Former President Donald Trump’s foreign policy agenda, as he laid it out in Thursday’s debate with President Joe Biden, is that the current wars in Ukraine and Gaza simply would not exist if he again becomes president.
It’s a familiar counterfactual from Trump — one impossible to prove and based on little more than Trump’s bravado: Neither Russia nor Hamas would have attacked had he been in the White House, he said onstage.
In the midst of widespread global strife — the United States’ involvement in which has animated both Republicans and Democrats — these hypotheticals and personal attacks dominated Biden and Trump’s back-and-forth on foreign policy.
“He’s going to drive us into World War III,” Trump lobbed at Biden.
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“Iran attacked American troops, killed — caused brain damage for a number of these troops, and he did nothing about it when he was president,” Biden said. “There they attacked. He said they’re just having headaches. That’s all it is. But he didn’t do a thing when the attack took place.”
Biden was on the defensive for much of the debate’s section on foreign policy. On his administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, he attacked Trump for not getting the job done and said his administration “got over 100,000 Americans and others out of Afghanistan during that airlift.”
On Israel, Biden clarified that he only paused a small portion of heavy munitions to Israel and very briefly flicked at the three-part cease-fire plan between Israel and Hamas he has endorsed.
“The only thing I’ve denied Israel was 2,000-pound bombs. They don’t work very well in populated areas. They kill a lot of innocent people,” he said.
On Ukraine, Biden characterized Trump’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin as Trump letting him “do whatever you want.”
Trump’s responses, meanwhile, were vague on specifics.
He called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “the greatest salesman ever.”
“I’m not knocking him,” Trump said. “I’m not knocking anything. I’m only saying the money that we’re spending on this war, and we shouldn’t be spending, it should have never happened.”
Trump said he would “have that war settled between Putin and Zelenskyy as president-elect before I take office on Jan. 28,” but he did not elaborate on how.
He also boasted about beginning the withdrawal of U.S. forces with the Taliban in Afghanistan back in February 2020, the actual task of which fell to Biden when Trump lost the election that same year. Trump’s plan committed to withdrawing forces by May 2021.
“I was getting out of Afghanistan, but I was getting out with dignity, with strength, with power. He got out, it was the most embarrassing day in the history of our country’s life,” Trump said.
On Israel, Trump said he’d have to see the plans for a two-state solution before committing. Biden has previously said that he supports a two-state solution. Trump did, however, call Biden a “bad Palestinian.”
“Israel’s the one that wants to go,” Trump said. “He said the only one who wants to keep going against Hamas. Actually, Israel is the one, and you should let him go and let him finish the job.”
“He doesn’t want to do it,” Trump said of Biden. “He’s become like a Palestinian. But they don’t like him because he’s a very bad Palestinian. He’s a weak one.”
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John T. Seward is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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