Harris’s and Trump’s positions on Ukraine

In a presidential race characterized by stark contrasts, there are few policy areas where Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump diverge so greatly as on the issue of the war in Ukraine.

Harris has sought to position herself as a successor to the Biden administration’s policies, suggesting a continuation of its severe economic actions against Russia as well as a commitment to providing U.S. security assistance to Ukraine for an indefinite period.

Trump, meanwhile, has criticized such policies as risking war between Russia and NATO and has hinted he’d be a peace broker who would bring Russia back to the table in order to reintegrate it with the West.

Both candidates have remained fairly mum on the details of how they would get Moscow and Kyiv to come together and end the war, but both have also made sweeping statements about the importance of their own vision for the resolution of the conflict.

Sam Kessler, a geopolitical analyst with the risk advisory firm North Star Support Group, told The Epoch Times that the widely divergent stances on Ukraine stemmed from “two different foreign policy philosophies.”

On the one hand, he said, there was the Cold War mindset of Biden and Harris that sought to degrade Russia through proxy war in Ukraine. On the other hand, there was Trump’s realpolitik approach, which sought to deal with U.S. capabilities as they actually were and to reorient towards the struggle with China.

Those two philosophies, Kessler said, result in much different strategies.

“Vice President Harris’s stance on Ukraine is … to continue supporting the Ukrainians with the fighting against the Russians,” Kessler said.

“Former President Trump’s stance has been to mainly resolve the conflict before the situation gets out of hand and the chance of repairing relations with the Russians becomes non-existent.”

Harris Would ‘Stress Test’ International System

Harris has said she is dedicated to defending the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, and has pointed to her role in helping create the 50-nation support network that has supplied weapons and other aid to Ukraine so it can maintain its defense.

The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment, but Harris has previously suggested that Trump’s calls for a negotiated settlement to end the war were tantamount to surrender and that she would not support such a course of action.

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