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Trump Heads to a Deep-Red Part of Swing-State Wisconsin to Talk about the Economy

Republican presidential nominee, former US President Donald Trump addresses the Economic Club of New York at Cipriani's on September 5, 2024, in New York City. Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP
Republican presidential nominee, former US President Donald Trump addresses the Economic Club of New York at Cipriani's on September 5, 2024, in New York City. Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP
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Trump Heads to a Deep-Red Part of Swing-State Wisconsin to Talk about the Economy

Republican presidential nominee, former US President Donald Trump addresses the Economic Club of New York at Cipriani's on September 5, 2024, in New York City. Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP
Republican presidential nominee, former US President Donald Trump addresses the Economic Club of New York at Cipriani's on September 5, 2024, in New York City. Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP

Former President Donald Trump heads to Wisconsin on Saturday for a rally that's intended to focus heavily on the economy, marking his first trip to the deep red, largely rural part of the key battleground state.
Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have been talking more about their plans for the economy in the days leading up to Tuesday's presidential debate, where their dueling proposals are expected to take center stage, The Associated Press said.
Trump on Thursday promised to lead what he called a “national economic renaissance” by increasing tariffs, slashing regulations to boost energy production and drastically cutting government spending as well as corporate taxes for companies that produce in the US.
Harris this week called for increasing corporate tax rates, not taxing tips and Social Security income and expanding tax breaks for small businesses to promote more entrepreneurship.
Both Harris and Trump have been frequent visitors to Wisconsin this year, a state where four of the past six presidential elections have been decided by less than a percentage point. Several polls of Wisconsin voters conducted after President Joe Biden withdrew showed Harris and Trump in a close race.
Democrats consider Wisconsin to be one of the must-win “blue wall” states. Biden, who was in Wisconsin on Thursday, won the state in 2020 by just under 21,000 votes. Trump carried it by a slightly larger margin, nearly 23,000 votes, in 2016.
Trump was taking his economic message to the central Wisconsin city of Mosinee, with a population of about 4,500 people. It is within Wisconsin's mostly rural 7th Congressional District, a reliably Republican area in a purple state. Trump carried the county where Mosinee is located by 18 percentage points in both 2016 and 2020.
Democrats have relied on massive turnout in the state's two largest cities of Milwaukee and Madison to counter Republican strength in rural areas like Mosinee and the Milwaukee suburbs. Trump must run up the votes in places like Mosinee to have any chance at cutting into the Democrats' advantage in urban areas.
Republicans held their national convention in Milwaukee in July and Trump has made four previous stops to the state, most recently just last week in the western Wisconsin city of La Crosse.
Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, last month filled the same Milwaukee arena where Republicans held their national convention for a rally that coincided with the Democratic National Convention just 90 miles away in Chicago. Walz returned Monday to Milwaukee, where he spoke at a Labor Day rally organized by unions.
Biden was in rural western Wisconsin on Thursday, his first visit to the state since dropping out of the race. Biden used the visit to announce $7.3 billion in investments for 16 cooperatives that will provide electricity for rural areas across 23 states. The intent is to bring down the cost of badly needed internet connections in hard-to-reach areas.

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Iranian Calls to Confront Geopolitical Shifts in the South Caucasus

A photo of a previous meeting of the 3+3 group on the South Caucasus in Tehran (archive - Iranian Foreign Ministry)
A photo of a previous meeting of the 3+3 group on the South Caucasus in Tehran (archive - Iranian Foreign Ministry)
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Iranian Calls to Confront Geopolitical Shifts in the South Caucasus

A photo of a previous meeting of the 3+3 group on the South Caucasus in Tehran (archive - Iranian Foreign Ministry)
A photo of a previous meeting of the 3+3 group on the South Caucasus in Tehran (archive - Iranian Foreign Ministry)

Tension between Iran and Russia is mounting over the Zangezur Corridor in the South Caucasus, with both reformist and conservative politicians in Tehran suggesting that Moscow is deliberately hindering the revival of the nuclear deal with the West.
The controversy began when Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov urged the implementation of the ceasefire agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia, specifically the provision to open the Zangezur Corridor, which would connect mainland Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared this a “red line” that cannot be crossed.
Disrupting Strategic Trade Routes

Tehran argues that the opening of the Zangezur Corridor would sever a vital trade route linking Iran to Europe. Former Iranian MP Ali Motahari criticized Russia’s focus on the Ukraine war, saying it is disregarding Iranian interests.
Iranian MP Ahmad Naderi voiced his frustration, arguing that Iran’s previous lack of response to Russian actions undermining its national interests has only emboldened Moscow. In a post on X, Naderi stressed that Moscow must understand that strategic cooperation does not equate to compromising national interests, and called on Iran’s Foreign Ministry and military to develop a clear plan to counteract Russia’s “geopolitical ambitions.”
Russian Ambassador to Tehran Alexey Dedov was summoned to Iran’s Foreign Ministry, where he was reminded of Iran’s opposition to any changes in the geopolitical landscape of the Caucasus. This move reflects the ongoing divergence in Moscow and Tehran’s positions on regional dynamics, especially after Russia reaffirmed its commitment to opening the corridor.
Russia and the Nuclear Deal
While the surface-level dispute over the Zangezur Corridor appears to be about trade routes, some Iranian politicians believe it has deeper implications, connected to Russia’s efforts to thwart Iran’s diplomatic engagement with the West and hinder the revival of the nuclear deal.
Former MP Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, who once chaired Iran’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin is launching a “preemptive strike” to prevent any potential rapprochement between Tehran and Washington.
Falahatpisheh, in comments published by reformist media, argued that Russia is using the Zangezur Corridor as leverage to exert pressure on Tehran, ignoring Iran’s “red lines” in regional politics. He claimed that Moscow prefers an isolated Iran, viewing any reduction in tensions between Tehran and the West as a threat to its own interests.
He also argued that Iran has had to make significant concessions to Russia, with the nuclear deal becoming a casualty of the ongoing Ukraine conflict. Iran had reportedly supplied Russia with hundreds of drones during the two-and-a-half-year war, and the potential transfer of ballistic missiles is viewed as a deeply concerning escalation by some insiders.
No Secret Nuclear Program

 

In parallel, Mohammad Eslami, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, denied allegations of a secret nuclear program.
“For the past two decades, the West has used various tactics to pressure the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) into investigating Iran,” Tasnim news agency quoted him as saying.
Eslami reiterated that Iran had agreed to limit its uranium enrichment under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and placed its nuclear activities under strict oversight, with the goal of resolving any concerns about a potential nuclear weapons program. Despite this, he noted that the US unilaterally withdrew from the agreement, even though Iran had adhered to its commitments.
Eslami further criticized the three European signatories of the JCPOA—France, the United Kingdom, and Germany—along with the US, accusing them of spearheading a campaign against Iran’s nuclear program.