LONDON — America’s allies in Europe are debating what Donald Trump’s win in Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election could mean for their security and prosperity amid concerns that the next four years may once again be characterized by a turbulent transatlantic alliance.

European interests

About 50 European leaders met in Budapest on Thursday for a summit of the European Political Community, which was set up in 2022 in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Europe must stand up for itself as it prepares for the next Trump presidency in the United States.

“There is a geopolitical situation where it is clear that we have two blocs: the United States of America on one side and China on the other, which above all seek their own interests,” Macron told the other European leaders.

“I think that our role here in the European Union is not to comment on the election of Donald Trump, to wonder if it is good or not. He was elected by the American people, and he is going to defend the interests of American people and that is legitimate and that is a good thing,” he said.

“The question is, are we ready to defend the interests of Europeans? That is the only question that we should ask ourselves. And for me, I think that is our priority,” he said.

NATO

The NATO alliance remains the bedrock of Europe’s security.

“The first implication for the alliance is how to continue support for Ukraine if there’s an expected drawdown of military assistance from the U.S.,” said Ed Arnold, senior research fellow for European security at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute.

“That can either be delivered through NATO — and there were some steps taken in this summer to sort of formalize those structures — but still significantly less than where it needs to be. It can also be done through the EU as well, which might increase slightly but probably not enough. Or it can be done bilaterally,” Arnold told VOA.

“I think actually the mechanisms are probably largely irrelevant. It’s more about the cost to individual nations, and that’s going to have to ramp up pretty quickly if they’re going to be able to have that impact,” he said.

Shortfall

Does Europe have the capacity to make up any shortfall from a U.S. withdrawal of support for Kyiv?

“Yes, but it would take a lot more effort than Europe is making now,” according to analyst Ian Bond of the Center for European Reform. “And I think there will be some, perhaps in Germany, perhaps elsewhere, who will say the Ukrainians are just going to have to put up with losing some of their territory.

“I think for the Baltic states, for the Nordic states, Poland — they will look at this and they will say, ‘Russia is going to be an existential threat to us if it is allowed to control Ukraine. And therefore we must step up our efforts,'” Bond said.

On the campaign trail, Trump said he would end the Russia-Ukraine war on day one, although he didn’t elaborate on how that would be achieved. In the past he has boasted of a good relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

 

Peace deal?

Ukraine fears being forced into an unfavorable peace deal — and Europeans might change their calculations, said analyst Arnold of RUSI.

“There might be a bit of a worry where there’s some within Europe who say, “Why would we ramp up aid now if there’s going to be a negotiated settlement fairly soon? And I think the real risk for Europe as a whole — the EU but also NATO — is that actually the U.S. and Russia might start to do these negotiations without them,” Arnold said.

Leverage

There are deeper concerns that the U.S. might withdraw wider support for European security. Former government officials say Trump considered pulling the U.S. out of NATO altogether in his first term.

“One of the very few consistent beliefs that Trump has held to since he entered politics has been the idea that the United States is being taken advantage of by its allies,” said Jonathan Monten, a U.S. foreign policy analyst at University College London.

“At times, Trump threatened to withdraw from the alliance altogether but was ultimately held back. So the million-dollar question … is whether or not he will actually act on that threat,” Monten told VOA.

“I think he likes the idea that he’s keeping foreign allies as well as adversaries guessing as to his ultimate intentions. I think he sees that as a source of leverage, as a source of power,” he said.

NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, who took over the role October 1, has struck a more upbeat tone, praising Trump for getting allies to spend more on defense.

“When he was president, he was the one in NATO who stimulated us to move over the 2% [of GDP spending target],” Rutte told reporters in Budapest on Thursday.

Tariffs

It’s not only security fears that are haunting European capitals. America’s allies could also face economic turbulence when Trump enters the White House.

“The [Trump] claims of putting about 60% or more tariffs on all imports from China will have to have a major disruptive impact on world trade, and there will be repercussions on the EU, on Europe, on the U.K. and elsewhere. We can expect also tariffs on imports from the EU as well,” said Garret Martin, co-director of the Transatlantic Policy Center at American University in Washington.

“One element that I think is going to be absolutely critical for Europe, for the EU, is to work on protecting its unity and its unanimity. Trump, I think, is likely to try to adopt a divide and rule approach,” Martin said.

Unpredictability

Trump’s unpredictability means there is little Europe’s leaders can do to prepare, said Monten.

“They can try flattery,” he said. “They can try to offer him deals that benefit him personally, but it’s unclear what exactly they would have to offer. They can offer him the kind of stature or respect that comes along with a big grand summit or trade deal. He seems to crave that kind of respect.

“But when it comes to actual tangible concrete results, it is unclear what levers they have either to threaten him with or to cajole him with,” Monten told VOA.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is sometimes at odds with Western leaders but has made no secret of what he says were his warm dealings with President-elect Donald Trump during the U.S. leader’s first term. Observers say he is now looking to those warm ties as an opportunity to end regional conflicts, but also to ask for greater U.S. cooperation against Kurdish separatists, as Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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WASHINGTON — A military judge has ruled that plea agreements struck by alleged September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two co-defendants are valid, voiding an order by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to throw out the deals, a government official said.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity Wednesday because the order by the judge, Air Force Colonel Matthew McCall, has not yet been posted publicly or officially announced.

Unless government prosecutors or others attempt to challenge the plea deals again, McCall’s ruling means that the three 9/11 defendants before long could enter guilty pleas in the U.S. military courtroom at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, taking a dramatic step toward wrapping up the long-running and legally troubled government prosecution in one of the deadliest attacks on the United States.

The plea agreements would spare Mohammed and two co-defendants, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, the risk of the death penalty in exchange for the guilty pleas.

Government prosecutors had negotiated the deals with defense attorneys under government auspices, and the top official for the military commission at the Guantanamo Bay naval base had approved the agreements.

The plea deals in the September 11, 2001, al-Qaida attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people spurred immediate political blowback by Republican lawmakers and others after they were made public this summer.

Within days, Austin issued a brief order saying he was nullifying them. Plea bargains in possible death penalty cases tied to one of the gravest crimes ever carried out on U.S. soil were a momentous step that should only be decided by the defense secretary, Austin said at the time.

The agreements, and Austin’s attempt to reverse them, have made for one of the most fraught episodes in a U.S. prosecution marked by delays and legal difficulties. That includes years of ongoing pretrial hearings to determine the admissibility of statements by the defendants given their years of torture in CIA custody.

The Pentagon is reviewing the judge’s decision and had no immediate further comment, said Major General Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary.

Lawdragon, a legal news site that long has covered the courtroom proceedings from Guantanamo, and The New York Times first reported the ruling.

Military officials have yet to post the judge’s decision on the Guantanamo military commission’s online site. But Lawdragon said McCall’s 29-page ruling concludes that Austin lacked the legal authority to toss out the plea deals and acted too late, after Guantanamo’s top official already had approved the deals.

Abiding by Austin’s order would give defense secretaries “absolute veto power” over any act they disagree with, which would be contrary to the independence of the presiding official over the Guantanamo trials, the law blog quotes McCall as saying in the ruling.

While families of some of the victims and others are adamant that the 9/11 prosecutions continue until trial and possible death sentences, legal experts say it’s not clear that could ever happen. If the 9/11 cases ever clear the hurdles of trial, verdicts and sentencings, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit would likely hear many of the issues in the course of any death penalty appeals.

The issues include the CIA destruction of videos of interrogations, whether Austin’s plea deal reversal constituted unlawful interference and whether the torture of the men tainted subsequent interrogations by “clean teams” of FBI agents that did not involve violence.
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Taipei, Taiwan — Following U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s sweeping victory, Chinese netizens said they expect the U.S. to increase trade tensions with China while analysts say Washington’s efforts to counter China’s expansion might weaken under a second Trump administration.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump has vowed to impose tariffs, between 60% to 200%, on Chinese products on several occasions. During an interview with Fox News on February 4, Trump said he would impose more than 60% tariffs on Chinese imports but emphasized he wasn’t going to start a trade war with China.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump said he would tax China at 150% to 200% if Beijing decides to “go into Taiwan.”

Some Chinese internet users expect Trump to follow through on the campaign promise to impose huge tariffs on Chinese products but have mixed views about how the tariffs will affect the Chinese economy and their livelihoods.

Amid China’s ongoing economic downturn, some Chinese social media users worry that Trump’s return to the White House could exacerbate the economic pressure on many Chinese citizens.  

“It’s hard to look at Trump’s victory with pure joy, because he is going to launch a trade war with China when he comes into power, and our economy will suffer further,” a Chinese netizen in the capital, Beijing, wrote on the popular microblogging site Weibo, which is similar to X.

“How will the lives of normal citizens change? I’m feeling a sense of unease about the unpredictability of the future,” the person added.

Others say the 60% tariff on Chinese imports to the United States that Trump proposed during the campaign will push Chinese companies to redirect exports from the U.S. to other markets, including Southeast Asia, South America and Europe.

“Trump’s approach of being [an] enemy with the whole world may make some left-wing regimes in Europe disappointed, and this development may lead to a de-escalation of trade tensions between China and Europe,” Niu Chun-bao, chairman of Shanghai Wanji Asset Management Co., posted on Weibo.

Some Chinese netizens predict the immense pressure that Trump is likely to impose on Beijing will enhance China’s domestic unity, and his transactional approach to resolving tensions may offer more room for negotiation and bargaining.

“As long as there are no major internal problems, no external pressure can overwhelm China. So, I think the overall situation may still be positive,” another netizen in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong wrote on Weibo.

‘Significant hit’

While Chinese netizens hold mixed views about the potential tariffs that Trump has vowed to impose on Chinese imports, analysts say this move would be “a significant hit” to the Chinese economy, which has been troubled by an ongoing property crisis, high youth unemployment and weak domestic demand.

If Trump decides to impose 60% tariffs on all Chinese products imported to the U.S., “This would be a return to a big-picture trade war rather than a narrow tech war. And it would have a much deeper impact on China’s export-driven growth potential because he is hitting the entirety of China’s exports to the U.S.,” Jacob Gunter, an expert on China’s political economy at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, told VOA by phone.

In Gunter’s view, Trump may use the tariffs to force China to make more concessions on trade. After imposing up to 25% tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods imported to the U.S. in 2019, the Trump administration and China reached a trade deal that saw Beijing promise to increase purchases of American goods to at least $200 billion.

“We could see a return to the deal-making Donald Trump, where he wants to strike a deal and be viewed as this great negotiator, because that’s who he imagines himself to be,” Gunter said, adding that it remains to be seen how Trump might position the tariffs during his second term.

Other experts say one thing to look out for is what concessions Trump might make during a potential negotiation with China.

“One big question is whether Trump will soften the position the Biden administration has maintained on Taiwan in exchange for more exports and more U.S. investment into China,” Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific at French investment bank Natixis, told VOA by phone.

The Trump campaign has not yet responded to a VOA request for comment regarding his administration’s trade plans with China once he takes office in January.

In response to potential tariffs that the incoming Trump administration could impose, analysts say China could impose counter-tariffs on U.S. agricultural products from states controlled by the Republican Party.

“Economic and political tensions between the two countries will inevitably rise, while the global economy and global supply chains will be thrown into chaos,” Zhiqun Zhu, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at Bucknell University, told VOA in a written response.

Weakened coordination with allies

While trade and economic tensions between China and the U.S. are expected to rise during Trump’s second term, Zhu said Trump’s return to power may also be good news for Beijing, as Washington’s efforts to counter China’s expansion of its influence in the Indo-Pacific region may be weakened due to Trump’s isolationist approach in international affairs.

“Trump is more likely to push ahead with his agenda without consulting allies and partners or seeking their support, and this might be good news for China,” Zhu told VOA.

“China can take a ‘divide-and-conquer’ strategy to dilute the effectiveness of Trump’s foreign policy, especially the Indo-Pacific strategy, and we may see improvements in China’s relations with its neighbors, particularly Japan, South Korea and India, as well as U.S. allies in other parts of the world,” Zhu added.

In his view, bilateral relations between China and the U.S. will be dominated by competition under the second Trump administration, but there is also room for diplomacy and cooperation.

“Competition itself is not necessarily harmful, because if the two countries can manage the competition in a healthy way, both sides can benefit,” Zhu said.  
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday was quick to welcome Donald Trump’s U.S. presidential election victory. The Turkish leader is eager to resume the close ties he had with the White House during Trump’s first term in office. Under U.S. President Joe Biden, relations between Ankara and Washington had become frosty. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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With Donald Trump’s projected victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, VOA’s Tina Trinh explores how his past policies and current positions offer insight into the upcoming presidency. (Camera: Tina Trinh)
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The Republican party won back a majority in the Senate with at least 51 of 100 seats in Tuesday’s election. Control of the House of Representatives, which is currently held by Republicans, was not yet decided early Wednesday.

All 435 seats in the House of Representatives were at stake in elections throughout the United States for new two-year terms, while 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate were contested for new six-year terms.

Before election day, Democrats had narrow control of the Senate and Republicans of the House. Key Republican victories for Senate seats in West Virginia and Ohio put them in position to be back in the majority.

In the House, Republicans held a 220-212 edge, with three vacant seats going into the election. Control of that chamber has not been confirmed yet. Control of the House may not be known for several days, as California has often taken days to count ballots, and recounts and runoffs of close races can take weeks to resolve.

Political surveys throughout the election campaign have shown voters — much like in the Kamala Harris-Donald Trump race for the White House — evenly divided in their political preference for congressional control.

An October Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 43% of registered voters would back the Republican House candidate in their district, while 43% would back the Democratic candidate.
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Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks to his supporters at an election night watch party early Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla.  
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Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have spent the past few months battling for the White House, and experts say that votes for third party candidates could be a deciding factor for who will become the next president of the United States.  

With the latest polls showing Harris and Trump in a dead heat in battleground states around the country, ballots cast for third-party candidates Jill Stein of the Green Party, independent Cornel West and Libertarian Chase Oliver could be enough to tip the scales.  

VOA Persian spoke with all three of them. Their responses have been edited for length and clarity.  

Green Party candidate Jill Stein 

VOA: During one of his final campaign rallies in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, former President Donald Trump praised you, saying he loved the Green Party and that you might be one of his favorite politicians. What do you make of this?  

Jill Stein: I make of that about as much as I make of Donald Trump’s assessment of climate change, which is that he sort of believes the opposite of reality. I am in this race to provide an alternative to the two parties that are bought and paid for, that are serving Wall Street and the war contractors and definitely not the American people. So I don’t have a lot of high regard for Donald Trump’s political strategies or his values.  

VOA: How much support do you expect to receive in battleground states like Michigan? There were some polls that suggested you have support of over 40% of the Arab American population there.  

Stein: Exactly what the numbers will turn out to be, it depends how many people are turning out to vote. It depends how strong the vote of the, not only the Muslim population, but also many African Americans and Hispanics and young people who feel like they do not have a future under Kamala Harris, and they do not have a future under Donald Trump. At this point, it’s too soon to say. We ourselves do not strictly work based on polls. We’re really in this based on principle and for the long haul. We would be delighted if we make the 5% cut in the national poll in the national results, but it’s very hard to say at this point.  

VOA: What would be your position regarding the government of Iran?  

Stein: I think we need to open the door to negotiations with Iran. Iran has elected a new president who is said to be moderate and interested in improving relations with the West, and we need to explore that. I think the most critical thing in the Middle East right now is resolving this expanding war and the intention of Bibi [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu to create a wider war and drag the U.S. into it. I think that is the greatest threat to peace in the Middle East right now and has the potential to grow into a conflict that’s even bigger than the Middle East. 

Independent candidate Cornel West 

VOA: How many states allowed you to have your name on the ballot and why did others not?    

Cornel West: We’ve got 16 states where we have direct ballot access. We have 24 states where we have write-in access, and that did require petitions and signatures. So that required a lot of work on behalf of magnificent volunteers. But it was very difficult. There’s been a tremendous struggle, but we come up swinging.  

VOA: How different will your policy be compared to what we hear from Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump?  

West: Martin Luther King [Jr.] said, militarism, racism, poverty and materialism are the four forces that are sucking the democratic energy out of the American social experiment. I take very seriously his critique of militarism. I see that as a criticism of American foreign policies in which we are so eager to create these lethal armed forces rather than engage in wise diplomatic processes. And so there would be no genocide. I would have had an embargo on any kind of military or financial support of Israel as it was very clear that they were laying bare this kind of massive massacre on innocent people, especially innocent children and women and men.  

The same would be true in terms of being able to bring an end to the war in Ukraine. Same would be true in terms of trying to be more diplomatic with China. I see Kamala Harris as a militarist, Black woman. That is to say she’s willing to not just provoke, but to push [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. And I think Putin himself is still very much a gangster and a war criminal in his own way, but he has a right — Russia has a right to security. And the same is true with China. There’s too much provocation, and I think that moves us toward World War III in the same way that Trump moves us towards Civil War II at home. And that was one reason why I wanted to provide some kind of alternative to Trump and [U.S. President Joe] Biden.

And then when Biden had his LBJ moment [referring to Biden’s poor debate performance] something that we talked about many, many months ago, we just predicted that Harris now is following through on the same militarism in Gaza. And of course, genocide, the crime of genocide, is a litmus test of morality of any nation, any country, and if you deny it, if you enable it, it’s a sign that you don’t have a moral fiber in your military policy.  

VOA: Many people in the occupied West Bank are disturbed by Tehran’s support for militants in Gaza. How do you see this considering the moral aspects of your vision, your doctrine and your policy?    

West: Malcolm X used to say, I’m for truth, no matter who’s for it, and justice, no matter who supports it. People can actually support just movements for motivations that themselves are highly suspicious. When the French supported the American revolutionaries, when Lafayette came to the United States, it was partly because the French were over against the British in Europe, they didn’t have a whole lot of solidarity with these colonists responding against the British Empire. … The Soviet Union supported the freedom struggles in Africa. It wasn’t always because they just love Africans so much. It was anti-United States. They had a Cold War going on, and their policies were strategic and tactical in that way. The same would be true for Iran vis-a-vis Palestinians.

So I think we have to be very truthful about the ways in which the motives might not always be attractive, but when you’re a people like Palestinians this moment, whose backs are against the wall, they need help from anybody, and it’s very important that people highlight their plight so that their babies are not crushed. But that doesn’t mean that those who are supporting them always have the right motives, and therefore we can still be critical of what those motives are.  

Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver 

VOA: In your platform, you mentioned that Libertarians seek the United States at peace with the world. How different will your foreign policy be?

Chase Oliver: It would be a drastic difference than what the status quo has been, certainly since I’ve been an adult. Since I’ve been an adult, let’s just call it the post-9/11 War on Terror kind of foreign policy mindset that we’ve had, which I think is rooted in ideas that are very black and white. You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists.

The best way to solve a problem is through a preemptive war or through increasing our military presence in the region, to flex our muscle. And what I think that has done is actually created further instability, particularly in the Middle East, which I don’t think has been a success despite the trillions of dollars we’ve spent in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I don’t think you can say either of those nations are particularly bastions of democracy, or that the region itself is now more stable than it was.

And so for me, I would say let’s remove our military footprint and start flexing our diplomatic muscle. Let’s start meeting with world leaders directly, one on one. Let’s start forming coalitions around peaceful ideas and free trade and voluntary exchange to tear down barriers between our nations so that we can have cultural exchanges with one another. I think these are the ideas that we really need to be pushing, and not a militarized foreign policy that’s ruined the idea that the United States must be the world’s enforcer.   

VOA: So you don’t see America as the leader of the free world with its responsibilities?    

Oliver: I absolutely see America as a leader in terms of the markets of the world, the economic engine of the world, the diplomatic arm of the world. But it doesn’t need to be coming, using the military might of the world. Teddy Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” We have a very powerful military that can defend ourselves, and ultimately, if there were a need and if Congress declared a war, fight a war anywhere in the world with absolute certainty that we could dominate our opponent. But you don’t flex your muscle like that around the world. That’s not a position of strength. When you use that military might to push your agenda, that’s actually a position of weakness, because good ideas should not require force, and you should be able to diplomatically work throughout the world.

And I recognize the world is not perfect. The world does not lack violence. The world is not lacking for bad people, particularly governments around the world who represent good people. And Iran is no different. The government of Iran is abhorrent. They’re abusive to their people. They curtail their rights. But the people of Iran are good, innocent people who don’t deserve to have things like airstrikes and missiles raining down upon them because of the evils of their government. And I hope that ultimately, we can liberalize the world more towards more liberalized things like free speech, freedom of movement and freedom of religion. But that’s not going to come just from us beating people down. 

VOA: How difficult is it to run as a third-party candidate?    

Oliver: Running as an alternative party candidate has a lot of challenges because the two mainstream parties have a lot of built-in incumbency power, both in the number of elected officials they have as well as things like taxpayer-funded primaries. So they basically take taxes out of my wallet to fund primaries that help promote the candidates that are Republicans and Democrats.

And as a Libertarian, we’re kind of left in the lurch there. So there’s a lot of challenges, especially around things like ballot access. There’s a lot of solutions. And actually a big part of my platform is a thing called the voter bill of rights that will open up this process, not just for Libertarians like myself, but all sorts of other alternative parties that really need to have their voices heard. 
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A caravan of approximately 3,000 migrants set off on Tuesday from southern Mexico, headed toward the United States on the day when U.S. voters were deciding between U.S. presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

Immigration has been a key issue in the U.S. election campaign.

Before heading northward, the migrants gathered in Tapachula, the capital of the southern Chiapas state, carrying banners with messages such as “NO MORE MIGRANT BLOOD” and images of the Virgin of Guadalupe, an important religious and cultural symbol in Mexico, according to Reuters witnesses.

“We want U.S. authorities to see us, to see that we are people who want to work, not to harm anyone,” said Honduran migrant Roy Murillo, who joined the caravan with his two children and his pregnant wife.

In recent years, several caravans with people hoping to enter the United States have attempted to reach the U.S.-Mexican border, traveling in mass groups for safety. Most have dispersed along the way.

“I’m afraid to travel alone with my family. Here, the cartels either kidnap you or kill you. … That’s why we’re coming in the caravan,” Murillo said.

Murillo recounted his unsuccessful attempts to secure an asylum appointment through a mobile app developed by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency.

Tapachula, a mandatory crossing point for tens of thousands of migrants, has become one of Mexico’s most violent cities in recent months, with migrants frequently targeted by organized crime, according to official data.

“I feel suffocated here. That’s why we decided to leave,” said 28-year-old Venezuelan migrant Thais, who spoke on condition that her surname not be used due to safety concerns.

She joined the caravan with her husband and 3-year-old daughter.

“I wish Mr. Trump and Ms. Kamala would see that we are human beings, that we want to live and support our families,” she added.

Voters cast ballots on Tuesday in the race between Vice President Harris, a Democrat seeking to become the first female U.S. president, and Trump, a Republican immigration hard-liner aiming to regain the presidency.
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SEATTLE — Unionized machinists at Boeing voted Monday to accept a contract offer and end their strike after more than seven weeks, clearing the way for the aerospace giant to resume production of its bestselling airliner and generate much-needed cash.

Leaders of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers district in Seattle said 59% of members who cast ballots agreed to approve the company’s fourth formal offer and the third put to a vote. The deal includes pay raises of 38% over four years, and ratification and productivity bonuses.

However, Boeing refused to meet strikers’ demand to restore a company pension plan that was frozen nearly a decade ago.

The contract’s ratification on the eve of Election Day clears the way for a major U.S. manufacturer and government contractor to restart Pacific Northwest assembly lines that the factory workers’ walkout have idled for 53 days.

Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg said in a message to employees Monday night that he was pleased to have reached an agreement.

“While the past few months have been difficult for all of us, we are all part of the same team,” Ortberg said. “We will only move forward by listening and working together. There is much work ahead to return to the excellence that made Boeing an iconic company.”

According to the union, the 33,000 workers it represents can return to work as soon as Wednesday or as late as Nov. 12. Boeing’s CEO has said it might take “a couple of weeks” to resume production in part because some could need retraining.

The contract decision is “most certainly not a victory,” said Eep Bolaño, a Boeing calibration specialist based in Seattle who voted in favor of ratification. Bolaño said she and her fellow workers made a wise but infuriating choice to accept the offer.

“We were threatened by a company that was crippled, dying, bleeding on the ground, and us as one of the biggest unions in the country couldn’t even extract two-thirds of our demands from them. This is humiliating,” Bolaño said.

Leaders of IAM District 751 had endorsed the latest proposal, saying they thought they had gotten all they could though negotiations and the strike.

“It is time for our members to lock in these gains and confidently declare victory,” the union district said before Monday’s vote. “We believe asking members to stay on strike longer wouldn’t be right as we have achieved so much success.”

The average annual pay of Boeing machinists is currently $75,608 and eventually will rise to $119,309 under the new contract, according to the company.

A continuing strike would have plunged Boeing into further financial peril and uncertainty.

CEO Kelly Ortberg, an outsider who started at Boeing only in August, has announced plans to lay off about 10% of the workforce, about 17,000 people, due to the strike and a series of other factors that diminished the company’s reputation and fortunes this year.
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Lawrenceville, Georgia — One of the most ethnically diverse counties in the Southeastern United States will be among those issuing early voting results Tuesday night, a reveal that could indicate which of the presidential candidates is in the lead in the crucial count of 538 electoral votes.

The victor must receive at least 270 of those electoral votes, and Georgia, seen as one of the seven states where the outcome is uncertain, has 16 of those precious votes. Only Pennsylvania has more — 19 — among the battleground states. North Carolina also has 16.

The other wild cards are Arizona (11), Michigan (15), Nevada (6) and Wisconsin (10).

It is possible for the declared victor in the electoral count to lose the national popular vote total. That last happened in 2016, when Republican Donald Trump won 304 electoral votes but lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton by about 2%.

It could be days before the United States knows who its next president will be, but at the Gwinnett County Voter Registration and Elections headquarters in the swing state of Georgia, workers are already scanning several hundred thousand ballots submitted in advance by mail-in and early voters. The tabulations of those ballots will be released the moment the polls close at 7 p.m. on Tuesday.

Up to 70% of the vote total from those already-processed ballots will be known within that first hour, said Zach Manifold, the county’s elections supervisor.

“And then, kind of a long night begins,” Manifold told VOA on Monday. “Our first precinct usually arrives maybe about 8:30, just depending on how much line there is at seven o’clock. But 8:30 is the first precinct. We have 156 precincts that all have to come back. I don’t know why, but it always seems like that last one comes in sometime between 11:30 and midnight.

“After you get past midnight, you’ll probably have just about all the precincts in and have a pretty good feel for the final — at least the unofficial results — for Gwinnett,” Manifold said.

To demonstrate transparency, the media, which is expected to include dozens of TV news crews and other journalists from around the world, will be allowed in the large room where the ballots are opened. The reporters will be kept behind a cordon but not prevented from observing the entire process. Activities in the tabulation room, in another part of the same building, will be livestreamed online.

Gwinnett County, with a population of about 1 million, is the second-largest county in Georgia. It is remarkable for its exceptional diversity, with no single ethnic group making up more than about one-third of its residents. In 2023, non-Hispanic whites made up about one-third of the country’s population, as did African Americans, according to census data.

“We have a very large Hispanic population, Asian population, Black population,” said Manifold. “It is a very much a mixture of what is America. And, so, I think a lot of the reason that people are wanting to see what Gwinnett’s like [on election night] is, I think, Gwinnett is a lot like modern America.”

Democrat Joe Biden’s strong margin in this suburban county four years ago helped him narrowly win Georgia and thus the presidency, unseating Trump.

Gwinnett County voted Republican every year between 1980 and 2012, but in line with a trend of suburban political realignment, went narrowly for Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016. Trump, a political novice that year, won Georgia overall in 2016, which was key to his unexpected presidential victory.

Regardless of the outcome this week, Manifold knows he will be drinking a lot of coffee from Tuesday morning to stay alert.

“It’s about a 24-hour day a lot of the time in these presidential elections,” he said. “I’ll start at our warehouse at 4 a.m., and we’ll see what time we get out of here at the main office.”
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