Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said substantial bipartisan agreement on some issues, including a desire to take a hawkish stance on China, would blunt the impact on Biden of Republicans’ ascendancy in the elections. He said last week’s polls — which largely defied fears of electoral violence or the immediate rejections of results — would help allay American allies troubled by recent tumult in U.S. politics.
“The good news,” Haass said, “ … is that it shows that, at least to a degree, American democracy is not on life support. That’s a reassuring message to our friends.”
Speaking last week about Democrats’ stronger-than-expected showing at the polls, Biden said he hoped to collaborate with Republicans on foreign affairs, promising to invite congressional leaders from both parties to the White House following his trip to Asia and the Middle East to discuss how they can jointly advance U.S. security and prosperity. “I’m open to any good ideas,” he said.
The midterms’ effect on Biden’s foreign policy agenda takes on greater importance as he prepares for a reelection bid in 2024, when his international record will probably contribute to voters’ decisions.
But perhaps the most immediate concern for Biden and his advisers is the potential for a Republican-controlled House to impose new obstacles on his desire to continue the extensive military and economic support his administration has provided to Ukraine. Security aid to Ukraine has topped $18 billion since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, the largest such annual sum since the end of the Cold War, and with Ukrainian forces claiming victory in the strategic city of Kherson, there are few signs the war will conclude anytime soon.
While support for Ukraine remains strong among many senior congressional Republicans, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), who is vying to become House speaker when Republicans take over in January, has signaled the House GOP could end or limit spending on the war.
A Nov. 3 poll published by the Wall Street Journal showed that 48 percent of Republicans said the United States was doing “too much” for Ukraine, a sharp increase from 6 percent in March. Even before the election, the potential for a fracturing of U.S. support was generating concern in Kyiv.
Some Republicans’ skepticism of the war was evident after the explosion Tuesday near Poland’s border with Ukraine, a murky incident that U.S. and Polish officials said appears to have involved an errant Ukrainian air defense missile. A day after the incident, as Ukrainian leaders continued to insist that Russia was to blame for the attack, Republicans including Donald Trump Jr. and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) said the incident was further proof of the need to stop arming Ukraine.
“We must stop letting Zelensky demand money & weapons from U.S. taxpayers while he is trying to drag us into WW3,” Greene said on Twitter, referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The missile attack killing two innocent people in Poland was likely from Ukrainian Air Defense.
We must stop letting Zelensky demand money & weapons from US taxpayers while he is trying to drag us into WW3.
No more money to Ukraine.
It’s time to end this war and demand peace. https://t.co/2TamLW5cDp— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) November 16, 2022
While many Republicans have privately expressed skepticism that McCarthy and a Republican-led House would cut off aid all together, one senior GOP aide said funding for Ukraine could become a sort of litmus test as far-right factions of the party assert their policy priorities. Republicans taking control of influential committees, such as Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), who is poised to preside over the House Foreign Affairs Committee, are likely to face the delicate task of having to accommodate isolationists and hawks within their party.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan has said the White House’s analysis of lawmaker positions suggested that strong congressional support for Ukraine would endure. “I think you will not see these kinds of doomsday scenarios, that the purse strings will be pulled shut and it’s over. I just simply reject that scenario,” he said this month. “Yes, there may be an increasing number of voices that raise questions, but it will still be a very distinct minority.”
Brian Katulis, vice president of policy at the Middle East Institute, said competing pressures from both parties’ edges — liberal Democrats and Republicans allied with former president Donald Trump — would make it easier for Biden to resist dramatic course corrections. Differences within the Democratic Party on Ukraine were visible last month when lawmakers issued and then quickly withdrew a letter urging Biden to negotiate directly with Russia to end the Ukraine war.
“Voices will call out from the margins to do things like cut support for Ukraine or withdraw from the Middle East,” Katulis said. “But those voices lack public support for what they advocate, and the election results will likely reinforce a trend toward a more moderate path for U.S. national security in 2023 to 2024.”
Another challenge Biden must navigate with a Republican-controlled House is the likelihood of contentious congressional investigations related to his handling of international affairs, which could distract from the administration’s priorities. Those include potential inquiries into Biden’s son, Hunter, and his overseas business dealings, including with a Chinese energy firm; the administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic; and its immigration policy.
Although White House officials may view such investigations as partisan exercises, they will have to comply with at least some of investigators’ document and email requests, which could drain significant time and resources.
Whether an expected probe into Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, widely seen as a foreign policy failing, will rival the fiery divisiveness of the Republican-led probe into the 2012 death of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, remains to be seen. Those hearings, including a House committee’s marathon questioning of then-presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, helped propel to national prominence Trump’s eventual secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, then a little-known U.S. representative from Kansas.
While analysts say Biden’s handling of the Ukraine conflict has been more successful, public hearings that revive the grim facts surrounding his ordered departure from Afghanistan — the collapse of the U.S.-backed government to hard-line Taliban militants, the reversal of key gains by women and girls, and complaints by NATO allies who said they weren’t properly consulted — could be politically damaging. Already, Republican members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee issued a report concluding that the administration failed to properly plan for the withdrawal.
Such an investigation has the potential to cast an unfavorable light on Secretary of State Antony Blinken, whose agency had a key role in granting visas to Afghans who had worked with the U.S. government so they could relocate to the United States. Thousands of Afghans eligible for those visas remain stuck in Afghanistan or other locations, unable to emigrate more than a year after the U.S. departure.
Experts said they expect few major changes to the Biden administration’s approach to China, whose global rise has been cast by both parties as America’s biggest foreign policy challenge. While some Republicans have described Biden as soft on China and called for a tougher trade policy, the Biden administration already is moving to reduce China’s access to advanced computer chips while attempting to reorient the U.S. military toward Asia.
Despite the mounting tension, Biden pledged to find areas of bilateral cooperation, on issues such as climate change and food security, following a lengthy meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Indonesia this week.
Biden suggested after their meeting that no Chinese attack on Taiwan was imminent, but it was unclear whether the discussion on the sidelines of an economic summit will diminish the acrimony related to the island, including Beijing’s threats to use force to bring it under Chinese control and a visit to Taipei this fall by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
The White House also will need to decide if and how it will alter the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, which reached its lowest level in decades after the kingdom, along with other major oil producers, announced it would cut oil production a month ahead of the midterms, prompting Biden to angrily warn of “consequences.” Officials said…
