As Haiti rapidly spirals into chaos, a high-ranking Haitian diplomat has called on Canada and the United States to form a strike force to confront gangs creating a humanitarian crisis in the Caribbean country.
The two countries should take the lead in confronting Haitian gangs that have blocked access to a key fuel terminal, Haiti’s ambassador to the U.S. said on Monday.
“We wish to see our neighbours like the United States, like Canada, take the lead and move fast,” said Bocchit Edmond, in reference to providing security assistance.
“There is a really big threat over the head of the prime minister [Ariel Henry]. If nothing is done quickly, there is a risk of another head of state [being] killed in Haiti,” he said, referring to the 2021 assassination of then-president Jovenel Moïse.
Shortages, protests, gun battles
Acute shortages of gasoline and diesel have crippled transportation and forced businesses and hospitals to halt operations, even as the country faces a renewed outbreak of cholera that has killed at least 18 people.
In addition, demonstrators have blocked roads in the capital and other main cities to demand Henry’s resignation and protest rising fuel prices after the prime minister announced in early September that his administration could no longer afford to subsidize fuel.
A man helps a woman with blood on her face during a protest demanding the resignation of Henry, in Port-au-Prince, on Monday. (Ralph Tedy Erol/Reuters)
Gas stations and schools remain shuttered; banks and grocery stores are operating on a limited schedule; and sporadic looting and gun battles between gangs and police have become increasingly common.
In response to the chaos, Henry last week asked the international community to provide a “specialized armed force” to control gangs that have been blocking the Varreux fuel terminal since last month. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has proposed that one or several countries send “a rapid action force” to help Haiti’s police, according to a letter to the UN Security Council. Guterres was not suggesting that the force be deployed by the United Nations.
Canada expresses concern
So far, Canada has only said it is “carefully considering” Henry’s appeal in consultation with “Haitian authorities and our international partners.”
On Monday, Global Affairs Canada said it was extremely concerned about the impact of armed gang activity that has reached “an unprecedented level.”
Last Friday, Canada’s foreign ministry said 19 member countries of the Organization of American States were committed to helping Haitians “overcome the complex security challenges facing the country.”
CBC News reached out to Global Affairs Canada midday Wednesday for a timeline on when a decision might be reached, and did not immediately receive a reply.
Meanwhile, the United States on Wednesday said it will boost support for the Haitian police and will speed up delivery of aid. The State Department has also created a new visa restriction targeting those who support the gangs and has sent a coast guard vessel to patrol Haitian waters.
U.S. officials who briefed reporters on Washington’s response stopped short of offering to send troops to the island.
“We are … working to increase and deploy in the coming days security assistance to the Haitian National Police to strengthen their capacity to counter gangs and re-establish a stable security environment,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
“We will accelerate the delivery of additional humanitarian relief to the people of Haiti.”
Many Haitians unhappy with foreign intervention
Frédéric Boisrond, a Haitian-born sociologist at McGill University in Montreal, said it’s not Canada’s place to decide what should be done.
“I think we also need to hear the regular citizen in Haiti to know what they want, what they expect, how far they want to go with a country where this is no legitimate government, with nobody in power,” he said Wednesday. “At this point, I’m even asking myself if Haiti, at this point, is what we call a country.”
He said Canada has attempted to lend legitimacy to Henry’s rule, when there are only 10 senators remaining in government who were elected out of 149 members of parliament.
Protesters build a road barricade during a protest to demand Henry step down and to call for a better quality of life, in Port-au-Prince, on Sept. 7. (Odelyn Joseph/The Associated Press)
“Anybody else that is in charge in that country is not elected, has not been chosen by the citizens of the country.”
Opponents claim Henry hopes to use foreign troops to keep himself in power — a leadership he assumed last year after the assassination of Moïse and that many consider illegitimate because he was never elected nor formally confirmed in the post by the legislature. He has failed to set a date for elections, which have not been held since November 2016, but has pledged to do so once the violence is quelled.
Furthermore, many Haitians are unhappy with the idea of a foreign force, having seen little improvement during three previous interventions since early last century.
“Having the same solution and expecting a different result is kind of foolish,” Boisrond said.
On Sunday, Haitian senators signed a document demanding that Henry’s “de facto government” defer its request for deployment of foreign troops, saying it is illegal under local laws.
Henry is seen in Port-au-Prince, late last year. (Ralph Tedy Erol/Reuters)
Many local leaders reject the idea of UN peacekeepers, noting that they’ve been accused of sexual assault and of sparking a cholera epidemic that killed nearly 10,000 people during a 13-year mission in Haiti that ended five years ago.
The possible presence of international armed forces is something that bothers Georges Ubin, a 44-year-old accountant, who said he knows of people who have been victimized by peacekeepers and believes foreign intervention would not improve things.
“The foreign troops are not going to solve the major problems that Haiti has,” he said. “These are problems that have been around since I was born. It never gets better.”
‘The whole city is under siege’
The letter that the UN secretary general submitted Sunday suggests that the rapid action force be phased out as Haitian police regain control of infrastructure, and that two options could follow: member states establish an international police task force to help and advise local officers, or create a special force to help tackle gangs “including through joint strike, isolation and containment operations across the country.”
The letter notes that if member states do not “step forward with bilateral support and financing,” the UN operation may be an alternative.
“However, as indicated, a return to UN peacekeeping was not the preferred option of the authorities,” it states.
Not everyone is opposed to the arrival of troops, however. Allens Hemest, 35, hopes to see them soon. The unemployed man said he recently worked at a factory that produced plastic cups but was shut down amid the crisis.
“The whole city is under siege,” he said, referring to the capital Port-au-Prince. “If this is going to bring peace, I’m all for it. We can’t continue living like this.”
GENEVA (AP) — Lebanon filed a complaint against Israel at the U.N.’s labor organization over the string of deadly attacks involving exploding pagers, saying workers were among those killed and injured, a Lebanese government minister said Wednesday.
The wave of remotely triggered explosions that hit pagers and walkie-talkies carried by Hezbollah members in mid-September were widely blamed on Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied involvement. The blasts which went off in grocery stores, homes and on streets killed at least 37 people, including two children, and wounded around 3,000 people, according to Lebanese authorities, deeply unsettling even Lebanese who have no Hezbollah affiliation.
In addition to fighters, the detonating devices hit workers in Hezbollah’s civilian institutions, including its health care and media operations.
Lebanese Labor Minister Moustafa Bayram and other officials said he traveled to Geneva and formally filed the complaint Tuesday against Israel at the International Labor Organization, a sprawling U.N. agency that brings together governments, businesses and workers.
“This method of warfare and conflicts may open the way for many who are evading international humanitarian law to adopt this method of warfare,” he told reporters at the U.N. compound in Geneva.
“It’s a very dangerous precedent, if not condemned,” he said. “We are in a situation where ordinary objects — objects used in daily life — become dangerous and lethal.”
Speaking in Arabic, Bayram insisted that ILO conventions guarantee the safety and security of workers, who “were in their workplace and had their pagers or walkies-talkies exploding all of a sudden,” according to an interpreter.
“I do not know where the outcome (of the complaint) will go, but at least we raised our voices to say and warn against this dangerous approach that strikes at human relations and leads to more conflicts,” he added.
An ILO spokeswoman said she was not immediately aware of the complaint or what redress might be possible through it.
NEW YORK (AP) — Shares of Tesla soared Wednesday as investors bet that the electric vehicle maker and its CEO Elon Musk will benefit from Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
Tesla stands to make significant gains under a Trump administration with the threat of diminished subsidies for alternative energy and electric vehicles doing the most harm to smaller competitors. Trump’s plans for extensive tariffs on Chinese imports make it less likely that Chinese EVs will be sold in bulk in the U.S. anytime soon.
“Tesla has the scale and scope that is unmatched,” said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, in a note to investors. “This dynamic could give Musk and Tesla a clear competitive advantage in a non-EV subsidy environment, coupled by likely higher China tariffs that would continue to push away cheaper Chinese EV players.”
Tesla shares jumped 14.8% Wednesday while shares of rival electric vehicle makers tumbled. Nio, based in Shanghai, fell 5.3%. Shares of electric truck maker Rivian dropped 8.3% and Lucid Group fell 5.3%.
Tesla dominates sales of electric vehicles in the U.S, with 48.9% in market share through the middle of 2024, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Subsidies for clean energy are part of the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022. It included tax credits for manufacturing, along with tax credits for consumers of electric vehicles.
Musk was one of Trump’s biggest donors, spending at least $119 million mobilizing Trump’s supporters to back the Republican nominee. He also pledged to give away $1 million a day to voters signing a petition for his political action committee.
In some ways, it has been a rocky year for Tesla, with sales and profit declining through the first half of the year. Profit did rise 17.3% in the third quarter.
The U.S. opened an investigation into the company’s “Full Self-Driving” system after reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian. The investigation covers roughly 2.4 million Teslas from the 2016 through 2024 model years.
And investors sent company shares tumbling last month after Tesla unveiled its long-awaited robotaxi at a Hollywood studio Thursday night, seeing not much progress at Tesla on autonomous vehicles while other companies have been making notable progress.
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — The first time China faced Donald Trump in the White House, there was a trade war, a breach of protocol involving Taiwan’s former leader, and a president-to-president bromance that turned sour.
Perhaps the biggest consequence for China — if Trump stays true to his campaign promises — is his threat to slap blanket 60% tariffs on all Chinese exports to the U.S.
Tariffs like that would be a blow to China’s already unstable economy, which is suffering from high youth unemployment, a lengthy property slump and government debt. A 60% duty on Chinese imports could shave off 2.5 percentage points, or about half, of China’s projected economic growth, according to an analysis published earlier this year by UBS.
During Trump’s previous term in office, the U.S. imposed tariffs on more than $360 billion of Chinese products. That brought Beijing to the negotiating table, and in 2020 the two sides signed a trade deal in which China committed to improve intellectual property rights and buy an extra $200 billion of American goods. A research group a couple of years later showed China had bought essentially none of the goods it had promised.
President Joe Biden retained most of those tariffs and added fresh duties this year on imports including steel, solar cells and electric vehicles.
Like last time, tariffs could serve as a tool to force Beijing back to the negotiating table, said Henry Gao, a law professor at Singapore Management University who focuses on international trade.
“Given the weak economic position of China this time, I think there will be more willingness to talk,” he said. “Thus, while the tariff might have some short-term effects on the Chinese economy, the situation might improve once they reach a deal.”
Factoring into the trade talks could be Trump’s appeals to Chinese President Xi Jinping to help negotiate a resolution to the Ukraine war, which Trump has boasted he’ll be able to do quickly, without saying how.
Trump previously sought Xi’s help in dealing with North Korea’s rogue leader Kim Jong Un. That dynamic could repeat itself, with Trump weighing trade grievances against seeking China’s support in global crises, according to Wang Huiyao, founder of the Beijing-based think tank Center for China and Globalization.
“China is the largest trading partner of both Russia and Ukraine,” Wang wrote in a recent commentary. “These close economic ties give China a unique opportunity to play a greater role in peace-making efforts.”
Willing to go ‘crazy’ over Taiwan
There is one scenario in which Trump has threatened to impose even higher tariffs — 150% to 200% — on Chinese goods: if China invades Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy that Beijing claims as its own.
The U.S. does not recognize Taiwan as a country, but is its strongest backer and biggest arms provider.
Trump angered Beijing in December 2016 by taking a congratulatory call from Taiwan’s then-president Tsai Ing-wen in a breach of diplomatic protocol. No U.S. president had spoken directly to a Taiwanese leader since Washington and Beijing established ties in 1979.
Trump’s move created anxiety in China-watching circles, but ultimately, he stuck to supporting the status quo in relations between Taipei and Beijing.
China expects him to continue to do so, said Zhu Feng, dean of the School of International Relations at Nanjing University.
“Will (he) want to turn to support Taiwan independence? It is unlikely,” he said.
As for China’s repeated threats to annex Taiwan, Trump told The Wall Street Journal last month that he would not have to use military force to prevent a blockade of Taiwan because Xi “respects me and he knows I’m (expletive) crazy.”
On the campaign trail, Trump sometimes talked up his personal connection with Xi, which started exuberantly during his first term but soured over disputes about trade and the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump has purposely maintained a sense of uncertainty in his relationship with China, said Da Wei, director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
“We are clear about the challenges,” he said. “As for opportunities, we are yet to see them clearly.”
Disputes over chips
During his first term, Trump began targeting Chinese technology firms over security concerns, focusing on large companies like the telecoms giant Huawei. Biden continued in that direction by placing curbs on China’s access to advanced semiconductors, which are needed to develop strategic industries such as artificial intelligence.
But Trump has criticized Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act, a bipartisan bill that earmarked $53 billion to build up domestic manufacturing of semiconductors. Currently, Taiwan produces nearly 90% of the world’s supply of the most advanced chips.
The island’s largest semiconductor manufacturer, TSMC, expanded production in Arizona, partly to respond to the CHIPS Act, and to be prepared to withstand any other protectionist policies in the U.S., said Shihoko Goto, director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the Wilson Center.
Trump has promised to do away with the CHIPS Act, though critics say that would undermine his campaign to reindustrialize the U.S. The president-elect has also accused Taiwan of “stealing” the chip industry from the U.S. decades ago.
“Rather than providing a silicon shield, Taiwan’s dominance in the chip industry could actually be the source of tension between Taipei and Trump, as Taiwan’s successes in the chip sector may be seen as having only been possible as a result of the United States being taken advantage of,” Goto said.
