Trump and Biden Make Final Pitches as Tuesday Looms

Here is today’s Foreign Policy brief: the 2020 U.S. presidential election campaign enters its final hours, Typhoon Goni hits the Philippines, and Slovakia conducts millions of coronavirus tests in one weekend.

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The United States begins a defining week in its political history today, as the final sprint in the 2020 U.S. presidential election campaign concludes.

U.S. President Donald Trump is keeping up a frantic schedule ahead of tomorrow’s vote with events scheduled today in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Former Vice President Joe Biden will be taking it slow in comparison as he spends the day campaigning in Pennsylvania.

Who will vote? Despite (or perhaps because of) its status as one of the few countries where the candidate with the most votes doesn’t necessarily win, turnout will be watched closely. It’s difficult to predict how many Americans will vote on Nov. 3, but we do know that over 94 million of them have already cast their ballots—an amount that’s nearly 70 percent of the total number of votes cast in 2016, when total turnout was 55.5 percent of the voting-age population. The record for turnout in the twenty-first century was set in 2008 at 57.1 percent; total turnout hasn’t exceeded 60 percent since 1968.

How the world sees it. China’s pro-government Global Times, usually fired up on matters relating to the United States, is downbeat on Tuesday’s vote. “The idea that the U.S. election may become a key point in China-U.S. relations is widely regarded as naïve,” an editorial read. “All in all, U.S. elections are not that important to China. The Chinese people should not count that the U.S. accidentally or suddenly changes its mind.”

In Iran, the government news agency described a country on the edge of chaos, following months of unrest. “The U.S. is like a barrel of gunpowder and just a spark is more than enough to blow it up,” one article warned.

In Foreign Policy, Ali M. Latifi reports from Kabul on how Afghans see the election, and Oliver Stuenkel explores how the election outcome will affect U.S. ties with Brazil.

What if Trump wins? Despite trailing both in national polls and in key states, a Trump loss is not a foregone conclusion. Writing in Foreign Policy, Bruce Stokes looks at how a second Trump term could mean a softening in his approach to European allies. And FP’s Robbie Gramer dug into the list of Trump successes on foreign-policy during his time in office.

On Monday, Nov. 2, the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) holds a meeting on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems in Geneva, Switzerland.

A partial lockdown begins in Germany in order to halt the spread of the coronavirus.

On Tuesday, Nov. 3, it’s the final day of voting in the U.S. presidential election.

Eurozone finance ministers meet via videoconference. The agenda includes a discussion on the euro as a digital currency.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) hosts its annual Mediterranean Conference. Representatives from Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia are also invited.

On Wednesday, Nov. 4, the U.S. officially withdraws from the Paris Climate Agreement, a year since the withdrawal submission was made on Nov. 4, 2019.

Council of Europe member foreign ministers meet via videoconference.

On Thursday, Nov. 5, a new four-week lockdown begins in England in an attempt to slow the spread of coronavirus infections.

The U.S. Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decides whether to raise, lower, or maintain U.S. interest rates.

On Friday, Nov. 6, the U.S. monthly jobs report is released.

On Sunday, Nov. 8, Myanmar holds its general election. The United Nations human rights office has already complained about the vote, saying new restrictions announced in early October disenfranchise the country’s Rohingya and Rakhine populations.

Luis Arce, of Bolivia’s MAS socialist party, is due to be sworn-in as president after winning the Oct. 18 election.

Algeria’s no-show referendum. Algerians largely avoided a Sunday referendum on a new constitution, the results of which are due this morning. Algeria’s election body recorded a 23.7 percent turnout in a vote intended to placate a restive public, many of whom took to Algeria’s streets in weekly protests last year. President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who along with the country’s military had presented the new constitution as a response to the protests, was recently flown to Germany for treatment after suffering coronavirus-related symptoms.

Ivory Coast instability. Ivory Coast’s ruling party has warned the country’s opposition against “any attempt at destabilization” following Saturday’s presidential election. President Alassane Ouattara is likely to win in a landslide after his opponents—who say the president’s running for a third term is illegal—called for a boycott of the vote. In a joint statement, two opposition candidates, former President Henri Konan Bédié, and former Prime Minister Pascal Affi N’Guessan, said 30 people had died since the election was held.

Typhoon Goni aftermath. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and at least 16 have died in the Philippines after Super Typhoon Goni made landfall on Sunday morning. The Red Cross said that 90 percent of the buildings were damaged in the town of Virac, where the typhoon first struck. Goni is the world’s strongest typhoon this year and the most powerful storm the country has endured since Typhoon Haiyan in 2013.

Khan makes Kashmir moves. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said that his government will give provisional provincial status to part of Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan, which borders China and Afghanistan. India’s foreign ministry said it “firmly rejects” the move, which would need an amendment to the Pakistani constitution to bring into force. Khan did not say when exactly Gilgit-Baltistan would receive its new status. 

Slovakia tests millions. Roughly half of Slovakia’s population of 5.5 million underwent COVID-19 tests over the weekend, as part of a government drive to test all residents over the age of 10 within two weeks. Similar mass-testing drives took place in the Chinese city of Wuhan in May, but Saturday’s tests mark the first time such a strategy has been employed in Europe. Of those tested in Slovakia, roughly 1 percent, or 25,850 people, tested positive for the coronavirus.

Slovakia was an early success story in managing the coronavirus outbreak—thanks to public trust and media messaging—and is seeking to maintain its reputation for sound management of the pandemic as it faces a surge in infections.

Two men who fooled a local physician into buying an ostensibly magic lamp have been arrested in India, Agence France-Presse reports. According to local reporting, Laeek Khan, had purchased the lamp for roughly $90,000 after seeing a convincing demonstration of its powers, including the appearance of a genie. Khan later realized the genie had been one of the men in disguise and reported the scam to police in Uttar Pradesh. The wife of one of the men involved in the trick is currently on the run from authorities.

That’s it for today. 

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