The midterm elections mark the official beginning of the Democratic Party’s 2028 presidential campaign. Following two years of intensive internal debate over the lessons learned from Kamala Harris’s defeat in the 2024 election, the upcoming primary cycle promises to be one of the most open and consequential contests regarding the future of Democratic policies—particularly foreign policy—in generations. With the strategic environment in 2029 projected to be the most difficult and unforgiving since the height of the Cold War, the choices made by the party today will reverberate globally for decades.
Democrats must lay out their foreign policy ideas early and test how they fare both with the American electorate and against the rapidly shifting trajectory of world events. Broadly speaking, the party remains split into two main ideological camps. Centrists are primarily focused on strategic competition, restoring national power, and deepening traditional alliances. Progressives, on the other hand, propose a more affirmative agenda emphasizing shared global challenges, equity, and international cooperation. While this divide is familiar to political observers, the ongoing efforts of the second Trump administration to systematically dismantle the post-World War II global order mean that the debates occurring within each camp are now at least as critical as the disagreements between them.
If the party’s major foreign policy disagreements—touching on the future of the international order, relations with Israel, artificial intelligence, policy toward China, and the global economy—are not litigated now by prospective candidates, former officials, and prominent thinkers, the results could be disastrous. Should voters be denied the chance to make an informed choice between coherent options, the first year of a future Democratic administration could easily be consumed by crippling indecision and internal infighting. Democrats must therefore understand where they stand on each of these questions, where centrists and progressives converge, and where the sharpest ideological divisions now lie.
After Biden
The three Democratic presidents since the end of the Cold War have all anchored their foreign policies in some version of a U.S.-led international order. However, former President Joe Biden—despite his administration’s emblematic “America Is Back” catchphrase, which gestured toward a restoration of the old order after Donald Trump’s first term—did not govern as a restorationist. For the Biden administration, intensifying strategic competition with China and Russia, alongside shared global crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, signaled an external unraveling of the previous era that necessitated profound changes in U.S. strategy. Biden shifted economic policy away from free trade and globalization toward industrial policy, economic resilience, and technological leadership, while pushing back more assertively against Beijing and Moscow than his Democratic predecessors had.
As they reflect on the legacy of the Biden administration, centrists are actively debating whether a future Democratic administration can realistically restore and reform the U.S.-led international order, or if the United States must instead adapt to a prolonged period of severe geopolitical upheaval. For now, differences among centrists are more pronounced in how they diagnose the current crisis than in their actual policy prescriptions. Nearly all favor deepening alliances, modernizing the military, fixing the defense industrial base, strengthening deterrence, tackling transnational challenges like global public health, and pursuing hardheaded diplomacy with rivals.
Centrists generally agree that the Trump administration has severely weakened U.S. power and institutional stability, though they retain relatively high optimism regarding the country’s inherent capacity for recovery. Most recognize, however, that the world the next Democratic president will inherit in 2029 is fundamentally different from the one Biden inherited in 2021. Winning an election will not signal the end of Trumpism. The “America First” movement is likely to remain a dominant force within the Republican Party, forcing U.S. allies and partners to continuously hedge against dramatic, pendulum-like shifts in American foreign policy from one election cycle to the next. Even if a future Democratic president successfully rebuilds American power and repairs damaged domestic institutions, restoring international confidence in the long-term durability of U.S. commitments will prove remarkably difficult.
Conversely, the party’s progressive wing argues that the broader U.S. foreign policy establishment failed profoundly over the past 25 years by obsessively pursuing military and geopolitical primacy at all costs. Progressives view the U.S.-led order as deeply flawed in both its structural design and historical track record, asserting that Washington’s selective application of a supposed “rules-based order” ultimately undermined the order itself. As Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York aptly summarized at the Munich Security Conference in 2026, “In a rules-based order, hypocrisy is vulnerability.” Progressives favor a genuinely rules-based system that applies its foundational principles consistently, even when doing so places constraints on the United States.
Led by figures such as independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, many progressives argue that a rising global oligarchy poses an existential threat to democracy, viewing big business in the defense, technology, and finance sectors as part of a fundamentally corrupt system. They contend that corporate interests have historically driven excessive military spending, misguided foreign interventions, and an inequitable global economy that systematically favors multinational corporations over ordinary workers.
Progressives view the turmoil of recent years as an acceleration toward a multipolar order in which the United States must accept a significant yet more limited role. According to progressive thinker Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, Washington should learn to “re-engage the world as something other than a hegemon.” While Americans are historically accustomed to viewing their country as an overall force for good—even when deploying military power—progressives point to unconditional U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza, alongside aggressive U.S. actions regarding Iran and Venezuela, as stark evidence of the immense damage caused by traditional interventionism. Many argue that the United States should resort to war strictly in self-defense and only with formal congressional authorization, as required by the Constitution. They also advocate for substantial cuts to what they characterize as a bloated defense budget that encourages presidents to default to military force rather than pursuing sustained diplomacy.
Furthermore, most progressives maintain that the greatest threats to American security and prosperity are increasingly transnational rather than traditional geopolitical threats: runaway artificial intelligence, catastrophic climate change, and widening economic inequality, as enumerated by Sanders earlier this year. They argue that the threat from China is frequently overblown and that effective deterrence can be achieved using existing capabilities without ratcheting up regional tensions. Consequently, most progressives prioritize cooperation with global powers, especially Beijing, to address existential challenges over engaging in zero-sum strategic competition.
A distinct group of thinkers, generally aligned with the broader progressive camp, identifies with the "restraint" school of foreign policy. While they often agree with centrists on the centrality of geopolitics, they advocate for significantly reducing the United States’ exposure to it. They argue that Washington’s relentless pursuit of military primacy has dangerously overstretched the nation, unnecessarily entangling it in foreign conflicts and crises. They favor a more selective foreign policy focused strictly on a smaller number of vital national interests, reduced overseas commitments, and an emphasis on diplomacy—even when foreign outcomes clash with American values.
Despite these competing worldviews, substantial common ground remains between centrists and progressives. Both camps steadfastly support NATO, the European Union, and Washington’s critical alliances in the Indo-Pacific region. Both are committed to standing up to Russian President Vladimir Putin and supporting Ukraine, both formally oppose a war with Iran, and both want to root out systemic corruption. Nonetheless, complex new debates—both between and within the various factions of the Democratic Party—are steadily emerging alongside the historical fault lines.
Shock of the New
One of the most consequential policy debates unfolding within the party centers on the future of the U.S. relationship with Israel and Washington’s broader role in the Middle East. This is widely expected to be the most pronounced break from the legacy of the Biden administration. Many Democrats now openly blame Biden for failing to do enough to restrain Israel during the Gaza war, and several former senior Biden administration officials have acknowledged in retrospect that they should have exerted significantly more pressure.
Numerous centrists identify Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the primary driver behind a series of actions that have directly harmed U.S. interests, including advocating for all-out regional war with Iran, deploying excessive military force in Gaza, and systematically undermining the Palestinian Authority. Consequently, these centrists recommend substantial adjustments to U.S. policy. They believe Netanyahu’s eventual departure could create a viable opening for a broader regional settlement, though Washington would still need to exert firm pressure on Israel to make tangible progress toward Palestinian statehood. Potential presidential candidate Rahm Emanuel has proposed a comprehensive regional initiative wherein the United States would support a sovereign Palestinian state in exchange for full diplomatic recognition of Israel by Arab nations and closer strategic and economic integration across the region. Such an initiative would feature forceful U.S. opposition to effective Israeli annexation of the West Bank, backed directly by targeted sanctions on violent settlers and the entities financing illegal settlements. Emanuel has also suggested ending specialized U.S. defense subsidies for Israel, requiring the nation to purchase American weapons on the same terms as other allied nations.
Other centrists go even further. Jon Finer, former principal deputy national security adviser to Biden, has argued for sustained, unyielding pressure on Israel regardless of whether Netanyahu is replaced. Finer wrote recently in The New York Times that the United States must force Israel to choose “between the abundant and irreplaceable benefits of the U.S. relationship and the indefensible policies that are driving a wedge between our societies.” This approach would include legally treating the occupied territories as distinct from Israel proper, imposing harsh sanctions on individuals and entities involved in settlement expansion, and conditioning future U.S. arms sales on strict Israeli compliance with international humanitarian law.
While few elected Democrats still advocate for unconditional support, a faction that emphasizes the strategic value of the U.S.-Israeli alliance and favors a lower level of diplomatic pressure is expected to remain a force by 2028. These centrists might support sanctioning violent settlers—much like the Biden administration did—but would likely hesitate to target the domestic Israeli financial institutions that fund the construction of new settlements. If a new Israeli prime minister successfully forms a coalition, this group would likely grant them the benefit of the doubt. However, should Netanyahu remain entrenched in power throughout the U.S. primary campaign, their moderate position will become increasingly difficult to sustain.
Although many centrists aim to reduce the overarching U.S. military footprint in the Middle East, they firmly reject the notion of abruptly walking away from the region. As Philip Gordon, former national security adviser to Vice President Harris, argued in Foreign Affairs, the United States should “defend a narrower set of core interests with a smaller military footprint, more diplomacy, more alternatives, and more partners.” Centrists remain divided over the precise mechanics of this approach; some remain open to a formal defense treaty with Saudi Arabia if it serves as a stepping stone toward Palestinian statehood, while others fiercely oppose taking on new mutual defense commitments. A small faction of centrist dissenters—primarily those fixated on the strategic challenge posed by China—view the Middle East as a strategic quagmire that drains resources from Asia and are consequently far more willing to countenance a dramatic reduction of U.S. forces.
Progressives have largely welcomed the shifting rhetoric from centrists regarding Israel, though many remain profoundly skeptical that centrists would actually follow through on their rhetoric once in government. They view Finer’s proposals for sustained pressure and increased diplomatic engagement with Palestinians as a strong starting point, but many push for much more radical changes. Intraprogressive debates center on whether to support Israel’s access to defensive military technology—such as the Iron Dome missile defense system—and whether a Palestinian state should be recognized on day one of a new Democratic administration or maintained merely as an ultimate goal of a lengthy diplomatic process. Other progressives favor even more fundamental revisions. Commentator Peter Beinart, for instance, has argued that the traditional two-state solution is no longer viable, suggesting instead that progressives should back a single democratic state guaranteeing equal rights for both Palestinians and Jewish Israelis. Some progressive voices go so far as to question whether Israel can be considered an ally at all, arguing the nation offers little strategic value to the United States.
More broadly, progressives increasingly advocate for a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Middle East and a definitive distancing from Gulf Arab monarchies. As Michael Fuchs, a former deputy chief of staff to Harris, wrote in Foreign Affairs, it is “long past time for the United States to withdraw its forces from the Middle East, stop arming governments that violate U.S. and international law, and end its role as guarantor of regional order.”
While Israel remains a deeply contentious source of division, it is far from the only new fault line. Artificial intelligence has rapidly emerged as another major policy battleground, though the political battle lines do not break down along traditional partisan or ideological divisions. One influential group of centrists, which includes numerous former Biden administration officials, views AI as a world-transforming technology that carries risks as profound as its benefits. They believe the United States must win the global technological race against China—frequently citing the cyber capabilities of advanced models as a prime example—while simultaneously slowing down domestic AI development to ensure rigorous safety standards and manage severe economic disruptions, particularly concerning employment. To achieve this, they advocate for tightening U.S. export controls against China to carve out breathing room necessary to “pace the frontier” and properly regulate leading AI laboratories. They also want to forge a common allied consensus on AI governance—including the distribution of critical AI infrastructure to close allies like Australia and Canada—while opening direct diplomatic dialogues with Beijing to manage existential safety risks.
Significant internal disagreements persist regarding how to execute this technological competition, tensions that are bound to resurface during the 2028 campaign. Biden’s Treasury Department previously questioned whether export controls could realistically prevent China from catching up, arguing that maintaining Chinese commercial dependence on American technology would better preserve U.S. leverage and discourage Beijing from developing domestic alternatives. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo shared this pragmatic skepticism, telling The Wall Street Journal in late 2024 that “trying to hold China back is a fool’s errand,” and emphasizing that heavy domestic investment in American industrial capacity mattered far more than export restrictions. Other centrist figures, such as former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, have argued that Washington and Beijing should negotiate a direct international agreement to freeze advanced AI models at their current levels.
Progressives, meanwhile, remain largely unconvinced that the United States can—or even needs to—win a zero-sum frontier race against China. A minority of progressives remain genuinely skeptical of the technology itself, dismissing the catastrophic claims made by frontier AI labs as overblown marketing hype and arguing that the industry can be adequately managed through existing legal frameworks. Other progressives, however, take an aggressive stance, arguing that the United States should halt frontier AI development, impose strict moratoriums on new massive data centers, confront powerful technology corporations directly, and negotiate a grand strategic bargain with China resembling a comprehensive Cold War-style arms control agreement. Senator Sanders and Representative Ro Khanna of California have both publicly called for binding agreements with Beijing to restrain the development of potentially dangerous AI systems, explicitly drawing parallels to historical nuclear arms limitation treaties. While progressive members of Congress have generally voted in favor of existing export controls targeting China, it remains uncertain whether they would support renewing or strengthening them if Beijing responded with severe retaliatory escalation early in a new administration.
AI safety is quickly shaping up to be one of the most consequential issues in the upcoming primary, capable of forging entirely novel political coalitions that cut right across the traditional centrist-progressive divide. Given the blistering pace of technological development and the escalating probability of future AI-driven cyber incidents, this issue will remain remarkably fluid leading up to 2028.
Old Grudges
Several long-standing debates between and within Democratic factions—including some of the most critical challenges the next president will face—remain entirely unresolved. Chief among these is the enduring question of China.
Most centrists view China as the single most significant strategic and economic challenge facing the United States, expressing deep concern over Beijing’s technological and manufacturing dominance in critical sectors. They worry acutely about the potential for a catastrophic war over Taiwan, but maintain that such a conflict can be successfully averted if Washington restores its national power, deepens regional alliances, strengthens Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities, selectively pushes back against Chinese aggression, and injects stability into the bilateral relationship via high-level diplomacy—an approach the Biden administration termed “managed competition.” Centrists are actively debating how to expand these Biden-era efforts, particularly regarding allied coalitions and export controls, and how aggressively to push competitive measures without inadvertently triggering an uncontrolled spiral into direct confrontation. Although most centrists favor a variation of managed competition, some figures associated with the camp, such as Ryan Hass of the Obama National Security Council, have cautioned that attempting to simply restore or make minor updates to the pre-Trump status quo—or pushing even further in an effort to project ostensible strength—would be fundamentally misguided.
Conversely, progressives view the centrists’ strategic competition framework as excessively hawkish and dangerously self-fulfilling. They argue that Washington and Beijing share a vital interest in tackling transnational challenges, particularly AI safety and climate change, and that genuine détente remains an achievable goal. Some progressive academics, such as Jessica Chen Weiss of Johns Hopkins University, who served in the State Department’s Policy Planning staff under Biden, argue that Washington should pursue this goal by deepening economic ties with China, dropping the rhetoric of strategic competition, and actively nurturing moderates in both countries. While most progressives do not recommend accommodating Beijing’s territorial ambitions, they believe Washington can effectively minimize the risk of Chinese aggression through diplomatic restraint and high-level engagement. For progressives, deterrence is far more easily accomplished than centrists assume, both because existing U.S. military power is more than sufficient and because China is not an aggressive, ideological revisionist power in the mold of Russia.
This ongoing debate over China is inextricably linked to broader disagreements concerning foreign economic policy and trade. Biden’s pivot toward industrial policy and supply chain resilience was driven partly by the conviction that China’s predatory trading practices warranted a fundamental overhaul of U.S. commerce. Many centrists now advocate for expanding industrial policy to cover a much wider array of critical goods, such as advanced robotics. They seek to coordinate with European allies to counter Chinese industrial overcapacity through harmonized tariffs, import bans on emerging technologies, and integrated manufacturing efforts. Some figures, such as former Deputy National Security Adviser Daleep Singh, have even proposed establishing a sovereign wealth fund to kick-start domestic investment in critical technologies. Simultaneously, these centrists are unsettled by Trump’s coercive use of economic power against traditional allies and are actively developing their own doctrine of economic statecraft complete with necessary safeguards. Some centrists also want to grant international partners greater access to the U.S. market—not through expansive, omnibus multilateral trade agreements reminiscent of the 1990s and 2000s, but through smaller, highly targeted bilateral deals.
Significant divisions also exist among progressives regarding the nature of the economic threat from China. Elected progressive lawmakers tend to view trade policy toward Beijing similarly to centrists; figures like Khanna, Sanders, and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts share deep concerns over domestic deindustrialization and China’s dominance in advanced manufacturing, generally favoring robust measures against unfair trade practices. However, progressive foreign policy intellectuals are frequently much more skeptical of economic confrontation, favoring closer commercial integration with China. While some support industrial policy, they feel uneasy about framing it primarily around competition with Beijing, suggesting instead that industrial policy should be pursued to address domestic inequality or combat climate change. They maintain that the United States and China can successfully cooperate on global economic issues, pointing to proposals such as Sanders’s call for a global minimum wage.
Democrats are also deeply divided—though rarely speaking openly about it—over what to do with the sweeping tariffs the Trump administration imposed on close allies and trading partners. Some argue that the next president should immediately denounce Trump’s tariffs as an unfair tax on American consumers and lift them unilaterally and at once. Others favor retaining certain tariffs to protect domestic industries or maintain a steady revenue stream to fund domestic social priorities. A third faction suggests that the incoming administration should lift the tariffs as part of rapid negotiations with allies to establish a unified Western front on economic and technological policies concerning China, including addressing global overcapacity and reinstating stringent export controls on computing power.
Differing perceptions of China directly inform the party’s internal debates over climate policy. Progressives view climate change as an urgent top priority for a new administration that must not be subordinated to traditional national security goals, thereby prioritizing direct cooperation with China on electric vehicles and clean energy technologies. Centrists, however, remain deeply skeptical that China can be relied upon as a dependable climate partner, oppose Chinese electric vehicles on national security and data-security grounds, and view cooperation with a smaller, exclusive circle of like-minded nations as a safer path to advancing clean technology.
This strategic disagreement is merely one dimension of a much deeper intraparty split over how best to tackle climate change. Centrists typically argue that Democrats should tie climate policy directly to economic affordability, job creation, and energy security, rather than making it the overarching organizing principle of governance. They favor heavy investment in clean energy infrastructure, though many are increasingly open to supporting natural gas and regulatory permitting reforms to accelerate construction. Progressives, by contrast, believe that subsidizing clean technology is necessary but insufficient on its own, calling instead for aggressive policies that directly mandate reductions in the supply of fossil fuels.
Ultimately, the centrist-progressive debate runs much deeper than mere policy disagreements. It touches on the fundamental question of how the United States can best achieve lasting peace and prosperity: whether by aggressively managing geopolitical rivalries and the instabilities stemming from a collapsing international order, or by attempting to transcend geopolitics entirely through cooperative governance.
If the Democratic Party fails to air these debates openly and consistently over the next two years, an incoming Democratic president in 2029 risks walking into office facing conditions remarkably similar to those Jimmy Carter inherited in 1977. Carter took power during an international environment where the Nixon-Kissinger framework of détente was buckling under intense strain. His administration was plagued by bitter divisions between the competing worldviews of National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, who favored a confrontational posture toward the Soviet Union, and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who championed diplomacy and arms control. Those relentless, public disagreements seriously complicated Carter’s efforts to formulate and execute a coherent strategy toward Moscow.
A repeat of that scenario in 2029 could prove exponentially more damaging. The next American president will inherit frayed alliances, mounting Chinese pressure on Taiwan, deepening strategic integration among Washington’s adversaries, and active conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, alongside unforeseen crises that will inevitably emerge over the coming years. A failure to establish a clear, unified agenda beforehand risks paralyzing U.S. decision-making at precisely the moment when strong, decisive leadership is most required.
Fortunately, centrists and progressives share substantial common ground. Both factions remain firmly committed to rebuilding the domestic foundations of American power, supporting historic alliances, backing a just peace in Ukraine, treating transnational challenges with gravity, and eschewing unnecessary military interventions. While they may not reach a neat partywide consensus on every issue, a spirited and productive primary debate will allow voters to make an informed choice while ensuring that the first year of the next administration is spent executing a clear vision rather than fighting over one.
