Trump or Harris? In a crisis-ridden world, diplomats have come to terms with both

The annual United Nations General Assembly week is always hectic.

You could call it the Super Bowl of diplomacy, but this year a marathon may be a more apt analogy.

There haven’t been so many global conflicts since World War II, and Lebanon was on the brink of collapse when world leaders arrived in New York City.

Given the current uncertainty, the upcoming US election was on everyone’s lips.

A senior Western diplomat told me that no one expects things to move in the Israel-Gaza war until a winner is determined in the race for the White House.

“We understand that the current government is under pressure not to make decisions that could impact the election,” he said.

“But we hope that after the election, the current government will use the transition period to perhaps make some decisions that will lead to an improvement in the situation in Gaza.”

But in conversations with a dozen officials from different continents at the U.N. headquarters in Manhattan, a picture emerged of a crisis-weary global community resigned to working with the next occupant of the White House.

All were granted anonymity to share their candid views.

“I see no difference between the two candidates. Just look around the world from one end to the other, we are in total chaos,” an ambassador from a South Asian country told me.

It’s a sentiment that perhaps reflects disillusionment with U.S. leadership, but also the view of many in the Global South that while the rhetoric changes, America’s overall foreign policy really doesn’t fluctuate that drastically from one administration to the next.

“It is very easy to insult and sound the alarm about what could happen,” a senior Arab official told me.

He said that while he found former President Donald Trump to be unpredictable compared to Vice President Kamala Harris, the idea that he would destroy multilateralism was exaggerated because it had not happened before.

“What is really undermining multilateralism are actions and conflicts that are taking place in many parts of the world, and you cannot attribute that to one country or one government,” he said.

Here at the UN complex, a long-time official of the organization told me that there is no panic over the US elections.

“We’re scared enough about what’s going on today to worry about what’s going on in November,” the official said.

This source added that the UN had survived the Trump administration in ways few would have predicted.

“The volume may have been very loud, but they weren’t all that different from previous Republicans,” the official said.

If there is a second term, the official told me, they believe Trump will be so focused on domestic issues and “internal settlement of scores” that foreign policy may not be the focus at the beginning.

In an interview with the BBC, Kenyan President William Ruto appeared unimpressed.

“I am very confident that the friendship between Kenya and the US goes beyond individual officials,” he said. “It will go beyond me as president or whoever gets elected in the United States.”

But many Europeans fear a second Trump administration and what some see as his transactional approach to foreign relations.

A European diplomat told me that given the Security Council’s inability to manage conflict, there are fears that an emboldened and perhaps more radical Trump administration will worsen the dysfunction and spur more movement toward the ultra-right in Europe would promote.

“I think it would be a relief for at least the majority of Europeans if Harris came into office,” he said.

Still, another senior European diplomat said that while Harris’ victory would give them a sense of continuity, they also now had a relationship through four years of working with Trump and felt better prepared than in 2016.

Climate Week took place in New York City at the same time as the high-level UN debate. Caribbean leaders spoke not only in the green and gold General Assembly Hall but also to rooms full of businesspeople and politicians at side events to warn that the world is falling dangerously short on its climate commitments and putting its islands at risk.

A minister from the region told me that climate was the main area where the U.S. candidates’ differences worried them. “In terms of the real commitment of the US government and the leadership of the US government,” the minister said, it is “definitely Democrats.”

Many still remember how Trump withdrew from the Paris climate agreement, while Joe Biden later rejoined.

Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis said political change has been a challenge to progress over the past 26 years. He said he was calling for some kind of mechanism to protect a change in political leadership from hindering or reversing progress.

For diplomats who have faced more challenges than solutions here over the past week, Election Day on November 5 may seem far away.

But the time is getting closer and closer when the votes will be counted in the USA and with them a new face in the White House.

Another European minister walking to an event simply had this to say to me: “I hope it doesn’t get too weird.”

Additional reporting by Cai Pigliucci.