Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris are offering US voters a vastly different future for the next four years. While one seeks isolationism and would willingly cede the US role in international leadership in favour of a unilateral “America first” approach, the other sees stability in a global order based on partnerships and diplomacy with America, as ever, at the helm.

On the domestic front, Trump is expected to emphasise tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation for businesses, including environmental deregulation, as well as take a hard line on immigration.

A Harris presidency would likely seek to help the middle class as part of her plans for an “opportunity economy”, ensure healthcare access and take action on the environment as well as encourage social equity.

A TRUMP PRESIDENCY

Economy

Trump has repeatedly touted tariffs as a way to spur US manufacturing, proposing a 20 percent tariff on all foreign-made goods and 60 percent on those from China. He has even floated tariffs of 200 percent on foreign cars. However, imposing tariffs come with the inherent risk of escalation: the Economist has warned that Trump’s plan would be “disastrous for America and the world”, calling it a “protectionist nightmare”.

An analysis by the Peterson Institute for International Economics estimated Trump’s proposals would cost the typical American family more than $2,600 per year; an analysis from the National Retail Federation put the annual cost per household even higher, at $4,000.

Moreover, the US imports most of the food it consumes, including 60 percent of all fresh fruit and almost 40 percent of its vegetables, according to the Department of Agriculture. 

Most experts say Trump’s policy proposals would make inflation worse, with 16 Nobel-winning economists warning in an open letter in June about the “destabilising effect” on the US economy of a second Trump term, warning that “his fiscally irresponsible budgets” could “reignite” inflation. 

Trump’s plans would raise the US debt by roughly $7.8 trillion over the next decade, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Harris’s proposals would see the debt rise by $4 trillion. 

Trump’s official platform also pledges to stop outsourcing and make the United States the “dominant energy producer in the world”, which it already is: the United States achieved energy independence for the first time in 40 years back in March, according to a JP Morgan analysis.

Foreign policy

Europe, NATO and Ukraine

Trump has repeatedly complained that NATO countries don’t pay enough for their own defense. Member countries are obligated to spend 2 percent of GDP on their military budgets; currently, 23 of the 32 member nations meet this requirement.

According to Trump, the leader of one allied nation once asked him if he would commit to defending against Russia even for NATO members that don’t meet the 2-percent threshold. “No, I would not protect you,” Trump said he told that president. “In fact, I would encourage them (Russia) to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills.” 

Then-NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg quickly hit back, saying, “Any attack on NATO will be met with a united and forceful response,” and adding: “Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the US, and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interference in the 2016 US election to help Trump and the latter’s fulsome and consistent praise of the Russian autocrat have long cast a shadow over Trump’s political career. A bipartisan 2020 Senate probe into Russian election interference found that the Kremlin infiltrated the Trump campaign and worked with Wikileaks with the “intent” of harming Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

And the relationship between Trump and Moscow has reportedly continued. According to a Trump aide, there may have been as many as seven phone calls between Putin and the former president since Trump left office; Trump and other aides have denied the report.

His ties to the Kremlin have prompted many to question whether Trump would revoke US aid to Ukraine in the case of a second term. The former president has baselessly boasted that he could end the Ukraine war “in 24 hours” if he is re-elected.

Read more‘The guardrails are gone’: Full throttle as Europe tries to Trump-proof itself

Gaza, Iran and the Middle East

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has long been one of the world’s most intractable problems, but the monstrous October 7, 2023, Hamas attack in southern Israel and Israel’s merciless bombing of Gaza in response have taken the war to a whole new level. In a wide-ranging Time magazine interview in April, Trump cast doubt on the idea that a two-state solution was still a viable proposition.

Trump has also proposed a sweeping crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests in the United States, including deporting any foreign students involved. Trump touted his support for Israel in an interview with the Israel Hayom newspaper, saying “nobody did for Israel what I did for Israel”. While in office, Trump also made the controversial decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, outraging Palestinians who also consider Jerusalem to be their capital. Of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, he has said Israel should “finish up” the war so the world can “get to peace”, adding that the offensive is “not a good thing for Israel”.

Commenting on whether Israel should attack Iranian nuclear facilities, Trump said, “hit the nuclear first, and worry about the rest later”. 

Trump also wants to reimpose his 2017 ban on immigration from Muslim-majority countries and expand it to include those fleeing the war in Gaza. “I will ban refugee resettlement from terror-infested areas like the Gaza Strip, and we will seal our border and bring back the travel ban,” Trump said in September.

Trump’s stance on the Middle East conflict took a strange turn in October, when Trump claimed in an interview with right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt that he had been to Gaza – calling it “a rough place” – despite there being no evidence of Trump ever making such a trip. In response to a question from Hewitt, Trump went on to say that Gaza could be rebuilt into a luxury location to rival Monaco.

“It could be better than Monaco. It has the best location in the Middle East, the best water, the best everything,” Trump said.

Trump continued the longstanding hard-line US policy on Iran during his first term. Upon withdrawing the United States from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, he also reimposed US sanctions that were lifted as part of the agreement.

Three Iranians were charged in September with hacking the Trump campaign and trying to leak the stolen material to the Biden campaign and US media. The White House apparently declined to respond to the offer while the media also decided not to publish – in sharp contrast to the widespread release of thousands of emails Russian hackers stole from the Clinton campaign in 2016.

US intelligence believes that Iran had plans to assassinate Trump along with several of his former aides, possibly in response to the 2020 killing of top general Qassem Soleimani during Trump’s first term. Informed of possible efforts to target him or other presidential candidates, Trump said if he were president he would threaten to “blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens”.

Environment

Trump has called climate change a “hoax”, rolling back more than 125 environmental checks over his four years in office. At a dinner at Mar-a-Lago in April, Trump promised to roll back Biden’s environmental protections and block new ones as he asked oil executives to raise $1 billion for his campaign, surprising even some of the oil executives present with the transactional nature of his approach.

The Trump campaign website pledges to end “costly and burdensome regulations” while expanding nuclear energy production and “terminating” the Green New Deal. 

He has also pledged to leave the 2015 Paris climate accord as he did in his first term. Biden rejoined it in 2021 on his first day in office.

Immigration

Trump has consistently advocated for stricter immigration policies, including building a wall along the southern border and mass deportations. A CBS News analysis found that Trump’s proposal to deport millions of immigrants would cost hundreds of billions of dollars; even deporting 1 million immigrants would cost $20 billion. Over the past five fiscal years, it cost an estimated average of $19,599 to deport one person.

The first Trump administration also promised to deport millions but only 325,660 people were deported during the fiscal years he was in the White House while illegal crossing more than doubled. And mass deportation could have another unintended consequence on food prices: the US agricultural sector, which struggles with constant labour shortages, relies primarily on immigrant workers, about half of them undocumented.

Trump’s first-term policy of systematically separating children from their parents at the border as a deterrent for asylum-seekers drew international condemnation. Moreover, an analysis of monthly border crossings from that era do not indicate the policy’s effectiveness as a deterrent; in fact, illegal crossings increased by more than 100 percent between fiscal year 2016 and 2019, according to the National Foundation for American Policy.

Since the Trump administration did not keep records of the families and children affected, reuniting them was extraordinarily difficult despite President Biden’s creation of a task force to do so. According to the task force’s Interim Progress Report from April, it is still working to reunite some 1,360 children with their families. Trump has said he would like to reinstate the family-separation program in a second term.

A bipartisan border bill failed in the Senate last spring after Trump called on his allies to sink it to deny the current Democratic administration a legislative “win” in an election year.

Healthcare, social security and abortion

Trump has been a longtime critic of Obamacare but has yet to present a comprehensive plan to replace it. During his first term, he repeatedly said a new plan would be released in “two weeks” but no plan was ever announced.

His policies on healthcare do not appear to have evolved significantly since then. “Obamacare was lousy healthcare, always was,” Trump said during the debate against Harris in Philadelphia in September, insisting: “we’re going to replace it” with something “better and less expensive” without offering specifics. Asked by moderators if he actually had a new healthcare plan, Trump said: “I have concepts of a plan.” 

Trump helped fulfill the highest hopes of anti-abortion campaigners in June 2022, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that legalised abortion nationwide. Nearly two dozen states have since instituted strict abortion laws, leading to higher maternal and infant mortality in many of them. Several states have introduced restrictions on crossing state lines to seek an abortion

While Trump has vowed to protect Social Security, several of his proposals would deplete funding for the programme. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, his policies would shrink benefit payouts by 33 percent by 2035.

Trump has suggested eliminating federal taxes on Social Security benefits, a policy that would undercut the amount of money available to the program while mainly benefiting wealthier recipients (only about half of those receiving benefits owe federal taxes on them). The Tax Policy Center estimates that those making $32,000 or less would receive no tax cut while those making up to $60,000 would see an average tax savings of just $90 under his proposal.   

A HARRIS PRESIDENCY

Economy

Despite moves to differentiate herself from her predecessor as part of her campaign, it seems likely that Harris will continue to prioritise many of the same issues – notably global alliances including NATO as well as environmental protections and the green energy transition – in addition to establishing what she has called an “opportunity economy” in which everyone has “the chance to succeed”.

Harris advocates policies aimed at increasing economic opportunity, such as raising the minimum wage, supporting small businesses and investing in job training programmes. She has consistently supported policies aimed at reducing systemic inequalities and has called for reforms in education, including affordable college tuition and increased funding for public schools. She has also consistently championed women’s rights and workplace equality.

Harris wants to introduce a $50,000 tax deduction for new small businesses, a tenfold increase from the current tax break of $5,000. She has also said she would work with Congress to ban corporations from taking advantage of emergencies or inflation to “price gouge” on food. Harris also wants to offer $25,000 in down payment assistance for first-time home buyers and called for the construction of 3 million new housing units over the next four years to help ease prices.

She has also said she would honour President Biden’s pledge not to raise taxes on US households earning less than $400,000 a year, but does support raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations. 

Foreign policy

Europe, NATO and Ukraine

Harris has spoken about the importance of diplomacy and international alliances, as well as addressing global issues such as climate change and human rights. The United States would remain a committed member of NATO under a Harris presidency, which would likely offer continuity by following in the footsteps of the Biden-Harris administration.  

Harris has said that the United States must remain committed to ensuring a victory against Russia’s “unprovoked aggression” in Ukraine, criticising Trump for being willing to “surrender” to Russia. 

She has also rejected any negotiations that would include ceding large parts of Ukrainian territory to Russia, calling such proposals “dangerous and unacceptable” alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last month. “They are not proposals for peace,” she said. “Instead they are proposals for surrender.”

Nevertheless, some Europe analysts are expecting US priorities to pivot toward Asia in the coming years to counter threats from China.

Gaza, Iran and the Middle East

Harris has underscored her unwavering support for Israel while calling on Netanyahu to do more to protect civilians in Gaza. She has repeatedly called for a ceasefire and an end to the conflict.

“What’s critically important as we look at this moment, is … acknowledging the tragedy of what has happened in Gaza, in terms of the extraordinary number of innocent Palestinians that have been killed, and taking that seriously and speaking truth about that,” she said in October. 

Frosty relations have characterised the Biden/Harris administration’s relationship with Netanyahu, who Biden has reportedly called a “liar” and a “bad guy”. Harris herself declined to preside over Netanyahu’s address to the US Congress as vice president in July. 

In recent weeks Harris has indicated she would continue the current US hard line on Iran. Asked what country she considers to be the main US adversary, she was unequivocal. “I think there’s an obvious one in mind, which is Iran,” she told 60 Minutes, adding: “Iran has American blood on their hands.”

She went on to call Iran a “destabilising, dangerous force in the Middle East” and said that among her “highest priorities” would be to ensure that Iran never becomes a nuclear power.

But the Biden-Harris administration has stopped short of supporting an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, instead urging proportionality in its response to Iranian missile attacks.

Harris criticised Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal as “reckless”, going on to say that it put US national security at risk. She has said she would be willing to rejoin it as long as Iran offered “verifiable compliance”.

Read moreKamala Harris walks the line with US voters pushing for a policy shift on Gaza

Environment

Harris has emphasised the urgency of addressing climate change, promoting renewable energy and rejoining international agreements like the 2015 Paris Accord. The Biden Harris administration has so far finalised more than 110 environmental regulations, including the Inflation Reduction Act, which “supercharged” the transition to green energy sources with hundreds of billions of dollars in investment. Harris can probably be expected to continue prioritising efforts to tackle climate change, both domestically and in concert with global allies.

Climate advocates have rallied around Harris, citing her two-decade-long record on protecting the environment throughout her career, including as San Francisco district attorney.

Harris has indicated the United States should be a leader on tackling climate change, which she says is leading to more drought, hurricanes and wildfires. “The science is clear,” she has said. “Extreme weather will only get worse, and the climate crisis will only accelerate.’’

Immigration

Harris supports comprehensive immigration reform, including a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and humane treatment of asylum-seekers at the border. But she has also called for tighter rules on asylum-seekers and vowed to make stopping fentanyl from crossing US borders a “top priority” of her administration.

Migrant crossings at the southern border reached record highs in 2021-2023 – part of a post-pandemic spike – but crossings have since declined to their lowest number since August 2020, months before the Biden-Harris administration took office.

Harris has also been a vocal critic of Trump’s policy of separating thousands of children from their families at the border, calling the policy a “human rights abuse”. Earlier this month she invited reunited families to discuss their experiences at an event in Florida.

Healthcare, social security and abortion

Harris has proposed increasing benefits with the Social Security Expansion Act, including raising minimum payouts and changing the cost-of-living calculation. She also plans to continue the Biden administration policy of controlling costs by targeting fraud and negotiating inflated drug prices. 

She has said Trump’s criticisms of the Affordable Care Act are dangerous and risk forcing the country backward, noting that Obamacare ensured people with pre-existing conditions were covered for the first time. More recently she has discussed supporting those who are caregivers to aging relatives via Medicare, including covering the cost of at-home and long-term care services for the first time ever in the United States.

Harris has been vocal about wanting to ensure abortion access for women, particularly when necessary as part of urgent medical treatment that poses a risk to the life of the mother. She has underscored that even women who are pregnant with babies that are very much wanted must sometimes need an abortion for medical reasons, referencing the “extraordinary harm and pain and suffering” that current abortion bans create. Some states now ban the procedure at just a few weeks, before many women know they are pregnant.