Canada says no deal is better than a bad one
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Winnipeg Free Press
21 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
3 African nations have agreed to take deportees from the US. What we know about the secretive deals
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Rwanda has become the third African nation to enter into a deal with the Trump administration to accept migrants deported by the United States. The Rwandan government said Tuesday it has agreed to accept up to 250 deportees from the U.S. for resettlement but didn't immediately give any more details, including when they would arrive or what Rwanda got, if anything, out of the deal. The U.S. has already deported eight men it said were dangerous criminals who were in the U.S. illegally to South Sudan and another five to Eswatini. Here's what we know, and still don't know, about U.S. President Donald Trump's expanding third-country deportation program in Africa and the largely secretive deals the U.S. is striking. The U.S. State Department and the Department of Homeland Security haven't responded to requests seeking more details on the deals in Africa. South Sudan The U.S. sent eight men from South Sudan, Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan in East Africa in early July after their deportations were held up by a legal challenge. That led to them being kept for weeks in a converted shipping container at an American military base in nearby Djibouti. U.S. officials said the men had been convicted of violent crimes in the U.S. When it took custody of them a month ago, the South Sudan government said it would ensure their 'safety and wellbeing' but has declined to give other details, including where the men are being held and what their fate might be. South Sudan has been wracked by conflict since it gained independence from Sudan in 2011 and is teetering on the edge of civil war again. Eswatini Two weeks after the South Sudan deportations, the U.S. announced that it had sent another five men — citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos — to the small kingdom of Eswatini in southern Africa. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said they were also violent criminals whose home countries had refused to take them back. Eswatini's government said the men would be held in solitary confinement until their repatriation, and later said that might take up to a year. A human rights lawyer in Eswatini has taken authorities to court alleging the men are being denied legal representation while being held in a maximum-security prison, and questioning the legality of detaining them indefinitely when they have served their criminal sentences in the U.S. U.S. authorities didn't name the men or say if they had been deported straight from prison or detained in another way. Eswatini, which borders South Africa, is one of the world's last absolute monarchies. King Mswati III has ruled since he turned 18 in 1986. Authorities under him are accused of violently subduing pro-democracy movements in a country where political parties are effectively banned. Rwanda Rwanda's deal with the U.S. comes after a contentious migrant agreement it reached with the U.K. in 2022 collapsed and was ruled unlawful by Britain's Supreme Court. That deal was meant to see people seeking asylum in the U.K. sent to Rwanda, where they would stay if their asylum applications were approved. The failed deal ultimately cost the U.K. nearly a billion dollars in public money, including around $300 million that it gave to Rwanda and didn't get back. Rwanda said that the deportees it will take from the U.S. will be resettled there and given work training, healthcare and help with accommodation. Analysts say that African nations might be seeking a range of benefits from the Trump administration in return for taking deportees, including more favorable tariff rates, aid and other financial assistance, and even the easing of sanctions against some of their officials. ___ AP news on the Trump administration:
CTV News
21 minutes ago
- CTV News
U.S. government proposes easing some restrictions on drones traveling long distances
A drone hovers in airspace outside the safety perimeter surrounding St. Louis Lambert International Airport as an airliner approaches for a landing on March 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File) A new federal rule proposed Tuesday would make it easier for companies to use drones over longer distances out of the operator's sight without having to go through a cumbersome waiver process. The federal government had already approved 657 waivers to allow companies such as Amazon and major utilities to do this in certain circumstances, but the waiver process made it difficult. The rule would establish a clear process for drone operators to seek approval for using drones this way. The industry has long pressed for the rule because being able to operate drones out of sight opens up a multitude of possibilities for their use. Being able to do this enables more use of drones for deliveries, inspecting infrastructure like bridges and power lines and other uses in agriculture like spraying fertilizer over thousands of acres on large farms. 'This draft rule is a critical step toward enabling drone operations that will enhance safety, transform commercial services, and strengthen public safety with drones as a force multiplier,' Michael Robbins, president & CEO of the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International trade group, said in a statement. Rules spell out when drones can be flown out of sight The rule spells out the circumstances drones can be used under 400 feet under while working to ensure they don't disrupt aviation and cause problems around airports, Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Bryan Bedford said. The drones will be required to have collision-avoidance technology to keep them away from planes and other drones. And the rule will only allow drones up to 1,320 pounds (598 kg) — including their payloads. 'The issue hasn't been that America just can't innovate, America can't create, America can't build amazing drone technology. It's that we've had a bureaucracy in place that makes it incredibly incredibly difficult for innovators to actually innovate,' Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said. The rules are designed to address the way modern drones are being used today. 'While the technology has rapidly advanced over the last decade, our regulatory framework in the United States has failed to keep pace,' said Linda Ellman, CEO of the Commercial Drone Alliance group. 'Drone operators must navigate a labyrinth of ill-suited regulations designed for crewed aircraft.' A rule in the works for years U.S. President Donald Trump issued executive orders in June directing the Transportation Department to quickly get this rule out. The orders also included restrictions meant to help protect against terrorism, espionage and public safety threats. Drones are already used in a variety of ways, including bolstering search and rescue operations, applying fertilizer, inspecting power lines and railroad bridges, and even delivering packages. Amazon is one of the companies that received a waiver allowing it to use drones this way for some of its deliveries in College Station, Texas, as it develops the technology. This rule should make it easier for Amazon and other companies to get approval to use drones this way in more communities. Addressing concerns about safety The war in Ukraine has highlighted how drones could be used in a military or terrorist attack — a concern as the World Cup and Olympics approach in the U.S. There also have been espionage cases where drones have been used to surveil sensitive sites. And White House officials said drones are being used to smuggle drugs over the border, and there are concerns about the potential for a disastrous collision between a drone and an airliner around an airport. The FAA consulted with the Department of Homeland Security as it developed this rule to make sure security concerns are addressed. The government will accept comments on the new rule over the next 60 days before finalizing the rule likely sometime later this year. Drone operators will have to go through background checks and be certified to operate drones out of their sight. Duffy and Bedford said they hope having regulations in place can help prevent problems like earlier this year when a small drone collided with a 'Super Scooper' plane that was fighting wildfires raging through Southern California. The drone punched a hole in the plane's left wing, causing enough damage that officials grounded the aircraft for several days to make repairs. Authorities tracked down the 56-year-old drone operator, who pleaded guilty to a federal charge of recklessly flying his aircraft. The man admitted he launched his DJI quadcopter to observe fire damage over the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, despite the FAA having restricted drone flying in the area, according to court records. The operator lost sight of the drone after it flew about 1.5 (2.4 kilometres) miles from where he had launched it. And that's when it struck the 'Super Scooper.' This rule applies directly to commercial and recreational drone operators who must apply to be able to fly drones out of sight. People who buy drones on their own and don't get approval would still be prohibited from doing this. Josh Funk, The Associated Press Associated Press writers Dee-Ann Durbin, Rio Yamat and Didi Tang contributed to this report.
CTV News
21 minutes ago
- CTV News
‘Let's be smarter than the U.S. is': Experts discuss trade strategy amid Trump tariffs
As Canadians continue to navigate the ever-changing trade policies of U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, experts say officials in Ottawa are walking a tight rope between appeasement and retaliation. '(Trump) takes retaliation very personally, so I'm not sure it's worth the calculation,' Drew Fagan, professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, told BNN Bloomberg in a Tuesday interview. 'Canada's a big country, it's the tenth biggest economy in the world, but we're a middle weight fighting with a super-heavy weight, I don't think you want to go punching with them and thinking you're an equal; you're not.' A Friday deadline passed without a trade deal between the U.S. and Canada, and the Trump administration implemented a 35 per cent tariff on Canadian goods entering the U.S. that are not already covered under the existing North American free trade agreement. Most Canadian products exported to the U.S. do fall under the Canada-United States-Mexico agreement (CUSMA) and thus remain duty-free for now. That deal, however, is slated for renegotiation in 2026. 'For (Canada), the bigger negotiation is the one over the renewal, the review and the renegotiation of CUSMA next year,' Fagan argued. 'When (Trump) negotiated the renewal of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) in his first term, he put additional pressure on Canada by putting tariffs... on steel and aluminum that are key products that we export to the U.S.' It's possible, Fagan said, that Trump is carrying out a similar strategy now. 'The only thing that's really stopping him are the courts in the United States,' he said. From the start, Trump's legal justification for the tariffs placed on Canadian goods came through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which gives the U.S. president authority to enact economic measures typically reserved for the U.S. Congress. 'There is a significant court case going on now… it's possible that the court will strike (the tariffs) down, but of course this president has a way of kind of working around court decisions… but we should expect that it'll be a bit of a full tilt in 2026,' said Fagan. Canada's next moves Although most Canadian exporters with U.S. customer bases are free to operate without tariffs for the time being, it remains unclear what moves Washington or Ottawa will make next in the ongoing trade conflict. But those industries that export non-CUSMA compliant goods to the U.S. need relief as soon as possible, says John Boscariol, leader of the International Trade and Investment Law Group at McCarthy-Tétrault LLP. 'For our exporters in the steel, aluminum and auto sector and now copper, they continue to face sectoral tariffs, so they are continuing to be hurt by those tariffs,' he told BNN Bloomberg in a Tuesday interview. 'What we are anticipating hopefully is that, as this agreement is being negotiated, we're going to see some kind of deal, some kind of resolution over those sectoral tariffs going forward and that's really how we will judge whether this is a good deal or not.' Many within the Canadian business community had been hoping for a new trade deal before last week's deadline to ease the burden on companies impacted by current tariff rates. But it's unclear if an imminent agreement is in the cards, Fagan noted. 'Conversations are continuing… the (U.S.) president and the prime minister are expected to talk this week,' he said. '(But) I don't expect, and I don't think many people expect a deal to be done soon with regard to Canada and the United States.' Prime Minister Mark Carney has said repeatedly since taking office this spring that Canada needs to diversify its economic partnerships around the world and become less dependent on the U.S. in light of the trade developments this year. But many of those partnerships are still in the early stages, and most Canadian exporters will continue to rely on U.S. markets at least in the near and medium term, Boscariol said. 'There is that opportunity to diversify and certainly the provinces are trying to do their part in reducing provincial barriers but in the short to medium term, we're looking to these trade negotiations to provide some sort of relief or resolution,' he said. While in search of that resolution, Fagan said that Canada's leaders should rely on their strengths, which have always been different than those of their U.S. counterparts. 'Let's be smarter than the U.S. is; we always are in negotiations,' he said, 'that's our superpower and I think we will be in the upcoming negotiations as well.'
