By Nina McCambridge
The Republican presidential primary has been whittled down to a choice between two candidates: former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador Nikki Haley and former president Donald Trump. As the two have never had a debate (at Trump’s refusal), and since Haley’s main campaign message against Trump seems to be that she has a better chance against Biden, it can be somewhat difficult to discern what their policy differences are. Though they have very different political strategy, personal morality, and management style, they do seem to agree more often than not on policy.
Haley was, of course, Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, so the two share much the same foreign policy record. They both seem to be believers in peace through American strength, though Haley seems more attached to the idea of liberal-democratic internationalism than Trump. As UN ambassador under Trump, Haley frequently called out the rest of the United Nations for being unfair to Israel. She said that the U.S. should support Israel because “they have a democracy. They have a justice system. It’s strong.” Trump is also staunchly pro-Israel. Both candidates were proud of the Soleimani strike, and Haley said similar tactics should be used again. On the withdrawal from Afghanistan, Trump said that “the Surrender of American Strength and Deterrence under Crooked Joe has caused massive death, horrific suffering, and untold turmoil around the globe.” (On the other hand, it was under the Trump administration that this peace process began.)
The candidates do differ significantly on one foreign issue: the war in Ukraine. Haley said “I think we need to keep giving them equipment and ammunition. We want our allies to win,” defending the portion of the US budget spent on Ukraine and suggesting that if Russia wasn’t defeated in Ukraine, they would invade the Baltics next. Trump says that it is a mistake to send weapons to Ukraine, and that if elected, he will bring peace. He is not exactly pro-Russia, though some have characterized him that way. For instance, he did in fact sanction the firms that assisted in the construction of Nord Stream 1, a pipeline supplying western Europe with natural gas from Russia.
On economic ideas, the two candidates are quite different. For instance, Trump has been courting union voters and was very upset when United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain endorsed Biden. On the other hand, Haley regretted the UAW strike, saying, “It tells you that when you have the most pro-union president and he touts that he is emboldening the unions, this is what you get. And I’ll tell you, who pays for it is the taxpayers,” pointing out that the pay raises will cause prices to rise on U.S.-manufactured automobiles. Haley says that Trump “put us eight billion [more] dollars in debt in four years.” This was in part due to the loss of revenue caused by Trump’s pro-growth Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. However, Haley consistently voted against taxation during her governorship (though she did raise sales tax, and has been especially critical of the gas tax). If Haley wants to avoid taxes and debt in the Federal government, she will have to successfully make spending cuts to programs that even most Republicans support, such as Social Security and Medicare. Trump was not able to do this successfully: the national debt increased at an essentially constant rate through both the Obama and Trump administrations until COVID. One of the main aspects of Trump’s past and future economic policy is tariffs, which Haley criticizes: “This is a man who now wants to put ten percent tariffs across the board, raising taxes on every single American.” Economists almost universally agree with Haley that tariffs are not a good idea. Trump used tariffs during his term both as a form of industrial policy and as a way to wield international power. Besides their general agreement on tax cuts, economic matters seem to be the main way in which the two candidates differ on policy. While Trump seems to be focused on stabilizing specific old-fashioned industries, Haley is more focused on decreasing prices in an industry-neutral way. In my opinion, Haley’s ideas will be more flexible as technology progresses, and she seems somewhat more likely to deal with the national debt.
Both candidates are very opposed to illegal immigration. Trump congratulated himself on having “just closed the Border” instead of having passed complicated border-related laws, though perhaps Haley is more legalistic on this issue. This did not consistently work, as ICE became overburdened at times. However, Trump did succeed in increasing the number of ICE removals, and in general border security did increase under his reign when compared to the Obama administration. Trump’s famous attempt to restrict refugee admittance by executive order met with legal difficulties and was dropped. Haley defended this executive order and said that it was not a “Muslim ban,” as many had characterized it. Haley says that she “passed the toughest illegal immigration law in the country.” Some of this law was blocked in federal court.
Trump successfully appointed three conservative justices to the Supreme Court (Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett). Of course, Haley would also appoint conservatives to the court, but perhaps she would not do so with as much persistence as Trump. This new court famously overturned Roe v. Wade, but Trump himself does not seem to be very much opposed to abortion and never attempted to make any federal bans of it. Haley, on the other hand, has consistently described herself as pro-life and signed legislation restricting abortions, though for pregnancies of at least 20 weeks.
There are many other important issues on which the two agree and differ, but it would take too long to list them all. In general, Haley tends to take the conventional conservative approach to most issues, whereas Trump can be more of a wild card. Haley’s policies themselves almost certainly aren’t driving many primary voters away. (This is, like most political races, based mostly on aesthetics.) Maybe only Trump can get away with new ideas at the moment, but since Haley’s National Review-type aesthetic apparently doesn’t resonate anymore, maybe she needs to come up with some insane, original ideas herself.
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