As US votes, here’s where Harris and Trump stand on key issues

Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, faces former President Donald Trump, a Republican, in the 2024 US presidential election race that may be decided by a thin sliver of votes in seven battleground states. The two are sharply divided on the role the US government should play in American lives and the world at large and on issues from abortion rights to immigration to trade.

Foreign policy

Harris backs continued US aid to Ukraine as it battles Russia’s invasion. She helped Biden rally allies in Europe to support Ukraine, including organising sanctions on Russian exports and officials, and has met seven times with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. She has called suggestions that Ukraine give up territory to secure peace “proposals for surrender”.

Trump has called for a negotiated peace between Ukraine and Russia, a position that suggests that parts of Ukraine ultimately could end up under Russian control. He has said he would not give more money to Ukraine and opposed aid legislation in Congress. Trump has since suggested Ukraine’s security is an important US interest. He has said he could end the war within 24 hours, although has not said how.

Democracy

Harris has made protecting US democratic norms a central part of her campaign, calling Trump’s threats against the press and the courts dangerous and his embrace of dictators and autocratic leaders naive and un-American.

Trump’s approach differs from US norms. He falsely claims the 2020 election that he lost to Joe Biden was stolen through widespread voting fraud, inspired an attack on the US Capitol by his supporters, cast courts as rigged, has called for “termination” of the Constitution if necessary, and has said he wants to be a dictator for one day.

Race in the US

Harris has said white supremacy fuelled a 2019 mass shooting in El Paso, Texas that killed 23 people. She has accused Trump of trying to divide Americans over race and often mentions his false claims that Barack Obama, the first Black US president, was not born in the United States.

Trump’s campaign rallies often highlight white resentment of a perceived threat from racial minorities and immigrants in the country illegally. Trump has called people in the country illegally who commit violent crimes “animals” and “vermin,” and promoted false claims that Haitian immigrants were stealing pets for food in an Ohio city. Trump has said his economic policies helped racial minority groups in his first administration and will do so again if he is elected.

Immigration

Harris called for an “orderly and humane pathway to earned citizenship for hardworking people” during a Spanish-language town hall-style event that aired on Univision in October. She backs a bipartisan Senate bill that would provide funding for more US border agents, immigration judges and asylum officers.

Trump built or upgraded 450 miles (725 km) of US-Mexico border wall as president, and vows to finish it. He wants to detain all migrants caught entering the country illegally or breaking other immigration laws. He has promised the largest deportation effort in US history and would deploy National Guard troops and, if necessary, the regular military. He wants to end automatic citizenship for children born to immigrants living in the US illegally.

China trade

Harris is expected to keep tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese imports in place after a Biden administration review of those duties, which were first imposed by Trump. Democrats have expanded tariffs in areas that they say were of strategic importance to the United States or threatened by Chinese overproduction, including electric vehicles.

Trump has suggested a 10 per cent minimum tariff on all foreign imports, ending China’s most-favoured-nation trading status and proposes tariffs on Chinese imports in excess of 60%. He also wants to impose retaliatory tariffs on countries that put up their own trade barriers and has suggested tariffs as high as 200 per cent on some foreign car imports, including from China.

Regulation

Harris has been urged by donors to replace President Joe Biden’s Federal Trade Commissioner Lina Khan, who took a much stricter approach to merger oversight than Trump’s administration, but has not suggested she would. Biden’s administration examined more deals to make sure consumers are not hit with higher prices or fewer choices, and sued to stop several big tie-ups.

Trump backed deregulation as president, including ending oil and gas extraction bans, although many of his executive orders seeking to roll back the bans were struck down by courts. One order required any government agency that proposed a new regulation to also repeal two regulations. Trump says he would crack down on federal whistleblowers who are typically shielded by law and would institute an independent body to monitor US intelligence agencies

Climate

Harris is expected to continue the push led by President Joe Biden to transition the US economy away from fossil fuels with tax breaks and other incentives. She often cites a law called the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided billions of dollars in tax credits to help consumers buy electric vehicles and companies produce renewable energy, as the type of policy she would pursue.

Trump has pledged to reverse Biden’s investment in green technology and electric cars, to expand oil, gas and coal development, to scrap electric vehicle mandates and to shrink environmental regulation oversight, according to advisers. Trump would pull the United States out of the landmark international Paris Agreement aimed at combating global warming, again.

Abortion

Harris has pledged to sign legislation into law codifying safe access to abortion after the US Supreme Court in 2022 struck down its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized the procedure nationwide. Because there are not enough votes in the divided Congress to support such legislation, she has said she backs ending a procedural tool that requires a supermajority in the Senate to pass the legislation.

Trump takes credit for appointing three of the conservative justices in the majority in the US Supreme Court’s 6-3 abortion ruling. That decision ended the recognition of a woman’s constitutional right to abortion and allowed individual states to set their own abortion limits.

Education

Harris picked a former public school teacher, Tim Walz, as her vice presidential running mate and has spoken about the need to ban guns, not books in schools, teach full US history and create a pipeline of Black male teachers. The Democratic Party has said more US government investment in early childhood education programs like preschool would lift wages and decrease poverty.

Trump has pledged to shut down the US Department of Education. He significantly cut funding for K-12 public schools as president, while giving billions of dollars in tax credits to his private school voucher plan. Trump is promising to cut funding for public schools that teach race and gender issues he views as too liberal, and to increase funding for charter schools.

Economy and taxes

Harris wants to raise tax rates on American households earning more than $400,000 a year, but extend Trump’s expiring 2017 tax cuts below that threshold when they expire in 2025. She wants to increase the Child Tax Credit to $3,600 per child per year with a $6,000 bonus for newborns, eliminate taxes on tips and offer a $25,000 credit for first-time homebuyers.

Trump wants to preserve all of the 2017 individual tax rates, saying they boosted US growth before the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump has pledged to scrap taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security benefits.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Firstpost staff.)