Rand Paul, the Republican senator of Kentucky, and Secretary Blinken have clashed before over big issues like the war in Ukraine. Today they locked horns again, as Dr. Paul grilled the peripatetic Mr. Blinken over his approach to dealing with geopolitical and economic issues. The glaring rift could be a foretaste of the tone to expect on foreign policy in presidential debates.

Mr. Blinken was testifying on the Department of State’s activities, including Washington’s diplomacy and the 2025 budget request, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. That’s when Dr. Paul asked him, “Do you think that publicly scolding China will make it more or less likely that they continue selling dual-use parts to Russia?”

To Mr. Blinken’s characteristically meek response of, “Senator, we’ve tried it both ways,” Dr. Paul replied, “I would argue that we’ve only tried it one way, we’ve got the stick and a majority of people who are working for you want to use the stick, nobody is really considering that there’s a carrot.” 

He added that “for the last five years or more, your administration or the previous administration, there’s not a lot of difference really, you put impediments to trade, you add sanctions and then you scold them. There is a school of  diplomacy that believes that publicly scolding, particularly in a foreign country, can have the opposite effect.”

Another of Mr. Blinken’s staffers, Washington’s envoy to Budapest, has frequently raised hackles for publicly scolding the Hungarians on a range of subjects, including transgender issues. Dr. Paul also questioned Secretary Yellen’s diplomatic savoir-faire, or lack thereof.

“Now you’re going to threaten sanctions, you’re going to scold them, and now you’re going to add tariffs. More or less likely that they’ll do what you want?” Dr. Paul asked before answering himself, “I think less likely. Everything we’re doing, everything the previous administration did as well, everything this one is doing is heading toward disengagement from China, but the threat of sanctions actually has more effect if you’re willing to remove them.”

“Part of public diplomacy is saying, ‘What if you quit selling dual use parts to Russia, maybe we could consider removing some sanctions on trade — and trade more with you. The history of sanctions is more, more, more. Nobody talks about removing them — but that’s the only way you get behavior to change,” the senator added. 

Differences of opinion over how to manage economic relations with Communist China are one thing, but despite fresh funding for Kyiv the divide over Russia’s war on Ukraine is present on Capitol Hill. Dr. Paul told Mr. Blinken that “the Ukrainians still claim that victory includes the reclamation of all of its territory,” but that “many NATO allies are beginning to question this.

“The Czech president, Petr Pavel, who once served as chairman of NATO’s military committee, recently stated he believes it’s naive to think that Ukraine will be able to regain the occupied territories from Russia. The commander and general of the Ukrainian army, until he was fired by Zelensky, had the same kind of comments,” the senator said. 

“I think it’s not an unreasonable thing to believe that this war may well end in stalemate, some say similar to the way Korea was … nobody likes it, nobody wanted it, nobody agrees the Russians should be there, but they’re there and they have a bigger army and more might than their neighbor.

“So if President Pavel is correct in his assessment that Ukraine’s war aims are naive, one of the few negotiating items Ukraine possesses is the promise to remain a neutral country, not aligned militarily, yet you have repeatedly ruled out Ukraine remaining outside of NATO,” Dr. Paul said.

“If you take this off the table, one of the things that actually is a negotiating item, my question to you is, are there any circumstances under which the neutrality of Ukraine would be a negotiating item?”

If Mr. Blinken had a cogent answer to the question, it was not immediately clear. The relationship of Ukraine to NATO now and possibly in the future has been a major point of contention for a long time. Reverting to the challenge from Beijing, Dr. Paul averred, “I hear no public discussion, not from anyone in  Congress or anyone in this administration.”