by Barton Gellman about all the ways that the Trump administration could try to interfere with the post-election period, and undermine the result, and he goes through – you know, the scenarios are hair-raising, ranging from lawsuits, in multiple states, to invalidate mail-in ballots, for all sorts of reasons, legitimate and not legitimate. There are going to be millions and millions of mail-in ballots, and some of them are not going to be filled out correctly, some of them won’t have witness signatures, and there will probably be litigation all over the country. And that becomes an issue in states where the margin is close, knowing that, as I said at the beginning, more Democratics voters tend to vote with mail-in ballots and do advanced voting.
In states where there is a standoff or a continued dispute that is working its way up the legal system, the Trump administration could decide to go another way, which is simply go to the legislatures of the states and ask them to vote a slate of electors that don’t represent the electors that would have come out of the vote, but represent what the state legislatures choose to vote. It so happens that more states have Republican-controlled legislatures, and particularly in battleground states, some of the key ones, there are Republicans in control. So, you could, hypothetically, see a scenario where states would send a slate of electors to Washington for President Trump, even if the vote in that state would have awarded the electors to Joe Biden.
And this is where the composition of the Supreme Court and the confirmation hearing of Amy Coney Barrett come into play. Donald Trump’s been very open about saying – I mean, one of the interesting things about Donald Trump is, he always hatches his plots in plain sight. He actually has a habit of saying what he’s going to do. One of the things he’s been very clear about is he wants his Justices in place, should a contested election rise up to the level of the Supreme Court, and he is confident that his Justices will have his back, and vote in his favour. I thought it was interesting, perhaps not surprising, but slightly chilling, that Amy Coney Barrett declined to say that she would recuse herself from a case involving a contested election. Now, that doesn’t mean that Amy Coney Barrett would inflexibly vote for President Trump, but she was also not willing to take herself out of the equation, should a case like that go to the Supreme Court.
My own view actually is slightly less alarmist on this because I think that, for all the criticism that the Supreme Court may have deserved in the Bush v Gore case, if there is a blatant attempt to steal the election, I guess I’m idealistic enough to think that even conservative Justices are going to have a hard time justifying a vote in favour of that, but that’s in a blatant case. If things are close, then you could be in a different scenario.
I mean, I guess I’ll leave you just with the one point I made at the beginning. The way to avoid all of this obviously is for one of the two to win by a large enough margin, and one of the interesting quirks of election law in the United States is that Florida is a state that is pretty efficient, forget about hanging chads and all that, they are actually quite efficient in counting early mail-in and absentee ballots. And they have a law in the state that they need to do it on election day, so they can’t stretch a count out for days and weeks the way you can in Pennsylvania or Nevada or many other states.
So, watch Florida. If Florida goes for Joe Biden, that’s going to be a very big indicator that he’s going to win this election, and I actually think it might take some of the suspense out of the whole exercise. If Florida’s a mess, or if Trump wins it, then we’re in a for a very long drama, and some of these nightmare scenarios that Bart Gellman wrote about in The Atlantic may come into play. I think that it was – I commend the piece to you, it’s worth reading, it’s terrifying. I hope it’s alarmist and, in the end, it’s a – this’ll be a little bit like Y2K. We’re all scared to death, and then it, kind of, passes with less drama than we feared it would. So, on that optimistic note, thanks.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Thank you so much, Mark. I know Sir Peter and Amy and probably everybody has to move onto another call. People are – the panellists tonight were phenomenal, you know this. Thank you so much to the audience for joining us. Thank you to the US and Americas team for making this report come out, to the Editor, but especially to the audience, and especially to you, Peter Trubowitz, Amy Pope, Sir Peter Westmacott, Mark Landler, that was phenomenal. We do have Bart Gellman actually speaking on November 4th, so if we move into this space, we will be carrying on that conversation, but let’s hope that the less alarmist version is what we see. Regardless of the result, it would be good to know what it is sooner rather than later. Thank you all so much. We were on the record tonight, we’ll share the recording with you, and we’ll see you again soon. Bye.
