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Biden and Trump Stay Very Vague on Foreign Policy

Hypotheticals and personal attacks dominated Biden and Trump’s back-and-forth on foreign policy.

President Joe Biden, right, listens as Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks during a presidential debate.
Biden characterized Trump’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin as Trump letting him “do whatever you want.” Gerald Herbert/AP

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.