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Some of America’s adversaries appeared eager Monday to downplay the foreign policy credentials of Vice President Kamala Harris, now the heavy favorite to be the Democratic Party’s 2024 White House nominee after President Biden left the race a day earlier, painting Ms. Harris as a figure with minimal impact on U.S. relationships and policies abroad during her tenure in the White House.
In the hours after Mr. Biden’s announcement on Sunday, much of the reaction around the world focused on the president himself, his accomplishments, and the relationships with foreign leaders that he spent decades building.
But by Monday morning, the narrative began to shift in at least one key corner of the world. The Kremlin — which on Sunday said little about Mr. Biden’s decision — seemingly went out of its way to cast Ms. Harris as a foreign affairs neophyte with no measurable influence on U.S. policy toward Russia and Europe — and as someone who has never personally interacted with other key foreign leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The comments from Moscow were especially notable because other leading American foes, such as China, North Korea and Iran, have been conspicuously silent about Mr. Biden’s decision to exit the race, or Ms. Harris’ presidential qualifications and prospects. The Kremlin’s take also comes at a crucial geopolitical moment, as the next American president would play a central role in mapping out future U.S. military support for Ukraine or potentially helping to drive a cease-fire deal between Kyiv and Moscow.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters it was difficult to assess Ms. Harris and the effect, if elected, she would have on major foreign policy issues involving the U.S. and Russia.
“At the moment, we can’t assess the potential candidacy of Mrs. Harris from the viewpoint of our bilateral relations, for so far any of her contributions to our relations have not been noticed,” he said, according to the country’s state-run Tass News Agency, though he added that Ms. Harris has made some “unfriendly” comments about Moscow in the past.
Mr. Peskov went on to say that Ms. Harris has never spoken to Mr. Putin.
“I cannot recall anything like that right now. When Putin met with Biden, Mrs. Harris was not in Geneva,” he said, referring to the 2021 meeting between Mr. Biden and Mr. Putin, which came less than a year before Mr. Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“Frankly speaking, I cannot recall a single contact between President Putin and Mrs. Harris,” Mr. Peskov said.
The Kremlin has seemed deliberate in its public messaging so far in the 2024 presidential race.
Just days after a would-be assassin targeted Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, top Russian officials suggested that a deep-rooted conspiracy was at work in the U.S. to keep Mr. Trump out of the White House. Painting Ms. Harris as unqualified from a foreign policy perspective may be the latest move by Moscow to undercut Americans’ faith in its candidates and its electoral system.
The Kremlin’s comments aside, foreign policy specialists say that the global affairs bona fides of Ms. Harris, who served as California’s attorney general and then in the U.S. Senate before becoming vice president in January 2021, will be under the microscope at home and abroad.
“The media will be parsing everything that Harris says looking for daylight between her and Biden,” James M. Lindsay, senior vice president at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in an analysis Monday, adding that the central question will be whether Ms. Harris breaks from Mr. Biden’s foreign policy in any meaningful way.
“Continuity rather than change is the most likely answer, if only because breaking with the president now will create problems for her campaign,” he wrote. “She wants to focus on her differences with Trump, not with Biden.”
Ms. Harris may have at least a small opportunity to begin charting her own course this week. She’s scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to Washington this week. Foreign policy specialists say that a potential Harris administration could take an even tougher line against Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the humanitarian suffering of Palestinians that many left-wing critics blame on Israel.
In other foreign capitals, there’s been little discussion of Ms. Harris. The reaction in Beijing, for example, was far different than that in Moscow.
“The presidential elections are the United States’ own affairs. We have no comment on that,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters Monday.
In South Korea, officials expressed confidence in the future of the Washington-Seoul alliance but otherwise stayed out of U.S. politics.
“Support for the Korea-U.S. alliance within the U.S. is bipartisan, and our government will continue to work closely with the U.S. to further develop the global comprehensive strategic alliance,” a senior presidential official said, according to the country’s Yonhap News Agency.
French President Emmanuel Macron told Axios that the U.S. was “lucky” to have had Mr. Biden as its president.
“I do have respect for Biden, for what he did,” Mr. Macron said of Mr. Biden’s decision to leave the race. “I imagine how … difficult it was for him and his family.”
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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