Last month the US Congress agreed an $95 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, and Taiwan. Jordan Tama looks at what the agreement – which had been stalled in Congress for months – tells us about the current state bipartisanship on foreign policy. He writes that while foreign policy bipartisanship has remained alive even during our increasingly polarized era, divisions within the Republican and Democratic parties over specific foreign policy issues, and the US’ role in the world, mean that there is no longer an overarching consensus. Future bipartisan cooperation will depend on the issue at stake and will no longer necessarily involve a deepening of US global ties.
After months of political wrangling, on April 21st the US Congress finally approved a $95 billion package of foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, and Taiwan. This legislation’s potential importance, in helping Ukraine hold off Russia’s ongoing military offensive and bolstering the flagging confidence of other partners in America’s reliability, is difficult to overstate.
Passage of the legislation was made possible by a remarkable degree of bipartisan cooperation in Washington. In the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, worked together closely to advance the legislation, plotting strategy on the issue every other day, according to Schumer. In the House, Republican Speaker Mike Johnson, locked arms with the Biden administration and Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to find a path forward for the legislation through a political minefield laid by the far-right opponents of aiding Ukraine. Most rank-and-file Democrats and Republicans also ultimately came together to back the legislation, enabling it to pass with the support of large bipartisan majorities.
Is foreign policy bipartisanship back?
At a time when American politics otherwise seem hopelessly polarized, this degree of bipartisan cooperation on a major issue is striking. The episode also raises the question of whether it portends a renewal of bipartisan support for internationalism, which has declined since the end of the Cold War.
My research points to a nuanced perspective and a mixed prognosis for the future. In my new book, Bipartisanship and US Foreign Policy, I show that US polarization has increased on international issues in recent decades, but not to the point that bipartisan cooperation has become rare. During the 1990s, most Democrats and Republicans voted together on important foreign policy issues 67 percent of the time. During the 2010s, they did so only 53 percent of the time. While that’s a substantial (and troubling) drop, 53 percent is still a long way from zero. In other words, foreign policy bipartisanship has remained alive even during our increasingly polarized era.
Yet bipartisan cooperation on foreign policy today is usually not synonymous with unity, as it typically exists alongside intraparty division. In recent years, at least 10 percent of members of Congress in one or both parties have voted against their party’s prevailing position in about two-thirds of important congressional foreign policy votes. Such intra-party division has marked the recent congressional debates over aid to Ukraine and Israel, with the Republican Party divided over supporting Ukraine and the Democratic Party split over supporting Israel. The result is a variegated political landscape, with different alignments and coalitions on different issues. This landscape makes it more difficult for the United States to speak with one voice and sustain foreign policy commitments.
Foreign policy bipartisanship hasn’t returned, but there may be more opportunities for it
In this context, does congressional approval of the foreign aid package signal the return of broader US agreement over foreign policy? The short answer is no. But opportunities for bipartisanship on specific issues will continue to emerge.
“2022.02.26 Stand with Ukraine, The White” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by tedeytan
While Mike Johnson’s conversion to internationalism during his tenure as House Speaker since October 2023 shows that the Reaganite foreign policy tradition still resonates with many Republicans, the America First vision of Donald Trump will remain the prevailing perspective of the GOP so long as Trump is the party’s standard bearer. Trump calculated that it was in his political interest to allow Johnson to advance the Ukraine aid bill, but he remains much more of a nationalist than an internationalist. Consider his continued denigration of US alliances, as evidenced by his comment in February that he would not protect NATO allies from a Russian attack if they spent less than two percent of their GDP on the military. Beyond Trump, American voters and leaders are sharply divided on an array of important global issues, from climate change to immigration, making it very unlikely that a broad internationalist consensus can be formed.
Yet the absence of overarching consensus does not preclude areas of bipartisan cooperation in foreign policy. On some issues, the conditions for such cooperation are improving. For instance, Democrats and Republicans increasingly share hawkish attitudes toward China, which has enabled the enactment of an array of bipartisan laws, on issues including Taiwan’s security, human rights violations in Xinjiang, and the banning of TikTok. Similarly, there exists growing bipartisan support for industrial reshoring, such as funding the domestic manufacturing of semiconductors, as a means of insulating the United States from supply-chain vulnerabilities. Notably, though, these areas of growing agreement are not all in line with internationalism. In that sense, future instances of bipartisan cooperation on foreign policy will not necessarily involve a deepening of America’s global ties.
In short, for supporters of bipartisanship and internationalism, the glass is both half empty and half full. In the empty side of the glass, one finds an absence of consensus and continued momentum for a variety of inward-looking stances. In the full side, one finds areas of cross-party cooperation and key leaders in the White House and Congress who believe in a strong US role in the world. Looking ahead, the relative balance between the empty and full sides of the glass will fluctuate, but neither side is likely to disappear.
Listen to a recent podcast interview with Jordan Tama for the Phelan US Centre’s podcast, The Ballpark
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