The World Wants To Know Who Is Kamala Harris — And If She Can Win

PARIS — All signs are pointing to Kamala Harris, a relatively unknown figure to the international audience, to be the Democrat to face off against Donald Trump on November 5 in the U.S. presidential race. After President Joe Biden announced Sunday he would drop out of the race, he immediately gave his endorsement to Harris, his vice president for the past three-and-a-half years ... and all the cards are falling into place.

By Tuesday, Harris had secured the endorsement of enough of her party delegates to obtain the nomination, and raised a record $81 million in donations within the first 24 hours of her campaign. Despite the whirlwind events of the past 48 hours, the YouGov polling institute found that only 56% of Americans are “very familiar” with the presumptive Democratic nominee — and that percentage is no doubt much lower outside the U.S.

So, who is Kamala Harris? Can she beat Donald Trump? What does it mean for us? These are the questions the rest of the world is asking. Even if analysts estimate that Harris’s foreign policy would not differ significantly from Biden’s, the world is beginning to assess what positions Harris might take in their part of the world.

China hard line

Hong Kong daily South China Morning Post (SCMP) writes that a hypothetical Harris administration would be in continuity with the Biden administration in its relations vis-a-vis China. Yet, Harris has signaled multiple times to be tougher on some human rights violations committed by the Chinese government, maintaining a rigid stance towards the genocide of the Muslim minority Uyghurs and crackdowns on pro-democracy movements in Hong Kong. Moreover, Harris has emphasized on several occasions the importance of supporting the independence of Taiwan.

Overall, experts told the SCMP that Harris’s stance towards China might be “even tougher” than Biden's, mainly to show the American public that she can be even tougher than Donald Trump, who plans to impose more stringent tariffs on some Chinese products, such as electric vehicles.

European hope

European media are mostly signaling satisfaction for Harris’s likely candidacy. Italian daily La Stampa defines the vice president as “a successful woman who makes Donald [Trump] look old.”

Harris's foreign policy has been an intimate engagement with Ukraine.

Now that Harris has effectively clinched the nomination, French daily Le Monde wrote that she still must assert her "political identity" in her own right.

Concerning Harris’s Europe policy, analysts predict a total alignment with the current president, which implies a staunch financial and military support of Ukraine in its campaign against the Russian invasion of its territory. Ukrainian online newspaper The Kyiv Independent writes that “making Russia pay, metaphorically and literally, has been a consistent presence in Harris’s remarks on the war in Ukraine,” concluding that “Harris's foreign policy experience… has been an intimate engagement with Ukraine.”

Middle East and Gaza

Harris has been depicted by some as taking a harder line towards Israel than Joe Biden, representing what could be the main foreign policy difference between the two. The vice president has been strongly advocating for a ceasefire and criticizing Israel for its disruption of food supplies towards Gaza, an element that according to analysts could signal less willingness to give carte blanche to Israel.

At the same time, as highlighted by Al Jazeera, Harris has reiterated concepts such as Israel’s right to self-defense, stating that “our support for Israel’s security is iron clad” in April. Therefore, for the Qatar-based network, Harris is expected “to largely continue Biden’s approach to the Gaza war.”

This is creating problems in the U.S., where Middle East Eye reports that pro-Palestinian progressive groups haven’t endorsed Harris’s nomination so far, and the same goes for the only Palestinian-American member of Congress, Rashida Tlaib.

Latin America and the border

One of Harris’s main tasks over the past three years has been addressing the root causes of migration throughout Latin America, forcing her to assume a tough stance on the topic at times, like her famous 2021 speech in Guatemala, when she told migrants throughout the continent “do not come.”

1 out of 5 Latinos still don’t have an opinion.

Experts told Noticias Telemundo, a Spanish language Miami-based broadcaster covering Latin America, that Harris has “failed to understand the reasons why our people migrate” since taking on the task in 2021, highlighting a largely negative opinion of the way the Biden administration, and Harris more specifically, have handled migration throughout their term.

However, American news website Axios reported on July 11 that Harris fares slightly better than Joe Biden among the Latino electorate, which is estimated to be around 36 million voters. But Harris will have to do more to appeal to this electorate, as 1 out of 5 Latinos still don’t have an opinion on the vice president.