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US town divided by factory deal as candidates compete to be toughest on China

In the American Midwest, a local fight over a Chinese electric vehicle battery factory reflects broader controversy over Chinese investments in the U.S. VOA’s Calla Yu reports on how the issue of U.S.-China competition is playing out in a small city in Michigan during this year’s U.S. presidential election. Videographer: Yu Gang
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Probe finds Beijing seeking to mislead, sow distrust ahead of US election

washington — U.S. intelligence agencies this week emphasized that Russia, Iran and China remain the primary external forces attempting to influence American voters ahead of the November presidential election. 

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence reported that the Kremlin is the most active player, using artificial intelligence, fake accounts and fabricated images to promote narratives favorable to Donald Trump’s candidacy. 

In contrast, China has not sought to directly influence the outcome of the 2024 presidential race. Sarah Cook, an independent analyst specializing in disinformation, noted that this restraint stems partly from a strong bipartisan consensus in Washington regarding the threat posed by China’s authoritarian government.

With less than 40 days remaining until the U.S. elections, what narratives is China promoting on social media, and how might these affect American voters? 

Amplifying polarization 

A joint investigation by Voice of America and the Doublethink Lab, a Taiwanese social media analytics firm, is tracking 201 China-related accounts on the social media platform X. One of the main themes of these accounts is amplifying controversial domestic issues in the United States, aiming to deepen societal polarization and sow distrust. 

Through both genuine and AI-generated images and videos, Chinese operatives are intensifying divisive social issues, including LGBTQ+ rights, abortion, immigration, race, gun control and crime rates. 

One prominent account, CongCong, frequently originates posts that are then shared by others, describing herself as “a sweet and salty little girl who takes life seriously and shares positive energy.” 

However, her posts are far from positive. One pinned post features a provocative image of a gun pointed at Gaza, captioned with claims of genocide, depicting Israel as the gunman, the U.S. as the weapon, and the EU as the silencer. 

The post was amplified by 40 accounts in the network of China-related accounts VOA is tracking. 

Another so-called seeder account, Little Sister Muxi, shared a comparative graphic highlighting the burdens faced by Americans, such as student loans and health care costs, versus the benefits enjoyed by Israelis.

The Israel-Gaza conflict has become a sharply polarizing issue in the U.S. Some Americans support Israel’s right to self-defense, while others express strong discontent with what they see as excessive violence. 

Recently, the network has sought to amplify discussions surrounding Intel’s announcement of a 15% workforce reduction, with seeder account CongCong asserting, “This is the decline of the United States, a recession created by the United States itself.” This message was shared by 36 accounts.

Other examples include sharing cartoons from China’s state-owned Global Times that mock the U.S. for its financial support of Ukraine. 

AI-generated images depict homeless Americans, implying that U.S. citizens are neglected while the government spends billions on overseas conflicts.

Fake videos illustrating America’s drug epidemic are also common, pushed by the Spamouflage network — a much larger state-sponsored operation aimed at supporting the Chinese government while undermining critics. 

This approach mirrors Russia’s tactics during the 2016 U.S. elections, employing information warfare to fracture Western alliances and deepen societal divisions. 

MAGAflage 

Our investigation has uncovered two “MAGAflage” networks consisting of a total of 25 accounts posing as supporters of Republican candidate Trump, seeking to engage with real American voters. 

One network, labeled MAGAflage 1 and consisting of 10 accounts, began sharing pro-Trump content extensively following a July 13 assassination attempt. Using stolen bios and sourced photos, these accounts focused on pro-China content and polarizing U.S. issues while promoting Trump as the savior of America. After VOA’s report, X suspended these accounts for “violating X’s rules.”

Whereas the seeder account in the MAGAflage 1 network aggressively posted pro-China content and frequently cited state media outlets, the seeder of MAGAflage 2 takes a more careful approach. Apart from a few exceptions, this person rarely posts about topics directly related to China and stays closer to U.S. election topics.   

All accounts use emoticons in their usernames. Twelve of the 15 accounts use the American flag as one of the emoticons. 

They criticize the Biden administration’s immigration policy, promote conspiracy theories and claim that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is responsible for the January 6 Capitol riot. 

“These accounts are noteworthy because they go to a great extent to pretend to be American citizens and tried to hide their connection to China,” Jasper Hewitt, a digital intelligence analyst at Doublethink Lab, told VOA Mandarin. 

Notably, these accounts do not promote anti-Israel content that other trolls frequently share. Trump recently touted himself as Israel’s “protector,” warning Jewish voters against supporting Vice President Kamala Harris.

“I think this shows that the people behind these operations have a good understanding of the type of content that might resonate with the users they are trying to interact with,” Hewitt added. 

Meanwhile, researchers continue to uncover accounts attacking candidates from both parties. Microsoft recently reported a Chinese-linked threat actor, Storm-1852, which has engaged with election-related content on social media, emphasizing a highly interactive approach that includes reposting content, replying to comments and polling users. 

This network does not appear to favor any specific candidate.

“It is true that most of the Spamouflage content we have seen so far expresses criticism for both candidates. However, the fact that we found two MAGAflage networks and have not yet encountered any similar accounts that support Harris is still very relevant,” Hewitt from Doublethink Lab added. 

Local candidates 

In their latest assessment, the U.S. intelligence officials have said most Chinese efforts are aimed not at Trump or Harris, but at state and local candidates perceived as hostile to Beijing.

Our investigation identified a TikTok video criticizing Republican U.S. Senator Josh Hawley, mocking his persistent questioning of Intel executives about forced labor in Xinjiang and labeling him an “anti-China senator.” Hawley is up for re-election this year.

Another video ridicules Democratic U.S. Representative Jerry Nadler from New York, suggesting he appeared to doze off during a hearing while victims’ families testified. 

Alongside the presidential election, all 435 House seats and 33 Senate seats will be contested this year. Lawmakers critical of China are likely to become targets of online influence campaigns. 

These include members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, or CECC. Its chair, Massachusetts Representative Jim McGovern, has been outspoken about human rights abuses in China and was barred from entry to China this past July.

New Jersey Republican Representative Chris Smith, co-chair of the commission, has long focused on human rights and religious freedom in China. 

In the Senate, Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown is seeking re-election this year and has faced attacks from Chinese state media for advocating a ban on Chinese-made electric vehicles. 
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Harris visits Border Patrol leaders in Arizona

DOUGLAS, Arizona — U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris walked a scrubby stretch of fence line along Arizona’s border with Mexico on Friday, seeking to project an image of strength against illegal migration as she confronts one of her biggest vulnerabilities in the November election.

In her first trip to the international boundary since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris chatted with local Border Patrol leaders as they strode along a rust-colored stretch of wall built during Barack Obama’s presidency. Temperatures in Douglas, Arizona, neared 37.7 degrees Celsius during a conversation that lasted about half an hour.

“They’ve got a tough job, and they need, rightly, support to do their job,” Harris said of the Border Patrol as she entered the Douglas port of entry for a briefing on efforts to block the flow of fentanyl across the border. “They are very dedicated. And so I’m here to talk with them about what we can continue to do to support them. And also thank them for the hard work they do.”

Later, she was expected to call for further tightening asylum restrictions, moving beyond President Joe Biden’s policy on an issue where her rival, former President Donald Trump, has an edge with voters. Hundreds of people packed into a gymnasium to hear her speak.

Trump and his fellow Republicans have pounded Harris relentlessly over the Biden administration’s record on migration and fault the vice president for spending little time visiting the border during her time in the White House.

Harris will outline her plan to crack down further on asylum claims and keep the restrictions in place longer compared with the executive order that Biden signed this summer, according to a campaign official who spoke on condition of anonymity because Harris had not yet made the announcement. The official briefed reporters aboard Air Force 2 en route to Arizona.

Harris arrived by helicopter in Douglas, where she met with Mayor Donald Huish, Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels and County Supervisor Ann English, along with Senator Mark Kelly and Attorney General Kris Mayes.

Immigration and border security are top issues in Arizona, the only battleground state that borders Mexico and one that contended with a record influx of asylum-seekers last year. Voters favor Trump on migration, and Harris has gone on offense to improve her standing on the issue and defuse a key line of political attack for Trump.

In nearly every campaign speech she gives, Harris recounts how a sweeping bipartisan package aiming to overhaul the federal immigration system collapsed in Congress earlier this year after Trump urged top Republicans to oppose it.

“The American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games,” Harris plans to say, according to an excerpt of her remarks previewed by her campaign.

After the immigration legislation stalled, the Biden administration announced rules that bar migrants from being granted asylum when U.S. officials deem that the southern border is overwhelmed. Since then, arrests for illegal border crossings have fallen.

Harris will also use her trip to remind voters about her work as attorney general of California in confronting crime along the border. During an August rally in Glendale, outside Phoenix, she talked about helping to prosecute drug- and people-smuggling gangs that operated transnationally and at the border.

“I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won,” Harris said then.

The vice president’s trip to Douglas thrusts the issue of immigration into the brightest spotlight yet less than six weeks before Election Day.

Trump didn’t wait for her to arrive there before pushing back. He pointed Friday to purported data about criminals entering the U.S. illegally in a bid to link Harris to violent crimes committed by migrants. In a scathing diatribe, he said “blood is on her hands.”

“These are hard, tough, vicious criminals that are free to roam in our country,” Trump said at a manufacturing plant in Michigan.

Earlier in the week, he told voters that “when Kamala speaks about the border, her credibility is less than zero.”

The Trump campaign has also countered with its own TV ads deriding the vice president as a failed “border czar.”

“Under Harris, over 10 million illegally here,” said one spot. However, estimates on how many people have entered the country illegally since the start of the Biden administration in 2021 vary widely.

Harris also never held the position of border czar. Instead, her assignment was to tackle the “root causes” of migration from three Central American nations — El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — that were responsible for a significant share of border crossers.

The vice president took a long-term approach to an immediate problem, helping persuade multinational corporations and Latin American businesses to invest in the region. That, she argued, would create jobs and give locals more reasons to stay home rather than take the arduous trek north.

Still, Trump has continued to decry an “invasion” of border crossers.

Douglas, where Harris appeared, is an overwhelmingly Democratic border town in GOP-dominated Cochise County, where the Republicans on the board of supervisors are facing criminal charges for refusing to certify the 2022 election results. Trump was in the area last month, using a remote stretch of border wall and a pile of steel beams to draw a contrast between himself and Harris on border security.

The town of 16,000 people has strong ties to its much larger neighbor, Agua Prieta, Mexico, and a busy port of entry that’s slated for a long-sought upgrade. Many locals are as concerned with making legal border crossings more efficient as they are with combatting illegal ones. 
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Harris, Trump vie for battleground state Michigan

Michigan is one of the key swing states that may decide November’s presidential election between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. VOA White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara went to Michigan to see what the campaigns are doing.
Camera: Rivan Dwiastono
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Trump meets Zelenskyy amid tension, Republican criticism of Kyiv

Former U.S. President Donald Trump met Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York, where Trump repeated claims that he would be able to end the war in Ukraine by making a deal with Russia. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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US charges Iranians with hacking attempt to disrupt US election

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government said Friday it filed criminal charges against three members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for hacking attempts aimed at disrupting the U.S. presidential election.

The indictment is the latest effort by President Joe Biden’s administration to counter foreign efforts to interfere in the November 5 presidential election between Republican Donald Trump and his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.

The U.S. Treasury Department also said it was imposing sanctions on seven members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iran has previously denied involvement.

The Trump campaign said in August it had been hacked by Iran but said the perpetrators were not able to get private information. Several news outlets have said they declined to publish internal campaign documents that were offered to them.
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Harris will campaign on Arizona’s border with Mexico in attempted show of strength on immigration 

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How do JD Vance and Tim Walz differ on foreign policy?

The foreign policy positions of the two vice presidential candidates are coming into sharper focus. Democratic nominee Tim Walz and Republican nominee JD Vance present distinctly different approaches to global challenges. These contrasting views underscore how each candidate’s foreign policy priorities could influence America’s role on the world stage.
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Former Trump adviser describes China’s ideology as ‘danger to all of us’

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Newsmax settles Smartmatic defamation suit over 2020 false election claims 

WILMINGTON, Delaware — Newsmax Media reached a confidential settlement of a lawsuit by Smartmatic, the voting machine maker that had alleged it was defamed by the news outlet’s false claims that its machines were rigged to help steal the 2020 U.S. presidential election from Donald Trump, the companies said Thursday. 

The agreement came on the eve of a four-week jury trial, with opening arguments scheduled to begin in Wilmington on September 30.  

“Newsmax is pleased to announce it has resolved the litigation brought by Smartmatic through a confidential settlement,” the company said in a statement. 

Smartmatic also said in a statement it was pleased to have reached a deal. 

“Lying to the American people has consequences. Smartmatic will not stop until the perpetrators are held accountable,” it said.  

Smartmatic sued Newsmax in 2021, alleging it broadcast damaging misinformation falsely claiming the company switched votes in the 2020 election, that its machines had been hacked and that it was funded by corrupt dictators.  

Smartmatic alleged that Newsmax profited from its false reporting. Trump amplified Newsmax’s reporting on social media, and the broadcaster’s audience jumped tenfold after the election, vaulting it over cable news rivals such as CNBC and Fox Business, according to Nielsen Ratings. 

Smartmatic’s machines were used only in Los Angeles County in the 2020 election, and it has said there has never been a security breach with its equipment, which has recorded billions of votes, largely in non-U.S. elections.  

Both Newsmax and Smartmatic’s U.S. affiliate are based in Boca Raton, Florida. 

Newsmax said it had a First Amendment right to report claims by Trump and his supporters, which were often made in court filings challenging the election. 

The company also clarified its reporting about Smartmatic in December 2020 and invited Smartmatic representatives to come on the air to explain their side of the story to Newsmax viewers. Smartmatic did not accept that invitation. 

Newsmax has described its coverage of Smartmatic as “minor.” 

Smartmatic has not publicly estimated the damages at stake, but Newsmax told the court on September 16 that the voting machine company was seeking $400 million to $600 million and described the case as “bet your company” litigation.  

Newsmax had $67 million in assets at the end of 2022, according to a securities filing, and said in a June investor presentation that it hoped to file for a public offering of its stock this year or early 2025. 

“We are now looking forward to our day in court against Fox Corp. and Fox News for their disinformation campaign,” Smartmatic said.  

The company is suing Fox in New York for $2.7 billion. 

False claims about the 2020 election have led to several defamation settlements or verdicts.  

Fox agreed to settle defamation claims by Dominion Voting Systems last year for $787.5 million, which was the biggest defamation settlement by a U.S. media company, according to legal experts. Dominion is also seeking up to $1.6 billion in damages against Newsmax, which is in litigation in the Delaware court. 

A jury decided last year that former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani had to pay more than $148 million in damages to two former Georgia election workers he defamed through false accusations that they helped rig the 2020 election against Trump. Giuliani appealed.
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Why are politicians called lame ducks?

Joe Biden is said to be entering the lame-duck period of his presidency, but what does that mean?
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US gun owners’ views unchanged by Trump assassination attempts

U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump has been the target of two assassination attempts during this campaign. VOA spoke with some gun owners, who say the shootings have not changed their views on gun laws. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has our story. Some VOA footage by Genia Dulot.
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Harris promises tax breaks, investments for US manufacturers

PITTSBURGH — U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said on Wednesday she would offer tax credits to domestic manufacturers and invest in sectors that will “define the next century,” as she detailed her economic plan to boost the U.S. middle class.

Speaking at the Economic Club of Pittsburgh in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, the Democratic candidate in the November 5 presidential election said she would give tax credits to U.S. manufacturers for retooling or rebuilding existing factories and expanding “good union jobs,” and double the number of registered apprenticeships during her first term.

Harris also promised new investments in industries like bio-manufacturing, aerospace, artificial intelligence and clean energy.

Harris’ speech, which lasted just under 40 minutes, did not detail how these policies would work. She highlighted her upbringing by a single mother, in contrast with former President Donald Trump, the wealthy son of a New York real estate developer.

“I have pledged that building a strong middle class will be the defining goal of my presidency,” Harris said, adding that she sees the election as a moment of choice between two “fundamentally different” visions of the U.S. economy held by her and her Republican opponent, Trump.

The vice president and Trump are focusing their campaign messaging on the economy, which Reuters/Ipsos polling shows is voters’ top concern, as the election approaches.

The divide between rich and poor has grown in recent decades. The share of American households in the middle class, defined as those with two-thirds to double that of median household income, has dropped from around 62% in 1970 to 51% in 2023, Pew Research shows. These households’ income has also not grown as fast as those in the top tier.

Harris said she was committed to working with the private sector and entrepreneurs to help grow the middle class. She told the audience that she is “a capitalist” who believes in “free and fair markets,” and described her policies as pragmatic rather than rooted in ideology.

Harris in recent months has blunted Trump’s advantage on the economy, with a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Tuesday showing the Republican candidate with a marginal advantage of 2 percentage points on “the economy, unemployment and jobs,” down from an 11-point lead in late July.

Trump discussed his economic plan in North Carolina on Wednesday and said Harris’ role as vice president gave her the chance now to improve the economic record of the Biden administration.

“Families are suffering now. So if she has a plan, she should stop grandstanding and do it,” he said. While Trump has proposed across-the-board tariffs on foreign-made goods — a proposal backed by a slim majority of voters — Harris is focusing on providing incentives for businesses to keep their operations in the U.S.

Boosting American manufacturing in industries such as semiconductors and bringing back jobs that have moved overseas in recent decades have also been major goals for Biden. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act — all passed in 2021 and 2022 — fund a range of subsidies and tax incentives that encourage companies to place projects in disadvantaged regions.
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Harris to campaign on Arizona’s border with Mexico

WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris will visit the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona on Friday as her campaign tries to turn the larger issue of immigration from a liability into a strength and hopes to counter a line of frequent, searing political attacks from former President Donald Trump. 

Her campaign announced Wednesday that Harris would be in Douglas, Arizona, across the border from Agua Prieta, Mexico. 

Trump has built his campaign partly around calling for cracking down on immigration and the southern border, even endorsing using police and the military to carry out mass deportations should he be elected in November. Harris has increasingly tried to seize on the issue and turn it back against her opponent, though polls show voters continue to trust Trump more on it. 

Trump wasted little time reacting to word of Harris’ trip. He told a rally crowd in Mint Hill, North Carolina, that Harris was going to the border “for political reasons” and because “their polls are tanking.” 

“When Kamala speaks about the border, her credibility is less than zero,” Trump said. “I hope you’re going to remember that on Friday. When she tells you about the border, ask her just one simple question: “Why didn’t you do it four years ago?” 

That picks up on a theme Trump mentions at nearly all of his campaign rallies, scoffing at Harris as a former Biden administration “border czar,” arguing that she oversaw softer federal policies that allowed millions of people into the country illegally. 

President Joe Biden tasked Harris with working to address the root causes of immigration patterns that have caused many people fleeing violence and drug gangs in Central America to head to the U.S. border and seek asylum, though she was not called border czar. 

Since taking over for Biden at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket, Harris has leaned into her experience as a former attorney general of California, saying that she frequently visited the border and prosecuted drug- and people-smuggling gangs in that post. As she campaigns around the country, the vice president has also lamented the collapse of a bipartisan border security deal in Congress that most Republican lawmakers rejected at Trump’s behest. 

Harris has worked to make immigration an issue that can help her win supporters, saying that Trump would rather play politics with the issue than seek solutions, while also promising more humane treatment of immigrants should she win the White House. 

In June, Biden announced rules that bar migrants from being granted asylum when U.S. officials deem that the southern border is overwhelmed. Since then, arrests for illegal border crossings have fallen. 

Despite that, a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research released this month found that Trump has an advantage over Harris on whom voters trust to better handle immigration. This issue was a problem for Biden, as well: Illegal immigration and crossings at the U.S. border with Mexico have been a challenge during much of his administration. The poll also found that Republicans are more likely to care about immigration.
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Campaigns seek to mobilize voters in swing state of Georgia 

Early voting for the U.S. presidential election in the state of Georgia begins October 15. Polls show a close contest there between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more from Atlanta, Georgia.
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Trump pledges sweeping tariffs, says they will keep jobs in US

SAVANNAH, Ga. — Donald Trump on Tuesday pledged to stop U.S. businesses from shipping jobs overseas and to take other countries’ jobs and factories by relying heavily on sweeping tariffs to boost auto manufacturing — despite warnings that domestic consumers would pay more and a lack of specifics about how his plans would work.

“I want German car companies to become American car companies. I want them to build their plants here,” Trump declared during a speech in Savannah, Georgia.

Trump added that, if elected, he’d put a 100% tariff on every car imported from Mexico and that the only way to avoid those charges would be for an automaker to build the cars in the U.S.

His ideas, if enacted, could cause a huge upheaval in the American auto industry. Many automakers now build smaller, lower-priced vehicles in Mexico — facilitated by a trade agreement Trump negotiated while president — or in other countries because their profit margins are slim. The lower labor costs help the companies make money on those vehicles.

German and other foreign automakers already have extensive manufacturing operations in the U.S., and many now build more vehicles here than they send. BMW, for instance, has an 8 million-square-foot campus in South Carolina that employs 11,000 people building more than 1,500 SUVs per day for the U.S. and 120 export markets. Mercedes and Volkswagen also have large factories here.

If German automakers were to increase production here, they likely would have to take it from factories in Germany, which then would run below their capacity and be less efficient, said Sam Abuelsamid, principal research analyst for Guidehouse Insights.

“It makes no sense,” he said.

Trump proposes ‘new American industrialism’ — without specifics

Trump has proposed using tariffs on imports and other measures to boost American industry — even as economists have cautioned that U.S. consumers would bear the costs of tariffs and other Trump proposals like staging the largest deportation operation in U.S. history.

The former president laid out a broad array of economic proposals during a speech in the key swing state of Georgia, promising to create a special ambassador to help lure foreign manufacturers to the U.S. and further entice them by offering access to federal land.

Additionally, he called for lowering the U.S. corporate tax rate from 21% to 15%, but only for companies that produce in the U.S. Harris, the Democratic nominee, wants to raise the corporate tax rate to 28%. It had been 35% when Trump became president in 2017, and he later signed legislation lowering it.

“We’re putting America first,” Trump said. “This new American industrialism will create millions and millions of jobs.”

Trump also suggested wiping away some environmental regulations to boost energy production, saying America has “got the oil, it’s got the gas. We have everything. The only thing we don’t have is smart people leading our country.”

Tuesday’s series of economic proposals raised a lot of questions, but the former president hasn’t given specific answers on his ideas, which could substantially affect their impact and how much they cost. He has not specified, for example, whether his U.S.-focused corporate tax cuts would apply to companies that assemble their products domestically out of imports.

Trump also suggested he would use a newly created envoy, and his own personal efforts, to recruit foreign companies. But he had a spotty record in the White House of attracting foreign investment. In one infamous case, Trump promised a $10 billion investment by Taiwan-based electronics giant Foxconn in Wisconsin, creating potentially 13,000 new jobs, that the company never delivered.

His calls to offer federal land, meanwhile, might clash with Bureau of Land Management restrictions on foreign entities looking to lease lands. It also wasn’t clear whether companies from China would be excluded, given Trump’s longtime accusations that China is hurting American business.
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Will pro-Palestinian opposition hurt Harris in Michigan?

The Uncommitted National Movement that began as a protest against President Joe Biden’s policies on the war in Gaza last week announced they will not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate. Another pro-Palestinian group “Abandon Harris” says they’re working to ensure her defeat. Could these movements impact election results in battleground states? White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara brings this story from Michigan, the state with the highest percentage of Arab Americans.
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