Republicans v Democrats: How Harris and Trump compare on the key issues

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are to debate on Nov 5. Ms Harris has been since 2021 the vice-president of Biden’s administration and she is a typical representative of the moderate wing of the Democrats, while Mr Trump restores society with his party and is a harbinger of fundamental changes. 
 
Below, The Telegraph outlines concerning topics where both the candidates and their policies or support differ on what is affecting the US. 
 
Immigration 
The war in Ukraine 
Abortion 
Economy 
Israel 
Climate change 
Foreign policy 
 
Immigration 
Trump 
Trump continued: “That is why the Republican platform pledges to conduct the largest deportation campaign in the history of our nation That is why, to protect our family, Republicans vow to round up millions of workers and send them back to their countries of origin. 
 
Apart from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency Trump has vowed to employ the local police, National Guard, and possibly the military. 
 
He told Time magazine: “When we speak of military, as a rule, I speak of National Guard,” which, he claimed, he would have “no qualms employing military, in point of fact. ” And people say “We have to have law and order in our country. 
 
Harris 
Here again, unlike what Trump had alleged, Harris was not Biden’s ‘border czar’. 
 
She was hired in the administration in July 2021 to study the putative ‘push factors’ of Central American migrants to the United States even as the flow has surged. 
 
She went to Guatemala and other nations and warned would-be migrants: It means ‘do not come’ or ‘please do not come’. 
 
She declared that she was against the separation of families, and told that undocumented spouses of American citizens would be allowed to apply for green cards. 

Harris was for the bipartisan border deal that would have been the first immigration reform agreement since 1986, but Trump killed the measure because he wanted to use the ‘chaotic border’ theme to go after Democrats. 
 
‘We are very clear, and I think the majority of Americans are clear, that we have a damaged immigration system and it has to be repaired’, she said during an interview. “They’re refusing to put it up for a vote, and in large part because we know the former president would prefer to run on a problem instead of fix a problem. ” 
Perhaps the most famous of Trump’s policies is one concerning immigration. This is how he says he will act on ‘day one’, adding that he will shut the border between the US and Mexico and start deporting immigrants without papers. 
 
“Under President Trump if you arrived here a day before and crossed the border illegally you were detained on the second day and flown back,” he said at the Republican National Convention. 
 
Many in the crowd cheered and waved banners reading: “Mass deportation now!” 
 
War in Ukraine 
Trump 
Trump has officially demanded for cessation of hostilities and has ordered that it be done in the soonest possible time. “Given that this proxy battle in Ukraine rages on day in day out, we are likely to end up with full-fledged world war,” he said in a statement in the previous year. There can be no misunderstandings as to our goal which is to achieve the total stoppage of conflict, or in other words, to end the shooting NOW. ” 
 
He has boasted that he could help to broker a ceasefire in “one day” though he has never explained how. 
 
Donald Trump has claimed that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if he was in the White House instead of Biden while at the same time calling Putin’s actions a “masterstroke”. 

He has said that he will back more assistance to Ukraine — however possibly it will be a loan. 
 
This summer when he was in the process of clinching the GOP nomination, he called Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky by phone. Trump said afterwards: “I am thankful to President Zelensky for calling because I, the future President of the United States, will help you end the war that took so many lives and destroyed so many families. 
 
Zelensky said of their conversation: “This I observed, the strong bi-partisan and bi-cameral American support for the protection of the American freedom and independence. ” 
 
Harris 
Harris has been very much involved in Joe Biden’s attempts to mobilize Nato as well as other countries to support Ukraine. 
 
Before Russia had invaded but when the US was saying it was going to, she warned the 2022 Munich security conference that the world had arrived at “the moment of choice in history”. 
 
Harris has talked with Zelensky six times. 
 
This summer she flew to Switzerland to attend a conference and assured her counterparts that Washington was committed to the process. 
 
She announced $1. $5 billion in relations to additional US assistance through the State Department and the USAID. 
 
She has argued that Putin needs to be defeated in Ukraine lest he gets even more aggressive. 
“Russia’s aggression is more than an attack on the lives and freedom of the people of Ukraine,” Kiriyenko said, it is “an attack on rules and norms of international law”. 
 
Abortion
Trump 
While campaigning for presidency, Trump has therefore had some changes of stance. In March he hinted that he would support a national ban at 15 weeks, a position that was only cheered by religious and social conservatives; but in April, to their surprise, he said the question should be left to the states and that is the situation now the Supreme Court having overturned Roe v Wade in 2022. 

He said in a video address, “Many states will be different. ” The functional roles will have a differing number of weeks, or ‘some will be more conservative’ than others, as it should be. ” 
 
That means, for example, in Florida where Trump resides, abortion would be prohibited after the first six weeks of pregnancy. He has however stated that he will only allow it where the pregnancy results from rape, in cases of incest or where the life of the mother is in danger. 
 
He has falsely claimed all Democrats support late-term abortions, saying in the June debate with Biden: “They will abort a child in the eighth month, the ninth month and even after birth. ” 
 
Harris 
Harris could not accept anything less than a legal abortion for every woman. 
 
The moment the Supreme Court of the US trounced Roe, she turned out among the most cogent advocates on reproductive rights, stating that as Trump crowed about having aided in dismantling the ruling made back in 1972, the both she and Biden were lobbying Congress to reaffirm the position, to have it as it was before. 

She has claimed that Trump supported federal prohibition while, in March, she made history by appearing at an abortion clinic as either the first female vice-president or president to do so when she said that limiting women’s rights was wrong on an ethical level. 
 
Speaking at the Planned Parenthood clinic in St Paul, Minnesota, she said: “These elected leaders conveniently think they know what’s best for women than women themselves do… We need to be a nation that trusts women. ” 
 
Economy 
Trump 
Trump is probable to preside over an America that ruffled when it comes to trade, and he adopted large tolls of China as well as so many countries. He said to Fox Business it could rise to as high as 10 percent on imported goods and up to 60 percent on those originating from China. In all it could apply to $3 trillion worth of US imports The above figure simply points to the fact that trade finance in the form of Buyers’ Credits could be very large having the potential of touching as much as $3 trillion worth of US imports. 
 
The specialists estimate that this could bring common American household an extra bill of up to $1,700 a year. This has been welcomed by many of Trump’s supporters as they aver that he is the only president who has had the backbone to confront China which has for long been accused of piracy and the provision of inferior goods at below the market price. 
 
Economists point out if tariffs are too high they result in a recession, however, Joe Biden sustained and expanded many of the tariffs on China, particularly electric vehicles, batteries – rechargeable and solar cells, steel, aluminium and medical equipment. 
 
In a famous 2018 tweet, Trump wrote: Establishing trade war was all good, and easy,” the President declared. He also backs the further continuation of the tax cuts that he put into effect in 2017. Some very big portions are due to lapse in 2025. In his statements he has claimed that he would trim down the corporate income tax from the current level of 21per cent to 20 per cent. 
 
Harris 
When Harris first tried to run for the presidency in 2020 she told the US that she would repeal the Trump’s 2017 tax cut law which in her view was being charitable to the rich only. The Biden 2025 budget plan seeks to increase the level of taxation for companies to 28 per cent. Harris has also be quite vocal in the issue of cancelling student loans. 
 
Her campaign promises that she will not increase taxes for anyone earning less than $400,000 a year, a pledge Biden singled out as defining his aspirations that the rich and big corporations should contribute more. 
 
“It is time for new leadership and a new vision — one that says we will not accept a society where everyone can simply survive, but instead strive for a country where everyone can prosper,” Harris told supporters in Green Bay, Wisconsin in what was possibly one of the early campaign events in June. 
 
“It will also be a central challenge of my presidency to build up the middle class. ” 
 
Israel and Gaza 
Trump 
Trump is fond of saying that he has been the most pro-Israel president the United States has ever had. He was committed to recognising the occupied West Bank city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, recognising the Israeli sovereignty over disputed Golan Height and also initiated the Normalisation or Abraham Accords which are agreements that brought Israel and United Arab Emirates and Israel and Bahrain into normal diplomatic relations. There were other related treaties containing Sudan, Morocco and also Oman. 
 
He has also stated that the ‘Oct 7’ attack by Hamas would not have occurred if he were the president, and has called on Israel to eliminate the militants with great haste and aggression. 
 
He has no policy on the creation of the Palestinian state. 
 
It was warm embrace between Trump and the Israeli Prime Minister who visited Trump in the presidential resort of Mar-a-Lago last month. Trump attacked Biden and Harris: “You are closer to a Third World War right now than you have been since the Second World War, this has never happened before because we are governed by incompetent people. ” 
 
Harris 
In her role in Biden administration, Harris has been central to a policy highly favourably disposed towards Israel, even though the recent Gaza war which has resulted in the deaths of 40, 000 Palestinian civilians. 
 
Despite producing incendiary comments in the past, Harris visits Israel after the October 7th attack by Hamas to show sympathy for the Israelis and their Prime Minister, Netanyahu in particular, he receives massive acclaim for his stand. Besides the diplomatic aspect, the ‘US’s contribution has been financial, having committed $12. If granted, the total of military assistance amounted to five billion dollars. 
 
Harris has tried to distance herself a bit from Biden on the issue, by getting more vocal about the plight of the civilians. In March she referred to a ‘human tragedy’, in April she did not attend Netanyahu’s speech in congress, but did meet him there. She later said that she had asked questions about civilian losses. “And we cannot allow ourselves to become immune to the suffering and I will not be,” she continued. 
 
Global warming and net zero emissions 
Trump 
Trump used to refer to climate change as an “hoax” inflicted upon the world by China but he now seems to have a slightly different tune. When challenged to a debate in 2020 he reduced human influenced climate change to counting “to an extent”. 
 
He promised that on the first day in office, he will eliminate Biden’s ‘Green New Deal atrocities’ – which is a measure that has never existed as a law in the United States. He also declared that on the first day of his presidency, he would overturn ‘drill, baby, drill’ operations that Biden has put in place, and limit the possibilities of drilling. 
 
Trump has ribbed electric cars but has become less critical of them, at least partly because of his relationship with Musk. In July, he said: “Even though Elon Musk endorses me, and he and I are friends, I don’t think everybody should have an electric car. ” 
 
Harris 
Asserted that climate change is real and, at the time, declared that “the clock is not just ticking, it is banging”; when Harris campaigned in 2019 she was an advocate for both the progressive Green New Deal framework for combating climate change and against fracking. 
 
Her stance has since been toned down and last month she was asked if, as governor, she would outlaw fracking, her response was no. Thanks to Biden’s policies, she has claimed that the US has now got the ‘highest ever domestic energy production,’ and has supported measures such as granting billions of dollars in tax credits for renewable energy and electric vehicles which were contained in the Inflation Reduction Act.