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As US presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump debated each other in Philadelphia on Tuesday, many in Europe watched in the hope of seeing what impact the November election would have on the continent and the world as a whole.

While both candidates, as expected, focused primarily on domestic issues such as the economy, gun control and abortion, Harris and Trump discussed several topics that could be crucial to the future of Europe.

Here are the six key takeaways for Europeans from the first — and likely only — debate between the two candidates.

Trump calls Orbán an ally

After Vice President Harris claimed that some world leaders do not hold Trump in as high regard as he thinks, the former US president said that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán would support his government.

“Let me just say something about world leaders: Viktor Orbán, one of the most respected men, they call him a strongman. He’s a tough man. Smart prime minister of Hungary,” Trump said.

“They said, ‘Why is the whole world blowing up? … ‘Because you need Trump as president again. They were afraid of him. China was afraid. And I hate to use the word ‘afraid,’ but I’ll just quote him,” Trump continued.

“’China was afraid of him. North Korea was afraid of him.’ Look what’s happening to North Korea, by the way. He said, ‘Russia was afraid of him,’” he added, reportedly quoting Orbán.

“The most respected, most feared person is Donald Trump. We had no problems when Trump was president,” Trump said.

Harris responded that it is common knowledge that Trump “admires dictators” and “wanted to be a dictator from day one.”

“It is common knowledge that he said about Putin (Russian President Vladimir) that he could do whatever he wanted and that he could invade Ukraine,” she said.

‘Putin would eat you for lunch,’ Harris tells Trump

When asked whether he supports Ukraine in Russia’s war of aggression against its neighbor, Trump dodged a direct answer, saying instead that he wanted to “end the war.”

Although Trump said it was a war “that is hungry for resolution … I will settle it before I even become president,” he did not provide details on how he planned to accomplish that. “What I will do is I will talk to one and I will talk to the other,” he said. “I will bring them together.”

Trump reiterated that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine would never have happened if he had been in power in early 2022, saying Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would have respected him more than Biden.

“I know Zelenskyy very well, and I know Putin very well,” he said. “They respect me. They don’t respect Biden.”

However, Trump reiterated that the Biden administration has spent more money on military aid to Ukraine than Europe, despite figures showing the opposite.

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Harris responded by saying that if Trump had actually been president during Moscow’s all-out assault, “Putin would be sitting in Kiev with his eyes on the rest of Europe,” and that Poland would be the next target.

“Why don’t you tell the 800,000 Polish Americans here in Pennsylvania how quickly you would give up for a favor and what you see as a friendship with what is known as a dictator who would eat you for lunch,” she said.

“Thanks to our support, thanks to the air defense, the munitions, the artillery, the Javelins and the Abrams tanks that we have provided, Ukraine is an independent and free country,” Harris stressed, but she did not specify how she plans to continue supporting Kiev once she is in power.

Trump accuses Harris of ‘hating’ everyone in the Middle East

The Republican candidate for US president also did not know how he would broker a peace deal between Israel and Hamas or what he would do to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

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However, he repeated the same claim that the war between Israel and Hamas would never have happened if he had been president, switching to the unsubstantiated claim that Harris hates both Israel and the rest of the region.

“She hates Israel. She didn’t even want to meet (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu when he went to Congress to give a very important speech,” he said.

“Oh, come on,” Harris was seen muttering in response to Trump’s claims. She met with Netanyahu a day later.

“If she were president, I believe that Israel would not exist within two years, and I’m pretty good at predictions,” Trump said, adding that Harris also hates the Arab population. “The whole place is going to blow up,” he added.

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“Look at what’s happening with the Houthis and Yemen. Look at what’s happening in the Middle East. This would never have happened. I will fix that, and I will fix it fast, and I will end the war with Ukraine and Russia,” he said. “If I become president-elect, I will do it before I even become president.”

Harris, for her part, said that as president she would “always give Israel the ability to defend itself,” particularly against Iran and its allies, but that “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed” in the war, which is entering its second year.

She also said she supported a two-state solution and that Palestinians needed self-determination.

The EU and its foreign chief, Josep Borrell, have been increasingly critical of Israel over the way it is conducting its campaign in Gaza.

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Higher taxes on ‘Made in China’ products?

Harris and Trump predictably clashed over Washington’s policy toward Beijing, particularly the former president’s idea to impose tariffs of 10% to 20% on all imports from China.

“My opponent has a plan that I call the ‘Trump sales tax.’ It would be a 20 percent tax on everyday goods that get you through the month,” she said.

Trump said his proposal for additional tariffs of 60% to 100% would be a way for Beijing and other countries to “pay back for everything we’ve done for the world, and the tariff will be substantial.”

He also questioned Harris about his failure to repeal tariffs first imposed by Trump during his 2017-2021 term.

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“If they don’t like them, they should have gone and lowered the rates immediately,” he said. “They never lowered the rates because it was so much money. They can’t do that, it would completely destroy everything they set out to do.”

Harris accused Trump of not being as tough on China as he thought, of provoking “trade wars” and running a budget deficit while in office, and of inadvertently helping Beijing achieve its own goals.

“During Donald Trump’s presidency, he went and sold American chips to China to help them improve and modernize their military,” she said.

“Trump has in fact betrayed us, when policy toward China should be about ensuring that the United States of America wins the 21st century competition,” Harris explained.

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In May, the Biden administration raised taxes on about €16 billion worth of Chinese goods, including semiconductors and electric vehicles — a key policy for Brussels, which also imposed additional tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles to protect the common market.

Trump accuses immigrants of ‘eating the dogs’

During his campaign, Trump has focused on illegal immigration, criticizing the rise in illegal border crossings and the arrival of thousands of people in need of shelter in Democratic-run cities.

He accused Democrats of being complicit in the surge in unauthorized border crossings, even though those numbers have declined in recent months in part because of the Biden administration’s new asylum restrictions.

But as he often does at his rallies and on his social media account, Trump repeated a series of falsehoods and unsubstantiated claims about migrants.

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One of those claims was a debunked rumor Trump and his allies had been spreading online in recent days that Haitian immigrants in an Ohio town were hunting and eating domestic animals.

“They eat the dogs, they eat the cats, they eat the pets of the people who live there. This is a disgrace,” he said.

Officials in Springfield, Ohio, say they have no evidence of that.

Immigration is one of Europe’s hottest topics, exacerbated by Germany’s decision on Tuesday to temporarily reintroduce border controls to curb illegal migration. Neighbouring countries say the move violates EU and Schengen principles.

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Harris: Trump Using Race to Divide People

Trump has at times invoked racial and gender stereotypes and has falsely claimed that Harris, who attended a historically black college, concealed her race during her career.

“I read somewhere that she wasn’t black,” Trump said when asked about comments questioning Harris’ race, adding a minute later, “and then I read she was black.” He appeared to suggest that her race was a choice, saying twice, “That’s up to her.”

Harris did not remain silent, saying: “I think it is tragic that we have someone who wants to be president, but over the course of his career has consistently tried to use race to divide the American people.”

Harris, however, used it to present a long list of Trump’s racial controversies: his legal settlement for discrimination against potential black tenants in his New York apartment buildings in the 1970s; his ad calling for the execution of black and Hispanic teenagers wrongly arrested in the Central Park jogger attack case in the 1980s; and his false claim that former President Barack Obama was not born in the U.S.

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“I think the American people want something better than that, something better than this,” Harris said.

Europe has seen a rise in populism and far-right rhetoric in recent years, with growing support in many parts of the continent evident in the European elections in June.