Kamala Harris could have easily defeated Tulsi Gabbard’s foreign policy challenge at the 2020 Democratic presidential debate on Wednesday. Facing Gabbard’s claim that American leadership on the world stage is self-destructive, Harris could have offered any of the following responses:
“Do you believe American entrepreneurs should work for the benefit of themselves, their families, and their communities? Or should they do the hard work and have China steal the profits from them? If it’s the former, why do you want to retreat from the world and allow Chinese intellectual property thieves to fill the vacuum?”
“Do you believe American families deserve to get a good deal at the store, or should they pay 30% more for household goods so that China can reap the difference? If the former, why are you willing to give the eastern Pacific Ocean to a new Chinese empire?”
“Do you believe America’s NATO allies are valued friends who fought with us in Afghanistan after 9/11 or peoples to be abandoned to Russia? If the former, why don’t you have the courage to say so openly?”
“Do you believe American freedom and prosperity is the birthright of Americans or of the Chinese Communist Party? If the former, why do you want to give Beijing control over international security?”
Offering none of those answers, or even a variation on one of those themes, Kamala Harris offered only pathetic political platitudes. If she lacks the courage or knowledge to make a better case for American leadership, she is clearly unfit to deal with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
For all of our foreign policy mistakes — and yes, there have been many — the American-led international order has done more for human freedom, individual prosperity, and peace than any other order in the history of the world. This order requires intelligent but bold American leadership, without which China and Russia will set new rules in the 21st century that we will not like.
Gabbard could and should have been rebuked. Harris blew it.
