Democrats head into Congress with foreign policy divisions

Congress may vote on Iran funding as Democrats debate China and Israel

Democrats will hold a majority in both chambers of Congress next year, Rob Schmitz said, as the party looks toward the 2028 presidential race. The NPR interview focused on Thomas Wright’s Foreign Affairs article, “The Fight For The Future Of Democratic Foreign Policy.” Wright is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and served as a senior director for strategic planning at the National Security Council in the Biden administration.

Schmitz said he had been an international correspondent for 16 years and that the last two might have been the busiest. To frame the party’s 2028 choices, he cited the Trump administration’s threat to take Greenland, its entry into Venezuela and removal of Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, a trade war with the world’s biggest economies and the start of a war with Iran. He asked how Democrats would conduct foreign policy in the wake of Trump’s second term.

Common ground. Wright said there was broad agreement that Donald Trump had taken U.S. foreign policy in a destabilizing and dangerous direction. He said Democrats opposed the Iran war, the attempt to take Greenland and the full-scale trade war.

Wright said centrist and progressive Democrats opposed the Iran war that began Feb. 28. He said basically all potential candidates believed the war was the wrong decision, had criticized it from the beginning and wanted to bring it to an end.

Schmitz asked whether Russia’s war with Ukraine could give Democrats more common ground. Wright said Europe had not figured out much of the issue and that Russia and Ukraine had not figured out much in the party’s internal debates over the previous couple of years. Very few, if any, progressives sympathized with Putin or Russia, Wright said. He described broad agreement that Putin was a dangerous and destabilizing influence in world affairs and that the United States could not realistically cooperate with or work with Russia.

Wright expected the new Congress to appropriate more funding for Ukraine and said progressives would likely support it. The Ukraine issue had not yet arisen in the internal debate, he said, which suggested that all sides were generally comfortable with some policy of support for Ukraine.

Internal divisions. Wright said Democrats were headed for a debate between different groups over the affirmative case a future Democratic administration should make. The substantive question, he said, was whether the party should build on what the Biden administration did or move in a more progressive direction. Those debates were very early, Wright said, and likely would unfold over the next 18 months of the primary campaign.

Schmitz described Israel as one consistent sticking point within the Democratic Party and said Benjamin Netanyahu’s tenure as prime minister could end soon. Wright said Israel was likely the most contentious issue. Progressives, he said, had tended to go further and argue for more sustained pressure on Israel. Wright said there had been a shift on both sides, but the debate would continue over how far that change should go.

Schmitz asked whether Democrats would treat China as a threat or as a potential partner. Wright said the Biden administration treated China as a competitor under a strategy of managed competition, while the Trump administration generally stepped back from strategic competition. Some progressives welcomed the Trump administration’s policy, particularly in the administration’s second year, as creating “breathing room” in U.S.-China relations. Wright said Democrats were set up for a big debate over whether to go back to “some version of managed competition.”

Congressional and electoral consequences. Wright said the new Congress will probably hold votes on additional military funding for the Iran war. He said he believed Democrats also recognized there were no good options because the situation was “of Donald Trump’s making.” There was no good deal on the table and no good military options, he said, so any end was likely to be “messy and suboptimal.”

Schmitz said the Iran war and its effect on fuel prices were decisive issues in the midterms. An SSRS poll found that 63% of voters said the war was the wrong decision, he said. He also said it was unknown how or when the conflict would resolve and asked how Democrats might deal with it if it remained an issue in January.

Schmitz said voters turned out mostly for domestic issues. Wright said foreign policy may have featured more in the midterm election than in any midterm election he could think of since just after 9/11. The Iran war and its effect on affordability were major concerns, particularly in red states, while tariffs had a huge impact in Ohio and Kansas.

Schmitz characterized the issues as domestic concerns with foreign causes, and Wright said tariffs were a trade-policy decision while the Iran war was clearly a foreign-policy decision. Both directly affected U.S. voters, Wright said. He said the same direct effects could occur in 2028 if Donald Trump continued waging war in Iran, continued pushing tariffs or made new decisions and took actions with real repercussions. Wright considered continued fighting in Iran quite possible even if Trump wanted to leave because Iran might not facilitate terms acceptable to him.

Wright said the international situation was probably among the most difficult and fraught in many decades. Questions about China, Russia and other powers reflected that environment, he said, and the stakes were high. Voters could face a fundamental choice in both the primary campaign and the general election, Wright said, calling that prospect “right and proper and as it should be.”