The pundit class has worked overtime to assess the significance of the Democrats flipping the U.S. House of Representatives in our midterm elections. But the bulk of the analysis has focused on domestic issues - health care, taxes, the budget. Few have posited what this means for the execution of U.S. foreign policy. And the reason is probably a simple one: that it means very little!
- Constitutional scholars have noted for years that, while our founding government documents divide responsibility for foreign affairs between the legislative and executive branches, modern presidents enjoy extraordinarily wide latitude in pursuing international objectives.
- This latitude is not unchecked, as President Truman discovered to his regret when he ordered the seizure of U.S. steel mills during the Korean War and was quickly slapped down by the Supreme Court.
- Regardless, in the years since President Harry S. Truman, the boundaries of the president’s international authority have continued to expand.
Notwithstanding the evolution of modern executive branch power, Democrats will not be standing still in 2019 in pursuing what they view as key foreign policy goals in opposition to the president. There are at least three areas that will define the partisan political battlefield for foreign affairs over the next 18 months: trade, Saudi Arabia, and arms control.
- Of these, probably only trade has the potential to reflect Democrats' political gains in the mid-terms; and even here, President Trump's coalition of farm states and business interests is likely to give NAFTA’s successor, the "USMCA," legislative approval in 2019.
- But if the president wants to pursue other bilateral trade deals under current Congressional “FastTrack” authority, the challenges are more daunting. The Philippines, for example, has been mentioned as a possible free trade negotiating partner by White House trade officials. With Democrats in control of Ways and Means in 2019, and with many in that party focused on human rights – not a Philippine strong suit at this point – the chances of a U.S.-Philippine deal are best summarized in the Bronx phrase, "Forgetaboudit!"
The remaining issues - Saudi Arabia and arms control - seem fated as well to follow White House desires, despite Democratic mid-term gains.
- On the Saudis, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi clearly has galvanized the bulk of the Democrats to send Riyadh a message. But the focus of Democrats’ animus has been on U.S. funding support for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen. Even if the House next year, under Democratic control, passes a bill eliminating U.S. funding, it will surely fail in the Senate.
- Similarly, Democrats’ ire at Trump for backing the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal and threatening to do the same for the INF Missile Treaty with Russia will prove fruitless. The former deal was an executive agreement, easily curtailed by any president; and the latter, while a Treaty, faces no constitutional barrier to presidential termination, as Bush43 demonstrated in 2003 when he withdrew the U.S. from the ABM Treaty.
Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland, in the 1936 Curtis-Wright Export Corp. case which underwrote the expansive theory of presidential power in foreign affairs, wrote that the “President, not Congress, has the better opportunity of knowing conditions which prevail in foreign countries.” Trump surely agrees, as now does his party. The Sutherland statement is similarly a good predictor of 2019 battle outcomes in foreign policy, despite the mid-terms.
Mark your calendars for Thursday, December 6 at 10:00 AM ET as we span the geopolitical hotspots with General Dan Christman. On the heels of the G-20 Buenos Aires Summit, General Christman will cover the cover the geopolitical challenges moving forward as well as growing uncertainty and conflicts on the horizon - and will outline what he sees as a small group of top risks, and where the U.S. needs to be vigilant on a broader range of secondary issues.
