The world is watching the U.S. presidential election closely for clues on how a Kamala Harris or Donald Trump presidency will respond to mounting global challenges and security threats — and Canada could find itself in the spotlight in either scenario.
Neither Trump nor Harris have made foreign policy a centrepiece of their campaigns, and polling has shown international affairs are relatively low on voters’ list of concerns compared to the economy and immigration.
Yet the next U.S. president will have to respond to a growing number of crises abroad that have a direct American interest: ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, foreign interference threats posed by Russia, China, Iran, India and other countries, brewing unrest in the Indo-Pacific and climate change among them.
There are open questions, too, about how Harris and Trump will approach longstanding alliances like NATO and NORAD, and whether Canada will be put on notice to step up …