Kamala Harris’s alternative of Tim Walz as operating mate has been met with acclaim from US Democrats throughout the occasion spectrum.
The little-known governor of Minnesota has robust blue-collar enchantment, from his small-town origins within the state of Nebraska, via careers in instructing, soccer teaching and the US Nationwide Guard, all the best way to the second slot on the election ticket.
Plain-speaking “Coach Walz” – as Harris referred to him at a joint marketing campaign occasion in Philadelphia on Monday – has nailed the occasion’s simplest assault line but, his description of Republican candidate Donald Trump and operating mate JD Vance as “bizarre” echoing via a number of information cycles.
On the home entrance, Walz’s trajectory over the previous 18 years has seen the previous member of the US Congress transfer from supporting gun rights, a historically right-wing place he repudiated after a 2018 taking pictures in Florida, to adopting a few of the nation’s most progressive insurance policies as state governor.
Final yr, he handed a raft of legal guidelines dubbed the “Minnesota Miracle”, increasing employees’ rights and ladies’s reproductive rights, strengthening LGBTQ protections, prioritising clear power, and introducing free meals for all state college youngsters.
Such insurance policies have made Walz a darling of the Democratic left, his nomination as VP attracting excessive reward from the likes of Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
However as former US Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi mentioned, it is likely to be extra correct to explain him as “proper down the center”, a “heartland of America Democrat”.
If Walz could possibly be described as a mainstream Democrat with broad enchantment, what sorts of positions is he more likely to undertake on overseas coverage? His resume, whereas skinny, contains opposition to former President George W Bush’s 2007 troop surge in Iraq, backing for navy funding to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and assist for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
The VP choose issues. In spite of everything, in instances of disaster, Walz might find yourself doing the highest job himself. So the place does he stand on the chunkiest overseas coverage problems with the day, particularly Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine and China?
Israel-Palestine
Earlier than Walz’s observe report, it’s value noting that Vice President Harris’s hitherto obedient stance on the continued battle might shift if she turns into president.
A ballot earlier this yr by the Pew Analysis Heart indicated that just about half of American adults beneath 30 opposed offering navy support to Israel.
Hinting that her future stance might show to be extra in tune with the general public temper, Harris herself vowed “not to be silent” about struggling in Gaza after assembly Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington final month.
Certainly, pundits counsel Harris could have taken a aware resolution to choose Walz over earlier scorching favorite Josh Shapiro, judging that the previous is extra more likely to comply with her lead in taking a extra clear-sighted strategy to the Israel-Hamas battle.
Shapiro, a extra strident backer of Israel’s no-limits drive to remove Hamas, was criticised by the left flank of the Democrats for backing a harsh crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses, evaluating some to the Ku Klux Klan.
Walz has taken a extra conciliatory strategy to opponents of the conflict, praising the 19 percent of Minnesota Democrats who forged uncommitted ballots on Tremendous Tuesday as “civically engaged”.
In March, he instructed Minnesota Public Radio, “You may maintain competing issues: That Israel has the correct to defend itself, and the atrocities of October 7 are unacceptable, however Palestinian civilians being caught on this … has obtained to finish.”
Republicans had been fast to weaponise Harris’s alternative of Walz over Shapiro, JD Vance implying that it was on the grounds of Shapiro’s Jewish religion. “It is a one who listened to the Hamas wing of her personal occasion in deciding on a nominee,” he mentioned.
In actuality, although, Walz has by no means diverged from the occasion line of unconditionally supporting Israel, a place illustrated by his feedback earlier this yr at an occasion held by the Jewish Neighborhood Relations Council.
“The power of Jewish folks to self-determine themselves is foundational … The failure to recognise the state of Israel is taking away that self-determination. So it’s anti-Semitic,” he mentioned.
Whereas sitting in Congress from 2007-2019, Walz voted to sentence a United Nations decision that Israeli settlements within the West Financial institution had been unlawful.
Walz has not spoken publicly on calls to divest from Israeli corporations.
Russia-Ukraine
Walz was this week described as an outspoken Ukraine supporter by The Kyiv Impartial.
The previous navy man has been completely engaged within the battle from the get-go, condemning Russia’s “unprovoked and illegal assaults” the day after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The next yr, he met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on a digital link-up organised by the Nationwide Governors Affiliation. “It was an honour to listen to from President Zelenskyy firsthand and provide him our unwavering assist,” he mentioned afterwards.
In February this yr, Walz inked an agricultural deal between Minnesota and the north Ukrainian area of Chernihiv with Kyiv’s ambassador to the US. “It’s a very vital displaying of friendship and an actual vital displaying of ties,” he mentioned.
He has additionally supported state laws ending investments in Russia and barring corporations from doing enterprise with Russian and Belorussian companies.
Minnesota is dwelling to weapons producers supplying arms to Ukraine.
With Walz as US vp, Ukraine can anticipate the identical degree of unwavering assist as that offered by the administration of present US President Joe Biden.
China
The main shock of Walz’s nomination was the belated discovery of his previous life in China. Not like most US leaders, he’s more likely to have uncommon insights into a rustic some predict might at some point overtake the US because the world’s superpower.
However with China rising as a significant coverage subject, his previous involvement with the nation shall be carefully scrutinised, significantly given Trump’s current declare that Harris will “bow all the way down to China on the expense of America”.
“Communist China may be very proud of @GovTimWalz as Kamala’s VP choose,” mentioned Richard Grenell, a former performing director of Nationwide Intelligence within the earlier Trump administration on X.
Nonetheless, Walz’s friendship with China just isn’t unconditional.
He was recent out of instructor coaching at Nebraska’s Chadron State Faculty when he moved to China in 1989, instructing for a yr at a highschool within the province of Guangdong via Harvard College’s WorldTeach programme.
That yr, he personally witnessed the federal government’s brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Sq. on June 4, which rights teams consider killed hundreds.
“It felt like freedom was sweeping the world, and it was simply such an optimistic feeling,” he mentioned in undated footage at the moment circulating on-line. He determined to stay in Beijing, feeling it was vital to bear witness and stand with the Chinese language folks.
In China, social media customers questioned the timing of Walz’s go to to their nation, suggesting he had ulterior motives. “Is he from the CIA?” one consumer commented on the platform Weibo.
In workplace, Walz seems to have struck a practical stability, selling ties with a rustic he evidently loves whereas refusing to compromise on human rights points.
Throughout his time in Congress, he served on the Congressional-Govt Fee on China, co-sponsoring a number of payments aimed toward addressing rights abuses dedicated by the Chinese language authorities and co-signing the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act in 2017.
In 2018, he met Tibet’s religious chief, the Dalai Lama. “The US was based on the concepts of common freedom, and I consider that we should proceed to induce the Chinese language authorities to supply much less regulated spiritual freedom to the Tibetans,” he mentioned, in earlier remarks.
As governor, he has favoured commerce ties with China, calling on former President Donald Trump to finish his commerce conflict with the main financial system.
Nonetheless, he believes that Washington mustn’t waver in its opposition to Chinese language expansionism within the South China Sea, citing Beijing’s constructing of synthetic islands as a purpose to not cut back US navy spending.
With “Coach Walz” as VP, the US might probably enter a brand new period of extra balanced relations with its main geopolitical rival.