Vietnamese automaker Vinfast plunged right into the crowded and hypercompetitive U.S. auto market, gambling that if it can sell its electric vehicles to finicky Americans, it can succeed anywhere. 

So far, that gamble has yet to pay off. Its CEO Le Thi Thu Thuy said in a recent interview with The Associated Press that the U.S. market is “difficult.” It has sold just 2,009 electric vehicles in the U.S., less than 1% of total of total U.S. EV sales, according to Motorintelligence.com. 

Worldwide, Vinfast sold just 19,562 EVs from April-September, well below its 2023 target of 50,000. 

But Vinfast is committed to riding the wave of countries trying to switch to EVs to cut emissions, Thuy said while speaking with The Associated Press at Vinfast’s sleek headquarters in Hanoi. 

Prioritizing the U.S. market, despite its stringent regulations, tough scrutiny by the media, and opposition from Vinfast’s advisers was a deliberate decision, she said. 

“We wanted to go make our name in a very difficult market. Our rationale was very simple. If we can make it there, I mean, people will believe in us,” Thuy said. “So it’s an approval stamp to some extent. But it is very difficult.” 

Vinfast is a part of Vingroup, a sprawling conglomerate that began as an instant noodle company in Ukraine in the 1990s. The company built its first car in 2019 in a seaside factory close to Haiphong, where engineers monitor screens as gleaming metal sheets are expertly snatched by robotic arms and pressed to make frames, doors and other parts that are welded, assembled and painted before the vehicles are tested. 

In mid-August, Vinfast listed its shares on the Nasdaq, seeing them more than double in value to a peak of $82.35 that briefly put its market value above those of General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. in late August. They are now trading at about $5.70.

But while investor enthusiasm cooled after an initial buying frenzy, the company is committed to the U.S. market: It is building a $4 billion EV factory southwest of Raleigh, North Carolina, where production is planned to begin next year.

Later this year, Vinfast plans to begin delivering EVs in Europe, Thuy said. It also is targeting markets in Southeast Asia, India and the Middle East, investing $400 million in electric vehicle factories in India and Indonesia. It aims to have a presence in 50 markets worldwide by 2024.

Vinfast is part of Vingroup, whose founder Pham Nhat Vuong became Vietnam’s richest man as the group’s revenue ballooned more than 50-fold in 2011-2022 to over $5.5 billion. 

The automaker’s ambitions dovetail with communist-ruled Vietnam’s plan to make the auto industry a backbone of the economy: Its tree-lined EV factory was built in less than two years by reclaiming 335 hectares of land from the sea. For now, it’s using only a fraction of its capacity to roll out 250,000 EVs a year.

Vingroup’s backing “helps immensely,” said Matthew Degen, a senior editor at Kelley Blue Book, an American car research company. The question is whether Vuong has the “stomach to go possibly years and years” losing money before Vinfast eventually becomes profitable.

Vinfast quickly abandoned a plan to sell EVs directly to customers like Tesla does and now is focused on working with dealers in the U.S. and Canada to capitalize on their local knowledge, Thuy said.

“We realized that this movement towards EVs is a lot faster than anticipated – and we need to join forces,” she said.

The few automakers that have managed to break into the U.S. have done so by either selling cheaper cars initially, like Hyundai or Kia, or by building a reputation based on performance or design, said Sam Abuelsamid, a mobility analyst for Guidehouse Insights.

“You’ve got to have something that distinguishes you from everyone. … Why are you different?” he said.

So far, it’s unclear what might attract buyers.

Not price. Vinfast’s VF8 crossover or medium-sized SUV starts at $46,000 in California, compared to the $43,990 for a Tesla Model Y. Tesla also qualifies for an additional $7,500 federal tax credit, which Vinfast won’t be eligible for until it begins making cars in their U.S. factory.

The VF8 sedan is around the same size as models made by EV rivals, like Nissan’s Ariya, but has a range of 264 miles (424 kilometers) on a single charge. The Ariya can go up to 304 miles on a charge.

The company could potentially reduce its manufacturing costs to make its cars more affordable, Abuelsamid said. But that would eat into any profit.

“It just costs so much money to start a car company from scratch,” he said.

Vinfast is expecting fresh investments of $1.2 billion from its founder and others in the next six months, as the company said in a securities filing this month.

EV makers without that kind of backing, like the Ohio-based Lordstown Motors in the U.S., which declared bankruptcy in June, are struggling to attain the scale they need to attain profitability. This month, Chinese EV maker WM Motor filed for bankruptcy.

Thuy said Vinfast hopes to attain the scale it needs to make it with sales in Asia. Its two plants in Indonesia and one in India are expected to turn out a total of 50,000 EVs annually, with production slated to begin in 2026, according to a securities filing.

Vinfast’s detractors say its sales of more than 7,000 of its EVs to Vingroup’s Green Smart Mobility taxi company reflects weak private demand for the vehicles. Thuy said the deployment of hundreds of its bright blue VF8s and Feliz S electric scooters is a strategy to familiarize people with EVs, which are quieter and come with connectivity and other options lacking in gas or diesel-powered cars.

“It’s like switching from analog phones to smart phones, basically,” she said.

Private car ownership is relatively new for Vietnam’s 97 million people, who mostly rely on the 65 million Honda and Yamaha motorcycles and scooters that dominate the roads.

But with growing affluence, car sales are steadily rising: More than 500,000 cars were sold in 2022, according to the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. That makes Vietnam 24th in terms of vehicles sold. Toyota Motor Corp., Mitsubishi Motor Corp. and Kia dominate the market, and Chinese rivals like BYD are gaining ground.

Vinfast introduced its VF5 Plus SUV for the local market in April. It sells for $22,000. Next year, it plans to launch sales of a “mini” electric vehicle, only 3.1 meters (10.1 feet) long compared with the average 4 meter (13.1 feet) length of most compact cars.

Vinfast announced on October 11 that it was acquiring VinEF, a Vingroup battery company, in a move that it said would cut costs for batteries by 5% to 7%. That would help, Degen of Kelley Blue Book said, but only if it brings prices down significantly.

Ultimately, he said, Vinfast needs a car that can compete with those of its rivals.

“What will they bring to the table that is better than their rivals and that will make consumers want to take a chance on them and give them business instead of the many other terrific offerings from established players?” 
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Jeep maker Stellantis reached a tentative contract agreement with the United Auto Workers union on Saturday. 

The Stellantis deal, which still must be ratified by members, leaves only General Motors without an agreement with the union.  

Later Saturday night, the union walked out at a GM factory in Spring Hill, Tennessee, in an effort to increase pressure on the company to reach a deal. 

The Stellantis deal mirrors one reached earlier this week with Ford. The union says the contract also saves jobs at a factory in Belvidere, Illinois, that Stellantis had planned to close. 

GM said it was disappointed with the additional strike at the Spring Hill assembly and propulsion systems plant “in light of the progress we have made.” The company said in a statement that it has bargained in good faith with the union and wants to reach a deal as soon as possible. 

Spring Hill is GM’s largest manufacturing facility in North America with about 1 million square meters of building space and almost 4,000 employees. It makes the electric Cadillac Lyriq as well as the GMC Acadia and Cadillac XT5 and XT6 crossover SUVs. 

A message was left Saturday night seeking comment from the union. 

‘We have moved mountains’

UAW President Shawn Fain confirmed the Stellantis agreement in a video appearance Saturday evening and said that 43,000 members at the company still have to vote on the deal. 

About 14,000 UAW workers who were on strike at two Stellantis assembly plants in Michigan and Ohio, and several parts distribution centers across the country, were told to drop their picket signs and return to work. The agreement will end a six-week strike at the maker of Jeep and Ram vehicles. 

The pact includes 25% in general wage increases over the next 4½ years for top assembly plant workers, with 11% coming once the deal is ratified. Workers also will get cost-of-living pay that would bring the raises to a compounded 33%, with top assembly plant workers making more than $42 per hour. At Stellantis, top-scale workers now make around $31 per hour. 

Like the Ford contract, the Stellantis deal would run through April 30, 2028. 

Under the deal, the union said it saved jobs in Belvidere as well as at an engine plant in Trenton, Michigan, and a machining factory in Toledo, Ohio. 

“We’ve done the impossible. We have moved mountains. We have reopened an assembly plant that was closed,” Fain said. 

The deal includes a commitment by Stellantis to build a new midsize truck at its factory in Belvidere, Illinois, that was slated to be closed. About 1,200 workers will be hired back, plus another 1,000 workers will be added for a new electric vehicle battery plant, the union said. 

“We’re bringing back both combustion vehicles and electric vehicle jobs to Belvidere,” Fain said. 

Vice President Rich Boyer, who led the Stellantis talks, said the workforce will be doubled at the Toledo, Ohio, machining plant. The union, he said, won $19 billion worth of investment across the U.S. 

Fain said Stellantis had proposed cutting 5,000 U.S. jobs, but the union’s strike changed that to adding 5,000 jobs by the end of the contract. 

In a statement, the UAW said the Stellantis agreement has gains worth more than four times the improvements in the 2019 contract with the UAW. Through April of 2028, a top-scale assembly plant worker’s base wage will increase more than all the increases in the past 22 years. 

Starting wages for new hires will rise 67% including cost-of-living adjustments to more than $30 per hour, the union said. Temporary workers will get raises of more than 165%, while workers at parts centers will get an immediate 76% increase if the contract is ratified. 

Like the Ford agreement, it will take just three years for new workers to get to the top of the assembly pay scale, the union said. 

The union also won the right to strike over plant closures at Stellantis, and it can strike if the company doesn’t meet product and investment commitments, Fain said. 

Workers expected to OK deal

Bruce Baumhower, president of the local union at a large Stellantis Jeep factory in Toledo, Ohio, that has been on strike since September, said he expects workers will vote to approve the deal because of the pay raises above 30% and a large raise immediately. 

The union began targeted strikes against all three automakers on Sept. 15 after its contracts with the companies expired. At the peak, about 46,000 workers were on strike against all three companies, about one-third of the union’s 146,000 members at the Detroit three. 

With the Ford deal, which established the pattern for the other two companies, workers with pensions will see small increases when they retire, and those hired after 2007 with 401(k) plans will get large increases. For the first time, the union will have the right to go on strike over company plans to close factories. Temporary workers also will get large raises, and Ford agreed to shorten to three years the time it takes for new hires to reach the top of the pay scale. 

Other union leaders who followed more aggressive bargaining strategies in recent months have also secured pay hikes and other benefits for their members. Last month, the union representing Hollywood writers called off a nearly five-month strike after scoring some wins in compensation, length of employment, and other areas. 

Outside the Sterling Heights plant, some workers said they looked forward to a ratification vote and going back to work. 

“The tentative agreement is excellent,” said Anthony Collier, 54, of Sterling Heights, Michigan. “We hear that it’s going to be parity, at least, with Ford, so we believe a lot of people are looking forward to signing. Most of us had to dip into savings, get loans. Everybody knows the economy went up on all of us, so it’s a little tight to be out on strike pay.” 
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Jeep maker Stellantis has reached a tentative contract agreement with the United Auto Workers union that follows a template set earlier this week by Ford, two people with knowledge of the negotiations said Saturday. 

The deal, which still must be ratified by members, leaves only General Motors without a contract with the union. The agreement could end a six-week strike by more than 14,000 workers at Stellantis assembly plants in Michigan and Ohio, and at parts warehouses across the nation. 

Like workers at Ford, the strikers at Stellantis are expected to take down their picket lines and start returning to work in the coming days, before 43,000 union members vote. 

The people, who asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the talks, said most of the main points of the deal at Ford will carry over to Stellantis. 

Ford deal details

The Ford pact includes 25% in general wage increases over the next 41/2 years for top assembly plant workers, with 11% coming once the deal is ratified. Workers also will get cost-of-living pay that would bring the raises to more than 30%, with top assembly plant workers making more than $40 per hour. At Stellantis, top-scale workers now make about $31 per hour. 

Like the Ford contract, the Stellantis deal would run through April 30, 2028. 

The deal includes a new vehicle for a now-idled factory in Belvidere, Illinois, which the company had planned to close. 

Bruce Baumhower, president of the local union at a large Stellantis Jeep factory in Toledo, Ohio, that has been on strike since September, said he expects workers will vote to approve the deal because of the pay raises above 30% and a large raise immediately. 

“Eleven percent is right on the hood,” he said. “It’s a historic agreement as far as I’m concerned.” 

Some union members have been complaining that UAW President Shawn Fain promised 40% raises to match what he said was given to company CEOs, but Baumhower said that was Fain’s opening bid. 

“Anybody who knows anything about negotiations, you always start out much higher than you think is realistic to get,” he said. 

‘It’s a good thing’

Jermaine Antwine and other Stellantis workers picketing outside the automaker’s Sterling Heights, Michigan, were excited Saturday after hearing news of a tentative deal. 

“Anytime you reach a tentative agreement, it’s a good thing,” said Antwine, 48, of Pontiac, Michigan. “It shows both sides have come to a mutual agreement somewhere within the numbers they started with.” 

“Ultimately, the numbers they did come to agree with is what the UAW wanted,” said Antwine, who has spent 24 years with the automaker and is a team leader in materials at the Sterling Heights plant. 

Talks were under way with General Motors on Saturday in an effort to reach a similar agreement. More than 14,000 workers at GM remain on strike at factories in Texas, Michigan and Missouri. 

The union began targeted strikes against all three automakers on September 15 after its contracts with the companies expired. 

Intense negotiations, targeted strikes

The union and Stellantis went into intense negotiations on Thursday, the day after the Ford deal was announced, and finalized the agreement on Saturday. 

UAW workers began their targeted strikes with one assembly plant from each company. The strikes were expanded on September 22, adding 38 GM and Stellantis parts warehouses. Assembly plants from Ford and GM were added the week after that, and then the union hit Ford hard, taking down the Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, the company’s largest and most profitable factory. 

At the peak, about 46,000 workers were on strike against all three companies, about one-third of the union’s 146,000 members at the Detroit three. Automakers laid off several thousand more as parts shortages cascaded through their manufacturing systems. 

Under the Ford deal, workers with pensions also will see small increases when they retire, and those hired after 2007 with 401(k) plans will get large increases. For the first time, the union will have the right to go on strike over company plans to close factories. Temporary workers also will get large raises, and Ford agreed to shorten to three years the time it takes for new hires to reach the top of the pay scale. 

Union success stories

Other union leaders who followed more aggressive bargaining strategies in recent months have also secured pay hikes and other benefits for their members. Last month, the union representing Hollywood writers called off a nearly five-month strike after scoring some wins in compensation, length of employment and other areas. This summer, the Teamsters also secured new pay hikes and benefits for unionized UPS workers after threatening a nationwide strike at the delivery company. 
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Tens of thousands of books are being banned or restricted by U.S. prisons, according to a new report from PEN America. The list includes titles ranging from self-help books to an Elmore Leonard novel.

“The common concept underpinning the censorship we’re seeing is that certain ideas and information are a threat,” said the report’s lead author, Moira Marquis, senior manager in the prison and justice writing department at PEN, the literary and free expression organization.

Timed to the start Wednesday of Prison Banned Books Week, “Reading Between the Bars” draws upon public record requests, calls from PEN to prison mailrooms, dozens of accounts from inmates and PEN’s struggles to distribute its guide for prison writing, “The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting A Writer’s Life in Prison,” which came out last year.

Marquis said that the most common official reasons for bans are security and sexual content, terms that can apply to a very wide range of titles. Michigan’s “restricted” list includes Leonard’s thriller “Cuba Libre,” set right before the 1898 Spanish-American War, and Frederick Forsyth’s “The Day of the Jackal,” about a professional assassin’s attempt to murder French President Charles de Gaulle in the 1960s. Both novels were cited as a “threat to the order/security of institution.”

“One of the books [‘Day of the Jackal’] deals with the planned assassination of a political leader/methods for engaging in such activities and the second [‘Cuba Libre’] deals with an individual engaged in various criminal enterprises,” a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections told The Associated Press in an email. “As part of the updated restricted publication process, a new Literary Review Committee has been formed to review items that were previously placed on the restricted publication list, to determine if they should remain or be removed.”

Amy Schumer’s memoir “The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo” was flagged by Florida officials for graphic sexual content and for being “a threat to the security, order or rehabilitative objectives of the correctional system or the safety of any person.”

Other books to appear on banned lists: Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War,” the compilation “Prison Ramen: Recipes and Stories from Behind Bars,” Barrington Barber’s “Anyone Can Draw: Create Sensational Artwork in Easy Steps” and Robert Greene’s self-help best-seller “48 Laws of Power.”

“It’s a form of control. It’s the ultimate form of power of manipulation,” Greene said in a statement issued through PEN.

In its report, PEN found parallels between the frequency of prison bans and book bannings in schools and libraries. In Florida, PEN has estimated that more than 40% of all library bans took place in the state in 2022. Meanwhile, the organization found that more than 22,000 books are banned from Florida prisons — the highest of any state — as of early this year, with some entries dating back to the 1990s. Texas, another frequent site of library bannings, had more than 10,000 prison book bans, second only to Florida.

Incidents of banning are likely much higher than what PEN has compiled, according to “Reading Between the Bars,” because record-keeping by many prisons is erratic or nonexistent. Kentucky and New Mexico are among more than 20 states that do not keep centralized records.

“Prison book programs have mostly tried to raise awareness locally when prisons implement new censorship restrictions for communities they serve,” the report reads. “But these programs are largely run by volunteers and struggle to keep up with the demand for books even absent censorship. The upshot is that there have been few nationwide efforts to analyze trends in carceral censorship.”

Marquis says that PEN places bans into two categories: content-specific, in which books are banned because of what they say or allegedly say, and content-neutral, in which books are restricted because they are not sent through accepted channels. In Maine, Michigan and other states, prisoners may only receive books through a select number of vendors, whether Amazon.com, a local bookstore or an approved publisher. In Idaho, Amazon and Barnes & Noble are not among the nine approved sellers, which include Books a Million and the Women’s Prison Book Project.

Content-neutral restrictions may also apply to the packaging (some federal facilities only permit white wrapping, Marquis says), and against free or used literature “because the intended recipient did not receive permission from a warden — or similar administrator — for each specific title mailed to them before the literature arrived,” according to Marquis.

A spokesman for the Idaho Department of Correction told the AP in an email that restrictions on packaging had become necessary because of “an increase in the amount of drug-soaked mail being sent to our residents.” He added that inmates can receive books and periodicals free of charge from authorized vendors and publishers.

“We believe our guidelines are a reasonable response to a growing problem that puts the health and safety of the people who live and work in Idaho’s correctional facilities at risk,” he said.

“Reading Between the Bars” follows a report released late in 2022 by the nonprofit Marshall Project, which found some 50,000 banned prison titles, based on lists made available by 19 states.
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An international military forum beginning on Sunday in Beijing is expected to provide an opportunity for direct military-to-military contact between the United States and China, the latest sign of an easing of tensions between the two superpowers. 

A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed to VOA that the United States will be represented at the 10th Xiangshan Forum by Xanthi Carras, the Defense Department’s principal director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia.   

A spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of National Defense announced this week that Russia, Britain and Saudi Arabia also will be among the more than 90 countries, regions and international organizations attending the three-day forum. More than 30 of the delegations will be led by a defense minister or military chief of staff.   

Signs of thaw

The fact that the United States was invited suggests an easing of Beijing’s freeze in high-level military-to-military communications that was imposed after then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August last year. 

Other recent contacts have included talks in early August between Ely Ratner, U.S. assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, and Yang Tao, director of the department of North American and Oceanian affairs at China’s Foreign Ministry.

Defense officials of the two countries also held a hybrid in-person and virtual meeting in late September to discuss the contents of a recent Pentagon strategy document, including a range of cyber-related topics. 

“In terms of hopefully, kind of kick-starting some of the military-to-military engagements, yes, I’m hopeful that we’ll have an opportunity to do that in the coming months,” said Michael Chase, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for China, at a public event this week. 

The signs of a military-to-military thaw accompany other indications of a desire on the part of both countries to ease tensions and avoid misunderstandings over incidents like Thursday’s near-miss between a Chinese fighter jet and an American bomber over the South China Sea.   

“China and the United States need to have dialogue,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Friday. “Not only should we resume dialogue, the dialogue should be in-depth and comprehensive, so that with dialogue we can increase mutual understanding, reduce misunderstanding and misjudgment.” 

‘A small step’

Some U.S. analysts cautiously welcomed the apparent breakthrough on military contacts.   

“I think the fact that the Department of Defense was willing to send a delegation, and indeed that the Chinese invited that delegation, is a small step forward in military-to-military relations. But it is only a small step,” said Dennis Wilder, senior fellow for the Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues at Georgetown University. 

Wilder told VOA there are many levels of exchange between the U.S. and Chinese militaries “that are quite crucial for keeping stability in East Asia that have not been restored and need to be restored.” 

But Richard Fisher, a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, told VOA that the American delegation at the forum will likely be treated with suspicion and used for propaganda.   

“The Chinese Communist Party propaganda apparatus will try to convey this as a symbol of American acceptance of Chinese positions,” he said.   

The prospects for a significant change in military-to-military communications are complicated by the vacancy at the top of China’s defense establishment following the official removal this week of Defense Minister Li Shangfu. 

The United States “has to wait for the key person to be in the key position to be able to decide who to talk to and how to progress … in repairing these ties that have been cut since August 2022,” said Lionel Fatton, assistant professor of international relations and outreach coordinator to the U.N. and NGOs at Webster University Geneva. 
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Former U.S. President Donald Trump is set to testify November 6 at his New York civil fraud trial, following his three eldest children to the witness stand in a case that threatens to disrupt their family’s real estate empire, state lawyers said Friday. 

It was already expected that the former president and sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump would testify. The timing became clear Friday, after Judge Arthur Engoron ruled that daughter Ivanka Trump also must appear, rejecting her bid to avoid testifying. 

The schedule sets up a blockbuster stretch in the trial of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit. She alleges that the former president, now the front-runner to be the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, overstated his wealth for years on financial statements that were given to banks, insurers and others to help secure loans and deals. 

Trump denies any wrongdoing and has called the trial a politically motivated sham. The case could strip Trump of some of his corporate holdings and marquee properties such as Trump Tower. James and Engoron are Democrats. 

Donald Trump and the two sons are defendants in the lawsuit, but the state is initially calling them to the stand before the defense begins its case. The defense can then call them again. 

In a surprise preview, Donald Trump ended up briefly testifying Wednesday to answer Engoron’s questions about whether an out-of-court comment was aimed at his law clerk. The judge had earlier barred participants in the trial from talking publicly about court staffers. 

Trump said his remark wasn’t about the clerk; Engoron called that testimony “not credible” and fined Trump $10,000, on top of a $5,000 fine imposed days earlier over an online post about the clerk. Trump’s lawyers paid both fines on his behalf but still might appeal them, according to a court filing Friday. 

Donald Trump Jr. is now set to testify next Wednesday, brother Eric Trump on Thursday, and sister Ivanka Trump on November 3, though her lawyers may appeal to try to block her testimony. 

An appeals court dismissed her as a defendant in the lawsuit in June, saying the claims against her were too old. Ivanka Trump announced in January 2017, ahead of her father’s inauguration, that she was stepping away from her job as an executive vice president at the family company, the Trump Organization. She soon became an unpaid senior adviser in the Trump White House. After her father’s term ended, she moved to Florida. 

Her lawyer, Bennet Moskowitz, told the judge Friday that state lawyers “just don’t have jurisdiction over her.” One of Donald Trump’s attorneys, Christopher Kise, maintained that state lawyers “just want another free-for-all on another of President Trump’s children.” 

“The idea that somehow Ms. Trump is under the control of the Trump Organization or any of the defendants, her father — anyone who has raised a daughter past the age of 13 knows that they’re not under their control,” Kise said. 

However, lawyers with the state of New York argued that Ivanka Trump was a key participant in some events discussed in the case and remains financially and professionally intertwined with the family business and its leaders. 

Engoron sided with the state, citing documents showing that Ivanka Trump continued to have ties to some businesses in New York and still owns Manhattan apartments. 

“Ms. Trump has clearly availed herself of the privilege of doing business in New York,” Engoron said. 

During her years at the Trump Organization, Ivanka Trump was involved in negotiating and securing financing for various properties, including a lease and loan for a Washington hotel and loans for Trump’s Doral golf resort near Miami and a Trump-owned hotel and condo skyscraper in Chicago, according to court filings. 

According to the New York attorney general’s office, Ivanka Trump retained a financial interest in the Trump Organization’s operations even after leaving for the White House, including through an interest in the now-sold Washington hotel. 

In court papers that included emails and other documents, the state lawyers said the Trump Organization and its staff also have bought insurance for Ivanka Trump and her businesses, managed her household staff and credit card bills, rented her apartment and paid her legal fees. 

In 2021 federal disclosures, she reported $2.6 million in income from Trump entities, including revenue from a vehicle known as TTT Consulting LLC. A company bookkeeper testified that TTT was set up for her and her brothers to reap a share of fees from some licensing agreements. 
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The U.S. Treasury Department announced a second round of sanctions Friday on the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Hamas-linked officials in response to its October 7 attack on Israel that killed more than 1,400 people, including women and children.

The Treasury Department said in a statement the new sanctions, imposed through its Office of Foreign Asset Control, target Hamas financial networks, additional assets in Hamas’s investment portfolio and individuals who have facilitated the evasion of previous, existing sanctions.

The sanctions include members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corp and a Gaza-based organization that funneled illicit funds from Iran to Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The new sanctions follow an initial round of sanctions, imposed October 18, which designated Hamas operatives and financial facilitators, as well as its May 2022 sanctions designating officials and companies involved in managing Hamas’s secret international investment portfolio.

The agency said the secret Hamas portfolio is estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, with companies operated under the guise of legitimate businesses in Sudan, Algeria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and other countries. Their representatives have attempted to conceal Hamas’s control over their assets.

The department release said Friday’s sanctions also are meant to underscore the critical role Iran plays in providing financial, logistical and operational support to Hamas.

In the statement, Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said the latest sanctions demonstrate the U.S. “commitment to dismantling Hamas’s funding networks by deploying our counterterrorism sanctions authorities and working with our global partners to deny Hamas the ability to exploit the international financial system.”

In a separate statement, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States will continue to work with its partners to deny Hamas access to the international financial system “as part of our broader effort to prevent and deter its terrorist activity.”

Some information in this report was provided by Reuters.
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Ukrainian students at Yale University are raising money for the Armed Forces of Ukraine and helping to educate fellow students about the war in their homeland. Iryna Solomko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Videographer: Pavlo Terekhov
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Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s declaration on Wednesday that his relationship with U.S. President Joe Biden was “second to none” must have been a welcome respite for the American president, who is grappling with overlapping crises and mounting anger in the Muslim world.

Biden, who campaigned on a promise to end his nation’s “forever wars,” now must deal with a war in Gaza, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and rising Sino-U.S. tensions over Taiwan. His handling of the Israel-Hamas war has incited condemnation in many parts of the globe and sparked furor from Arab and Muslim communities in the U.S.

“There’s a feeling of betrayal in the American Muslim community where American Muslims see the president as being too one-sided in this conflict,” said Robert McCaw, who leads the Government Affairs Department at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim advocacy network in the U.S.

The administration’s request for supplemental funding to help foreign allies fight their wars is also meeting resistance from some Republican lawmakers, including the newly elected speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson.

Johnson, a staunch fiscal conservative, forcefully supported Kyiv in the initial days of the war but more recently opposed additional aid to Ukraine. As speaker he has said funding will have to come with conditions.

However, Johnson, an evangelical Christian, is deeply sympathetic to Israel, calling up a resolution supporting the country in his first action as speaker on Wednesday.

Nine members of Congress, mostly from the progressive wing of Biden’s Democratic Party, voted against the resolution, largely because it did not mourn the loss of Palestinian lives or mention aspirations for a two-state solution.

“I voted against this resolution because it is a deeply incomplete and biased account of what is happening in Israel and Palestine, and what has been happening for decades,” said Rashida Tlaib, who represents a House district in Michigan, a state with one of the largest Muslim and Arab American populations in the country.

Progressive groups have been pushing Biden to do more to see that humanitarian aid reaches civilians in Gaza, including through a cease-fire.

Support for Israel

Various polls show more Americans sympathize with Israelis than with the Palestinians, though younger Americans are more divided.

Politically, Biden’s support for Israel will help him secure their votes, including a key constituency of his Democratic Party, American Jews, said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

“With American Jews – a very important group in terms of votes and also contributions to the Democratic Party – there’s been almost universal praise for President Biden and the way he’s handled this,” Sabato told VOA. “Sometimes Jewish Americans will move even 40% to a Republican. I don’t think that’s going to happen next year.”

An October 25 Morning Consult poll showed that voters increasingly favor Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza, with an increase of 9 percentage points since the days immediately following Hamas’ attack on Israel.

However, the impact of the war in Gaza on Biden’s re-election bid in 2024 will depend on whether the conflict can be contained.

“If we get involved directly in these forever wars, yes, Biden will suffer,” Sabato said, underlining other key factors in the president’s approval rating – whether Palestinian deaths can be minimized and humanitarian aid delivered.

The president has repeatedly warned Iran not to widen the war, as cross-border attacks between Israel and Tehran-backed Hezbollah intensify in neighboring Lebanon. U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria have also been attacked with drones or rockets at least 17 times in recent days, including on Thursday, according to U.S. officials, who blamed other Iranian-backed militia groups in the region.

Sabato added that as long as Biden keeps American troops out of the line of fire, his support for foreign wars won’t be a major factor in voters’ support. In general, unless soldiers are deployed, foreign policy is not a key driver in how Americans vote.

Economic sentiment, however, plays a pivotal role in how Americans make their electoral choices, and the news is not great for Biden on that front. Despite 4.9% GDP growth in the third quarter and inflation that’s slowly falling from its recent high rates, Americans continue to lament the cost of goods, a key driver of the president’s low approval ratings.

The U.S. is also facing a massive $1.7 trillion federal deficit.

VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson and Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb contributed to this report.
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Amid a recent flurry of U.S.-China diplomacy, a leading congressional voice on China policy is warning against concessions to Beijing, saying they simply serve to encourage even more aggressive behavior.

In an interview with VOA’s Mandarin Service, Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher said that in meetings this week with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, the Biden administration should focus on the defense of Taiwan, trafficking in drug precursors and human rights.

Gallagher is the chairman of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. His remarks have been edited for brevity and clarity.

VOA: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is visiting Washington this week. What are the most important topics you would like to see the administration raise in the meetings?

Representative Mike Gallagher: Well, I think the most important topic is cross-strait deterrence. And it seems that Xi Jinping is preparing his country for a war over Taiwan. He’s repeatedly said that he wants to take Taiwan by force if necessary, and that’s something we need to deter. We need to prevent him from doing that. A conflict between the United States and China would be incredibly costly. It’s not something we want, but all the more reason why we need to send a strong message that the increasing aggression against Taiwan will not be tolerated. We will help Taiwan defend itself. And we will do whatever is necessary to defend our own interests in the Indo-Pacific. 

Beyond that, I would hope that the administration urges the Chinese Communist Party to take more aggressive action when it comes to cracking down on the production of fentanyl precursors. Fentanyl is flooding across the southern [U.S.] border, and it’s killing tens of thousands of Americans. And ultimately, it can be traced back to China. That’s unacceptable.

And finally, I hope we don’t deprioritize the issue of human rights, whether it is the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang, whether it’s the, let’s say, economic coercion that’s happening globally, whether it’s the ongoing suppression of Hong Kongers, there are important human rights issues that the administration needs to raise during these meetings.

VOA: We are seeing more high-level official communications between U.S. and China. Do you think it signals a smoother and maybe a more pragmatic path for U.S.-China relations?

Gallagher: I don’t. I think the administration is trying to revive diplomatic and economic engagement in the hope of taking down the temperature, but I think the opposite is happening. It seems that the more we rush or bend over backwards to sit down at a table with Xi Jinping or some other high-level CCP member, the more aggressive the CCP becomes, and we shelve or delay critical defensive action, whether it’s ending the licensing exemptions that we provide for Chinese companies like Huawei, or providing transparency on the spy balloon incident or actually investigating the origins of COVID. 

We delay these actions for fear of offending the Chinese Communist Party in the hopes that they will reciprocate in kind. And they never do. They continue to hack high-level official emails. They continue to undermine our grid and our infrastructure and cyberspace. They continue to threaten Taiwan, all of these things are unacceptable. 

And so, I worry that this policy of engagement, what I’ve called “zombie engagement,” will actually have the opposite effect. It will actually make the CCP more aggressive, and we will lose time that we need to start defending ourselves from CCP aggression.

VOA: Given the current conflict in Israel and ongoing war in Ukraine, how would that affect the U.S. capability to focus on China or the Indo-Pacific and the threats posed by the CCP? 

Gallagher: Well, it should be a wake-up call to the West. Increasingly, it looks like we have an axis of authoritarian powers that are arrayed against our interests and those of our allies. China is the dominant player in this partnership. Vladimir Putin is a junior partner. But increasingly, there’s collaboration with Iran. These are murderous dictatorial regimes that are threatening our allies. Putin has obviously invaded Ukraine. Hamas has now attacked Israel, killed over 30 Americans, and it could not have done so without the longstanding financial and training support it’s received from Iran.  

So this should be a wake-up call. I don’t believe those who say that it’s an either/or choice between resources, you know, resources in Europe, resources in the Middle East or resources in the Indo-Pacific. This should be an opportunity for us to revitalize and rebuild our defense industrial base, which we’ve neglected for too long, to once again become the arsenal of democracy and deterrence. And if nothing else, to learn the lessons of the failure of deterrence in Ukraine and ensure that those failures are not repeated in the Indo-Pacific region. 

And in my mind, the primary lesson is that hard power, American hard power gives us our best chance of deterring totalitarian aggression, and if we don’t surge hard power to the Pacific now, before it’s too late, we could see a PLA invasion of Taiwan, and it would have the potential to make the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Israel look timid in comparison. 
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Hostilities in the Middle East are reverberating in the United States, where homeland security and law enforcement officials are tracking a steady increase in threats to Jewish, Arab and Muslim communities. 

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI issued an updated advisory late Wednesday, warning “the volume and frequency of threats … have increased” in just the past week.

“These threats have included hoax bomb threats targeting houses of worship and violent rhetoric online encouraging attacks against the Jewish, Arab American, and Muslim communities,” the advisory said. 

It also pointed to the October 14 stabbing attack in Illinois that killed a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy and severely wounded his mother.

Law enforcement agencies across the country, including in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, increased police patrols and other security measures in the days following the October 7 terrorist attack by the Hamas militant group that killed more than 1,400 Israelis.

Additional measures were put in place ahead of calls by a former Hamas official for a day of rage in response to Israel’s air campaign against Hamas, which according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry has killed more than 6,500 people.

The latest advisory from DHS and the FBI says the biggest threat continues to come from “violent extremists and lone offenders motivated by or reacting to ongoing events.”

“We have no specific information that foreign adversaries are plotting attacks against the homeland,” according to the advisory, though it adds, “some are seeking to take advantage of the conflict, calling for violence in furtherance of their respective goals.”

Officials, in particular, point to an October 13 call by al-Qaida for people to support Hamas by attacking American military bases, airports and embassies. It also notes a social media post from the Islamic State terror group on October 19 which urged followers to target the Jewish presence all over the world, “especially Jewish neighborhoods in America and Europe.”

Additionally, officials have raised concerns about Iran, accusing Iranian-backed media of amplifying mis- and disinformation to English-speaking audiences with what the advisory describes as “verifiably doctored or mislabeled images and video footage, inaccurate translations, and misleading content … to stoke passions, accelerate the process of radicalization, and lead individuals to engage in targeted violence.”

Separately, an apparent memo from U.S. Customs and Border Protection recently warned that operatives with links to three U.S.-designated terrorist organizations — Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah — might try to enter the U.S. along its southern border.

The U.S. has designated all three groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

Officials have declined to confirm the authenticity of the memo but told VOA, “CBP has seen no indication of Hamas-directed foreign fighters seeking to make entry into the United States.”
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With jailed American journalist Evan Gershkovich due to spend his birthday Thursday in prison, family and colleagues discuss their efforts to secure his release. VOA’s Cristina Caicedo Smit spoke with the Wall Street Journal reporter’s sister about his case. (Camera: Cristina Caicedo Smit, Saqib Ul Islam; Produced by Cristina Caicedo Smit)
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