Donald Trump

WASHINGTON, May 21 (UPI) — President Donald Trump welcomed the University of Florida’s men’s basketball team to the White House on Wednesday afternoon to celebrate its 2025 NCAA championship season, praising the Gators’ teamwork, grit and determination.

Standing alongside head coach Todd Golden, Trump called Florida’s run “one for the history books” and noted the program’s place in history as the only NCAA Division I school to win three national titles in both basketball (2006, 2007, 2025) and football (1996, 2006, 2008).

The Gators finished a dominant 36-4 season with a 65-63 victory over Houston in what Trump described as “one of the most exciting games and championships” he had seen.

“You refused to let up when the odds were against you,” Trump told the team. “Lesser teams would have crumbled.”

Trump highlighted stellar performances throughout the season, including that by senior guard Walter Clayton Jr., who scored a career-high 34 points in the Final Four against Auburn and became the first player since Larry Bird in 1979 to score 30 points or more in both the Elite Eight and Final Four.

“He’s unbelievably special,” Trump said. “He’s going to be a very early draft pick if they’re smart.”

University of Florida Interim President Kent Fuchs, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a former Florida senator, and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who served at Florida attorney general.

Golden thanked Trump for the invitation and drew a comparison between the team’s culture and the country’s ideals.

“Mr. President, I’d like to think of our program similarly to how you think of the United States. We’re a meritocracy,” Golden said. “We work really, really hard. No matter what you look like, where you come from, if you put the team first and win, we’re going to play you.”

He then presented the president with a signed Gators jersey featuring the number 47, referencing Trump’s status as the 47th president.

Trump accepted the gift and invited the team to the Oval Office for commemorative coins and photos alongside members of his administration and several lawmakers.

“Go Gators,” he said. “We love you.”

Johannesburg, South Africa – When the millionaire mining magnate-turned-president of South Africa landed in Washington to meet the billionaire real estate tycoon-turned-president of the United States, it was with a deal in mind.

Tensions have been escalating between the US and its African trade ally since Donald Trump took office this year, cut off aid to South Africa, repeated false accusations that a “white genocide” is taking place there and began welcoming Afrikaners as refugees.

At the meeting between Trump and Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House on Wednesday, the South African president began by focusing heavily on trade and investments, highlighting the two countries’ years of cooperation, in keeping with statements made by South Africa’s presidency that Ramaphosa would present a trade deal to the US.

But Trump responded with a well-prepared redirect that South African media and analysts described as an “ambush” and a move that “blindsided” Ramaphosa.

Ready with printouts of news articles about alleged white victims of killings in South Africa and a video of firebrand opposition politician Julius Malema singing Kill the Boer, Trump insisted that white farmers were being targeted and murdered – an assertion Ramaphosa politely yet firmly denied, saying criminality was a problem for all South Africans regardless of race.

The team Ramaphosa assembled to join him on his working visit – which included four white South Africans: two golf legends, the wealthiest man in the country and the agriculture minister – all reaffirmed Ramaphosa’s facts that while violence was widespread, white people were not specifically being targeted.

“We have a real safety problem in South Africa, and I don’t think anyone wants to candy-coat that,” said John Steenhuisen, the agriculture minister and a member of the Democratic Alliance party, which is part of South Africa’s governing coalition.

“Certainly, the majority of South Africa’s commercial and smallholder farmers really do want to stay in South Africa and make it work,” the minister, who is himself an Afrikaner, said. Trump claimed that “thousands” of white farmers were fleeing South Africa.

Steenhuisen added that the people in the video Trump showed were leaders of opposition minority parties and his party had joined forces with Ramaphosa “precisely to keep those people out of power”.

‘The lion’s den’

The meeting began cordially where Trump complimented South African golfers, including well-known Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, who were part of the delegation. They both implored Trump for enhanced trade to uplift South Africa’s economy.

Also in the delegation was South Africa’s richest man, Johann Rupert, a luxury-goods mogul and an Afrikaner. He countered claims of racial persecution against the white minority, saying that while criminality was rife, Black people were more often the victims.

“We have too many deaths, but it’s across the board. It is not only white farmers,” Rupert said to Trump.

Ramaphosa kept his cool, local media and observers said, noting that the South African president chose to remain calm, patient and light-hearted even in light of Trump’s attack.

He steered talks back to trade, saying South Africa needed economic investment from its allies, and mostly sat expressionless while the video was played, occasionally stretching his neck to look at it.

Ramaphosa went into “the lion’s den” and was met with an ambush but he remained calm, South African political analyst Sanusha Naidu said.

“Ramaphosa and the delegation did not allow themselves to be baited into an emotional response. That’s critical. They made Trump feel like he had the upper hand in the meeting,” she told Al Jazeera, adding that given the narrative from Trump before Ramaphosa’s arrival, it “could have gone worse”.

When asked by a reporter whether he wanted the impasse between the US and South Africa resolved, Trump said he was open to it.

“I hope it has to be resolved. It should be resolved,” he said, adding that if it were not resolved, it would be “the end of the country”.

‘Reset’ relations

Before the two leaders met on Wednesday, Ramaphosa’s office said the aim was to “reset” relations, especially as the US is South Africa’s second largest trading partner after China.

“Whether we like it or not, we are joined at the hip, and we need to be talking to them,” the South African president said before his trip.

Christopher Isike, a political scientist at the University of Pretoria, told Al Jazeera that direct engagement between the leaders was important, given the tense relations between their countries.

“This is an opportunity for South Africa to correct misinformation peddled by President Trump and try to reset trade relations between the two countries,” he said.

Isike noted that both presidents’ backgrounds as businesspeople could provide common ground for discussing mutually advantageous deals.

“Rich friends of Ramaphosa are also rich friends of Trump, and that may have helped facilitate the meeting,” Isike added.

Common ground and level heads would be useful as the leaders continued private talks away from the media on Wednesday, observers said.

Before the visit, Ramaphosa maintained that while Trump was a dealmaker, he too was adept at making deals and even joked about the possibility of playing a round of golf with his US counterpart.

Washington, however, has criticised Pretoria for a host of matters since Trump took office. This continued in the meeting on Wednesday.

Trump focused on the white farmers, particularly Afrikaners – the descendants of mainly Dutch settlers who instituted apartheid. He alleged they are being killed because of their race despite evidence showing that attacks and killings are common across all groups in the country.

Trump also mentioned South Africa’s land reform law that allows land in the public interest to be taken without compensation in exceptional circumstances in an effort to redress apartheid injustices. Pretoria said no white land has been taken, but the US said the law unfairly targets minority white South Africans who are the majority landholders.

Despite Pretoria consistently seeking to rectify false assertions, the Trump administration has pushed ahead with a plan to take in Afrikaners as refugees. The first group arrived last week. He has also cut aid, including vital support for life-saving HIV programmes, to South Africa.

Additionally, there are worries that Trump may not attend the Group of 20 summit being held in South Africa in November and his government may not renew the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), key US trade legislation that assists economies in sub-Saharan Africa. It expires in September.

Trade and investments

Before Wednesday’s meetings, Ramaphosa said strengthening trade relations between the two countries was his primary motivation for travelling to Washington, DC.

“We want to come out of the United States with a really good trade deal, investment promotion. We invest in the United States, and they invest in us. We want to strengthen those relations. We want to consolidate relations between the two countries,” he said.

This week, South Africa’s ministers of trade and agriculture, Parks Tau and Steenhuisen, met with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to present the first draft of a trade deal.

In 2024, total goods trade between the US and South Africa amounted to $20.5bn. This included $5.8bn in US exports to South Africa and $14.7bn in South African exports to the US.

However, some observers said that at the heart of the potential trade deal is what South Africa could offer billionaire and close Trump ally, Elon Musk, given his ongoing claims about obstacles he allegedly faces in operating Starlink, his satellite internet company, in the country where he was born due to its transformation laws.

These laws seek to redress past injustices that kept Black people destitute and require businesses over a certain size to have a 30 percent equity stake held by members of previously disadvantaged groups.

Speaking at the Doha Economic Forum on Tuesday, Musk reiterated his assertions about laws he claimed were biased against white people despite experts explaining that most of those only seek to promote racial justice.

“All races must be on equal footing in South Africa. That is the right thing to do. Do not replace one set of racist laws with another set of racist laws, which is utterly wrong and improper,” Musk said.

“I am in an absurd situation where I was born in South Africa but cannot get a licence to operate Starlink because I am not Black,” he claimed.

Before Wednesday’s meeting, a White House official told the Reuters news agency Trump is likely to tell Ramaphosa that all US companies in South Africa should be exempt from “racial requirements”.

Opposition figure Malema’s party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), threatened legal action after news that the government was considering offering regulatory assurances to Musk’s Starlink. The EFF said the move would be unconstitutional and shows Ramaphosa is willing to compromise the country’s sovereignty to “massage the inflated ego of Musk and Trump”.

Isike said that while trade concessions would be discussed, he doubted the South African government would give up its laws to appease Musk.

“I will be surprised if Starlink gets its way by refusing to follow South African transformation laws, which require 30 percent Black ownership of a foreign company,” he said.

‘Genocide’ claims

Meanwhile, in private talks, Ramaphosa and Trump were also expected to discuss foreign policy issues, including peace prospects between Russia and Ukraine and South Africa’s support for Palestine and its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Some political observers said Pretoria is in the US crosshairs partly because of its actions against the key Washington ally.

Patrick Bond, a sociology professor at the University of Johannesburg, predicted before the talks that the US might offer to retract claims of “white genocide” in exchange for South Africa dropping its case at the ICJ.

South Africa is seeking to hold Israel accountable for its assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians since October 2023. The US is Israel’s strongest ally and arms supplier.

“We are very rational when it comes to discussing global and geopolitical matters. We will put South African positions first, and our foreign policy positions will be clarified,” Ramaphosa said before the meeting.

As the Gaza genocide case against Israel continues in The Hague, US allegations of a widely discredited “white genocide” in South Africa continue to follow the country’s leadership.

Before Trump and Ramaphosa retreated to private meetings on Wednesday, a reporter asked the US president if he had decided whether genocide was being committed in South Africa. “I haven’t made up my mind,” he replied.

The unfounded claim of white genocide has “taken on a life of its own”, analyst Paolo von Schirach, president of the Global Policy Institute in Washington, DC, told Al Jazeera.

It will be difficult for Ramaphosa and Trump to rebound after the Oval Office “ambush”, he said.

“We know that Elon Musk certainly fanned this story [about a white genocide], and he’s probably not the only one,” von Schirach said. “It’s going to be hard for Trump to say, ‘Oh, so sorry. I was misinformed.’”

A federal judge in the United States has told the administration of President Donald Trump that an alleged effort to deport migrants to South Sudan was “unquestionably violative” of his court injunction.

The announcement from US District Judge Brian Murphy on Wednesday tees up yet another judicial battle for the Trump administration, which has faced repeated criticism that it is ignoring court orders.

Judge Murphy, who is based in Boston, Massachusetts, has yet to announce what he plans to do about the apparent violation. He left that question to another day.

But he indicated that the people on board Tuesday’s flight had not been given enough time to challenge their deportations, in violation of their right to due process — and also in violation of Murphy’s April 18 injunction.

Murphy had ruled that migrants facing removal to a third-party country besides their own had the right to a reasonable amount of time to challenge their deportations.

But the Trump administration has repeatedly dismissed claims that it refuses to abide by decisions unfavourable to its policies, instead blasting judges like Murphy as “activist”.

During Wednesday’s court hearing, a lawyer for Trump’s Justice Department, Elainis Perez, refused to confirm where the deportation flight had landed, saying that divulging the information raised “very serious operational and safety concerns”.

Separately, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) held a news conference addressing the issue and defending the deportation flight.

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said the people on board had been accused of murder, armed robbery, rape and sexual assault.

In the case of one migrant, Lyons said, “his country would not take him back.” He called such countries “recalcitrant”.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), also framed the removals as a “diplomatic and military security operation”.

Standing in front of photos representing eight migrants, she said they were deported alone for safety reasons and confirmed they remain in DHS custody, although they had indeed left the US.

“We cannot tell you what the final destination for these individuals will be,” she added, again citing security issues.

But she did address the possibility that they might currently be in South Sudan, as their lawyers indicated in court filings.

“I would caution you to make the assumption that their final destination is South Sudan,” she said, later clarifying that the flight may make multiple stops: “We’re confirming the fact that that’s not their final destination.”

In Tuesday’s court filings, lawyers for the migrants said their clients hail from Myanmar, Vietnam and other countries. They also explained that their clients speak little English but were provided no translator to understand their removal notices.

They allegedly were deported with less than 24 hours’ notice. On Tuesday morning, as one lawyer tried to locate her client, she said she was informed he had been removed to South Sudan, a country with a turbulent history and a record of human rights abuses.

Judge Murphy had previously ordered the migrants to be given at least 15 days to challenge their removals on the grounds that they could face dangers in the countries they were deported to.

In the wake of Tuesday’s flight, he has also ruled that the US government must keep the migrants in its custody and ensure their safety while hearings proceed.

McLaughlin, however, accused the “activist judge” of “trying to protect” the migrants, which she described as “some of the most barbaric, violent individuals”.

“While we are fully compliant with the law and court orders, it is absolutely absurd for a district judge to try to dictate the foreign policy and national security of the United States of America,” she said.

McLaughlin and the other officials also argued that the Trump administration was exercising its right to find “safe third countries” to remove these individuals to.

“No country on earth wanted to accept them because their crimes are so uniquely monstrous and barbaric,” she said.

“Thanks to the courageous work of the State Department and ICE and the president’s national security team, we found a nation that was willing to accept custody of these vicious illegal aliens.”

The Trump administration has been accused of amping up fears of criminality among immigration populations, as part of its justification for its “mass deportation” campaign.

Police in South Sudan have told The Associated Press news agency that no migrants from the US have arrived in the country so far. The New York Times has reported that the plane is believed to have landed in the East African country of Djibouti.

A fifth round of nuclear negotiations between Washington and Tehran will take place in Rome on Friday, Oman says.

Washington, DC – Officials from Iran and the United States will hold another round of talks in Rome on Friday, Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi has said, despite the growing gap between the two countries over uranium enrichment.

Wednesday’s confirmation that the nuclear negotiations would continue comes after days of Washington and Tehran expressing irreconcilable positions on Iranian uranium enrichment.

US officials have said they want Iran not just to scale back its nuclear programme, but also to stop enriching uranium altogether — a position that Tehran has said is a nonstarter.

Enrichment is the process of altering the uranium atom to create nuclear fuel.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also said on Tuesday that his country does not need US permission to enrich uranium.

“Saying things like ‘We will not allow Iran to enrich uranium’ is nonsense,” he was quoted as saying by the Mehr News Agency.

The 5th round of Iran US talks will take place in Rome this Friday 23rd May.

— Badr Albusaidi – بدر البوسعيدي (@badralbusaidi) May 21, 2025

His statement was in response to the US’s lead negotiator, Steve Witkoff, dubbing uranium enrichment a “red line” and saying that Washington “cannot allow even 1 percent of an enrichment capability”.

Several Iranian and US officials have reiterated their respective countries’ positions.

Washington has said Iran can operate nuclear reactors for energy production by importing already enriched uranium, arguing that the domestic uranium production by Tehran risks potential weaponisation.

Iran, which denies seeking a nuclear weapon, says uranium enrichment for civilian purposes is its right as a sovereign nation.

Israel, the top US ally in the Middle East, is widely believed to have an undeclared nuclear arsenal.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened Iran with military action if the two countries do not reach a deal, stressing that he will not allow Tehran to obtain a nuclear weapon.

During his first term, in 2018, Trump nixed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which saw Iran scale back its nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions against its economy.

Since then, the US has been piling sanctions on the Iranian economy.

After his return to the White House for a second term in January, Trump renewed his “maximum pressure” programme against Iran, largely through economic penalties. He has, for example, pledged to choke off the country’s oil exports, particularly to China.

Iran has been defiant in the face of Trump’s threats, promising to defend itself against any attack.

Tensions began to ease in April as the US and Iran began to hold talks mediated by Oman, but it is not clear how the two sides will bridge the disagreement over Tehran’s enrichment programme.

On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi suggested that the US position has been shifting, stressing that “there is no scenario” in which Iran will give up enrichment.

“Iran can only control what we Iranians do, and that is to avoid negotiating in public — particularly given the current dissonance we are seeing between what our U.S. interlocutors say in public and in private, and from one week to the other,” Araghchi wrote in a social media post.

United States President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he has selected a $175bn design for the multilayered Golden Dome missile defence programme aimed at countering aerial threats “even if they are launched from space”.

As part of the project, the US would deploy missile interceptors in space to shield against ballistic and hypersonic threats.

Here is more about the Golden Dome project.

What did Trump announce?

Trump on Tuesday announced $25bn initial funding for the project that will cost $175bn and be completed by the end of his current term in 2029.

“Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world, and even if they are launched from space,” Trump said.

“This is very important for the success and even survival of our country.”

Trump also announced that US Space Force General Michael Guetlein would be the lead programme manager, responsible for overseeing the project’s progress.

“I promised the American people that I would build a cutting-edge missile defence shield to protect our homeland from the threat of foreign missile attack,” said Trump.

Trump additionally announced: “Canada has called us, and they want to be a part of it. So we’ll be talking to them.”

What is the Golden Dome project?

Trump said the Golden Dome was made to take down “hypersonic missiles, ballistic missiles and advanced cruise missiles”, adding that the programme would have space-based interceptors and sensors.

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, speaking alongside Trump, said the system is aimed at protecting “the homeland from cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, hypersonic missiles, drones, whether they’re conventional or nuclear”.

The announcement comes just months after January 27, when Trump signed an executive order to “immediately begin the construction of a state-of-the-art Iron Dome missile defence shield, which will be able to protect Americans”.

The Iron Dome is Israel’s missile defence system which detects an incoming rocket, determines its path, and intercepts it. The development of the system was funded by a grant from the US.

Trump said existing defence capabilities will be used in the construction of the project, and predicted the total cost would be about $175bn.

The White House has not yet released further details about the project. While Trump said the system would be developed in the US, he has not named which companies will be involved.

A space-based defence system was first envisaged by Ronald Reagan, the Republican US president from 1981 to 1989. Amidst the Cold War, Reagan proposed a barrier to nuclear weapons that included space-based technology, as part of his Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars project.

“We will truly be completing the job that President Reagan started 40 years ago, forever ending the missile threat to the American homeland,” Trump said on Tuesday.

Is the Golden Dome plan feasible?

Industry experts have questioned the timeline and budget of the plan.

Funding for the Golden Dome has not yet been secured. At Tuesday’s news conference, Trump confirmed that he was seeking $25bn for the system in a tax cut bill currently moving through Congress, although that sum could be cut amid ongoing negotiations.

Additionally, some variation is expected in the total cost of the project. The Associated Press quoted an unnamed government official as saying Trump had been given three versions of the plan, described as “medium,” “high”, and “extra high”. These versions correspond to the number of satellites, sensors and interceptors that will be placed in space. AP reported that Trump picked the “high” version, which has an initial cost ranging between $30bn and $100bn.

“The new data point is the $175 billion, but the question remains, over what period of time. It’s probably 10 years,” Tom Karako, a senior fellow with the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told the Reuters news agency.

On May 1, 42 Democratic members of the US Congress signed a letter questioning the possible involvement of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which is among the top technology companies seeking to build key components of the Golden Dome.

“If Mr Musk were to exercise improper influence over the Golden Dome contract, it would be another example of a disturbing pattern of Mr Musk flouting conflict of interest rules,” the letter says.

How did China and Russia – the US’s biggest rivals – react?

The US sees a growing threat from China and Russia, its main adversaries.

Over the past decades, China has greatly advanced its ballistic and hypersonic missile technology, while Moscow boasts one of the most advanced intercontinental-range missile systems in the world. Russia and the US have amassed the largest arsenals of nuclear warheads worldwide.

The threat of drones has also grown amid advancements in technology.

China denounced the Golden Dome as a threat to international security and accused the US of prompting an arms race.

“The United States puts its own interests first and is obsessed with seeking its own absolute security, which violates the principle that no country’s security should come at the expense of others,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a regular briefing.

“(The plan) heightens the risk of space becoming a battlefield, fuels an arms race, and undermines international security,” he said.

The Kremlin said the Golden Dome missile shield plan was a “sovereign matter” for the US.

“This is a sovereign matter for the United States. If the United States believes that there is a missile threat, then of course it will develop a missile defence system,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, including AFP, on Wednesday.

“That is what all countries do,” he added.

“Of course, in the foreseeable future, the course of events will require the resumption of contacts to restore strategic stability,” he said.

Power is the ability to get others to do what you want. That can be accomplished by coercion (“sticks”), payment (“carrots”) or attraction (“honey”). The first two methods are forms of hard power; attraction is soft power. Soft power grows out of a country’s culture, its political values and its foreign policies. In the short term, hard power usually trumps soft power. But over the long term, soft power often prevails. Joseph Stalin once mockingly asked, “How many divisions does the pope have?” But the papacy continues today, while Stalin’s Soviet Union is long gone.

When a nation is attractive, it can economize on carrots and sticks. If allies see the United States as benign and trustworthy, they are more likely to be open to persuasion and to following our lead. If they see us as an unreliable bully, they are more likely to drag their feet and reduce their interdependence when they can. Cold War Europe is a good example. A Norwegian historian described Europe as divided into a Soviet and an American empire. But there was a crucial difference: The American side was “an empire by invitation” rather than coercion. The Soviets had to deploy troops to Budapest in 1956, and to Prague in 1968. In contrast, NATO has voluntarily increased its membership.

Nations need both hard and soft power. Machiavelli said it was better for a prince to be feared than to be loved. But it is best to be both.

Because soft power is rarely sufficient by itself, and because its effects take longer to realize, political leaders are often tempted to resort to the hard power of coercion or payment. When wielded alone, however, hard power is an unnecessarily high-cost proposition. The Berlin Wall did not succumb to an artillery barrage; it was felled by hammers and bulldozers wielded by people who had lost faith in communism and were drawn to Western values.

After World War II, the United States was by far the most powerful country because of its hard and soft power. It attempted to enshrine its values in what became known as the liberal international order — a soft power framework made up of the United Nations, economic and trade institutions, and other multilateral bodies. Of course, the U.S. did not always live up to its liberal values, and Cold War bipolarity limited the order it led to only half the world’s people.

Donald Trump is the first American president to reject the idea that soft power has any value in foreign policy. Among his first actions upon returning to office were withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement and the World Health Organization, despite the obvious threats that global warming and pandemics pose.

The effects of the Trump administration’s surrendering soft power are all too predictable. Trying to coerce democratic allies such as Denmark or Canada weakens trust in the U.S. among all our alliances. Threatening Panama reawakens fears of imperialism throughout Latin America. Crippling the U.S. Agency for International Development — created by President Kennedy in 1961 — undercuts our reputation for benevolence. Silencing Voice of America is a gift to authoritarian rivals. Slapping tariffs on friends makes us appear unreliable. Trying to chill free speech at home undermines our credibility. This list could go on.

China, which Trump defines as America’s great challenge, itself has been investing in soft power since 2007, when then-Chinese President Hu Jintao told the Chinese Communist Party that the country needed to make itself more attractive to others. But China has long faced two major obstacles in this respect. First, it maintains territorial disputes with multiple neighbors. Second, the communists insist on maintaining tight control over civil society. When public opinion polls ask people around the world which countries they find attractive, China doesn’t shine. But one can only wonder what these surveys will show in future years if Trump keeps undercutting American soft power.

Of course American soft power has had its ups and downs. The U.S. was unpopular in many countries during the Vietnam and Iraq wars. But soft power derives from a country’s society and culture as well as from government actions. When crowds marched through streets around the world in freedom protests, they sang the American civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome.” An open society that allows protest can be a soft-power asset.

But will America’s cultural soft power survive a downturn in the government’s soft power over the next four years?

American democracy is likely to survive the next four years of Trump. The country has a resilient political culture and the Constitution encourages checks and balances, whatever their weaknesses. In 2026, there is a reasonable chance that Democrats will regain control of the House of Representatives. Moreover, American civil society remains strong, and the courts independent. Many organizations have launched lawsuits to challenge Trump’s actions, and markets have signaled dissatisfaction with his economic policies.

American soft power recovered after low points during the Vietnam and Iraq wars, as well as during Trump’s first term. But once trust is lost, it is not easily restored. After the invasion of Ukraine, Russia lost most of what soft power it had. Right now, China is striving to fill any soft power gaps that Trump creates. The way Chinese President Xi Jinping tells it, the East is rising over the West.

If Trump thinks he can compete with China while weakening trust among American allies, asserting imperial aspirations, destroying USAID, silencing Voice of America, challenging laws at home and withdrawing from U.N. agencies, he is likely to fail. Restoring what he has destroyed will not be impossible, but it will be costly.

Joseph S. Nye Jr. was dean of the Harvard Kennedy School and a U.S. assistant secretary of Defense. His memoir “A Life in the American Century” was published last year. Nye died earlier this month.

May 21 (UPI) — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will meet with President Donald Trump Wednesday to talk about relations, both trade and diplomatic.

“The trade relations between South Africa and the United States will be the focus of my working visit,” wrote South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to his X account Tuesday, “We aim to strengthen and consolidate relations between our two countries.”

South African Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen said via social media Tuesday that he had a “constructive meeting” with U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Greer in Washington.

“Trade is essential between our two countries and we are determined to ensure that access for agricultural products remains open in a mutually beneficial way. Trade means jobs and a growing economy,” Steenhuisen said.

However, it is also likely that the two will discuss the relationship between the two nations in general, as the Trump administration has cut off aid to South Africa and publicly leveled accusations that the South African government has backed violence against the Afrikaners, the White South Africans, whom the United States has begun to accept as refugees, despite the fact that Trump suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program on the first day of his second term.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier in May that Afrikaners fleeing persecution are welcome in the United States.

“The South African government has treated these people terribly — threatening to steal their private land and subjected them to vile racial discrimination. The Trump Administration is proud to offer them refuge in our great country.”

“We all know as South Africans both Black and White is that there is no genocide here,” Ramaphosa said Friday. “We are not genociders. We are not committing any act of hatred, act of retribution or violence against anyone,” Ramaphosa said.

White South Africans maintain control of a majority of the land and much of the county’s wealth after apartheid ended in 1994.

“The false narratives about a genocide are not a reflection of who we are as a nation,” Ramaphosa further stated Friday, “and during our working visit to the U.S. we will be advancing a proudly South African message.”

By AP with Indrabati Lahiri

Published on
21/05/2025 – 11:32 GMT+2

ADVERTISEMENT

Oil prices surged on Wednesday after a report by CNN suggested that Israel could launch an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, according to new US intelligence. 

US crude oil jumped 1.1% on Wednesday morning to $62.7 per barrel, whereas Brent crude oil advanced 1% to $66 per barrel. 

However, CNN emphasised that it wasn’t clear as yet whether a confirmed decision about the possible attack had been made.

Oil markets have been volatile for the last few days, mainly because of anticipation around the next round of Iran-US nuclear talks, due to be held this weekend. These talks are also expected to help increase global oil supply. 

However, any strike against Iran by Israel is likely to negatively impact these negotiations, which in turn, could further fuel Middle Eastern tensions and significantly affect oil markets. 

Although Israel has not been shy about its intentions to target Iran, several Iranian nuclear facilities may already be capable of defending themselves against the majority of strikes. 

Robert Rennie, head of commodity and carbon research for Westpac Banking Corp, said, as reported by Bloomberg: “This is the clearest sign yet of how high the stakes are in the US-Iran nuclear talks and the lengths Israel may go to if Iran insists on maintaining its commercial nuclear capabilities.”

He added: “Crude will maintain a risk premium as long as the current talks appear to be going nowhere.”

Traditional forex safe havens such as the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc also saw a slight boost following the release of the CNN report. 

US-Iran nuclear talks hang in the balance

In talks on the nuclear issue, Iranian officials have warned they could pursue a nuclear weapon with their stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to unleash airstrikes targeting Iran’s program if a deal isn’t reached.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff said in an ABC News interview on Sunday, as reported by the BBC: “We cannot allow even 1% of an enrichment capability. We’ve delivered a proposal to the Iranians that we think addresses some of this without disrespecting them. We want to get to a solution here. And we think that will be able to.”

He added: “But everything begins from our standpoint with a deal that does not include enrichment. We cannot have that. Because enrichment enables weaponisation, and we will not allow a bomb to get here.”

Earlier this week, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei revealed that he did not believe that the latest round of talks between Iran and the US would be successful.

Despite rising sanctions from the US and some of its allies such as Europe and the UK, Iran has been able to continue exporting crude oil and has also increased its supply in the last few months.

Ongoing Middle Eastern conflicts such as the Israel-Hamas war and Houthi Red Sea attacks have gone a long way in souring relations between Israel and Iran in the last several months.

As such, any new attack, especially on Iran’s nuclear facilities may significantly affect the wider Middle Eastern region and further delay any hope of stability in the area.

May 21 (UPI) — A U.S. Air Force veteran detained in Venezuela has been released, according to his family and Trump administration officials.

Joseph St. Clair was freed Tuesday, according to Richard Grenell, President Donald Trump‘s special presidential envoy for special missions and the newly appointed president of the Kennedy Center.

On his X account, Grenell posted pictures of himself and St. Clair boarding a small airplane.

“Joe St. Clair is back in America,” he said.

Grenell on Tuesday met with Venezuelan officials in an unidentified “neutral country to “negotiate an America First Strategy” he said.

Scott and Patti St. Clair, Joseph St. Clair’s parents, confirmed their son’s release from Venezuelan detention in a statement.

“This news came suddenly, and we are still processing it — but we are overwhelmed with joy and gratitude,” they said.

Details about St. Clair’s release were not immediately clear.

According to the James Foley Foundation, St. Clair was working in the food services industry in South America when his family lost contact with him in November. In February, the U.S. State Department told his family — who had not heard from him in months — that he had been wrongly detained by Venezuela, the foundation, which advocates for U.S. hostage prevention and release, said.

St. Clair’s release comes after Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both Democrats from Washington, called on Trump earlier this month to become personally involved in pressing for the release of the Air Force veteran.

“Each day he is held, it prolongs his suffering, and the suffering of his friends and family,” they said in the letter.

In February, the Trump administration secured the release of six Americans who had been wrongly detained in Venezuela for several months.

These are the key events on day 1,182 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Wednesday, May 21:

Fighting

• United States President Donald Trump told reporters he is not worried about reports that Russia is massing its forces along the border of Finland. “No, I don’t… worry about that at all,” he said, adding that Finland and Norway were “going to be very safe”.
• Moscow accused NATO of “aggressive actions” after Estonia last week tried and failed to seize a Russian tanker suspected of ferrying oil in violation of international sanctions.

Diplomacy

• Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni confirmed that Pope Leo XIV and the Vatican are willing to host peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.
• US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he expects Putin to present a peace plan in the coming days, which will signal how serious he is about ending the war.
• Moscow will offer “just broad terms that would allow us to move towards a ceasefire, and that ceasefire would then allow us to enter into detailed negotiations to bring about an end of the conflict,” Rubio said.

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia is just trying to “buy time in order to continue its war and occupation”, in a social media post.
• Poland indicted a man accused of helping Russian foreign intelligence services prepare a possible assassination attempt against Zelenskyy.

Economy

• The United Kingdom announced sanctions against 100 new Russian targets, with the intention of disrupting “Putin’s war machine” and its supply chain. The European Union also announced its 18th package of sanctions against Russia.
• Canada invited Ukrainian Minister of Finance Sergii Marchenko to attend a meeting of the G7 finance ministers this week in Banff, Alberta, as a guest.
• On the sidelines of the meeting, Marchenko called for more international sanctions on Russia, including further lowering the $60-per-barrel price cap imposed on Russian crude oil exports by many countries, including G7 members.
• The meeting precedes a major G7 summit in June, also hosted by Canada, which is expected to discuss the reconstruction of Ukraine.

By Tina Teng

Published on
21/05/2025 – 6:56 GMT+2

ADVERTISEMENT

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he intends to significantly reduce his political spending in future campaigns, during an interview at the Qatar Economic Forum on Tuesday.

Musk reportedly donated more than $250 million (€221 million) to support Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. When asked whether he would match that level of spending in the 2026 midterm elections, Musk replied, “I think, in terms of political spending, I’m going to do a lot less in the future.”

He was offered the role of head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), assisting the president in cutting thousands of federal jobs. However, Musk’s political involvement has drawn backlash towards Tesla, including protests and acts of vandalism targeting its showrooms. His support for far-right European parties has also proved controversial, contributing to a steep drop in Tesla’s EV sales across the region.

Speaking at a town hall in Wisconsin in March, Musk commented, “It’s costing me a lot to be in this job,” referring to his role as a special government employee. Trump had also signalled that Musk’s government tenure may be drawing to a close. During Tesla’s Q1 earnings call, Musk stated that the time he spends on DOGE would decrease “significantly” from May onwards. On Tuesday, he reaffirmed that he would remain Tesla’s CEO for at least the next five years.

Tesla shares rebound

Tesla’s share price rose 3.6% intraday before paring gains later in the session. The world’s largest EV maker has seen its stock rebound more than 50% from a year-low in late April, helped by improving market sentiment abroad amid easing US-China trade tensions.

President Trump’s recent Middle East tour further boosted US tech stocks, as he secured deals worth over $1 trillion with three major Gulf states. Musk was among the business leaders accompanying Trump on the trip. However, Tesla’s shares are still down 12% year-to-date as of the market close on 20 May.

Asked about the decline in Tesla’s sales, Musk downplayed the concern. “It’s already turned around,” he said, referring to the share price recovery. “The stock wouldn’t be trading near all-time highs if it was not.”

While acknowledging that Europe remains Tesla’s weakest market, Musk attributed the decline to multiple factors, including tariff shocks and soft EV demand. The company reported a 20% year-on-year decline in EV revenue worldwide in the first quarter.

In April, Tesla’s European sales continued to fall significantly year-on-year: down 46% in Germany, 62% in the UK, and by more than two-thirds in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Nevertheless, Musk highlighted stronger performance in other regions, stating, “The sales numbers at this point are strong.”

Robotaxi launch set for Austin

Despite the headwinds, investor optimism remains focused on Tesla’s upcoming Robotaxi programme. Musk confirmed on Tuesday, in an interview with CNBC, that Tesla will launch the fully autonomous vehicle services in Austin by the end of June, as originally planned. He added that Robotaxi will later expand to Los Angeles and San Francisco following its Austin debut.

Musk had earlier stated that unsupervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology would roll out in California and Texas by June. The Austin launch will feature the Model Y fitted with a “localised parameter set” optimised for the region.

Washington, DC – United States Congresswoman LaMonica McIver has been charged with assaulting a law enforcement officer after a standoff at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in early May.

On Tuesday, Democrats denounced the charge as an attempt by the administration of Republican President Donald Trump to silence his political rivals for speaking out against his deportation campaign.

In a post on the social media platform X, Democratic Representative Gil Cisneros blasted the administration for having “gone after judges, prosecutors, and now, Members of Congress” in its attempts to stifle dissent.

“The charges against Rep McIver are a blatant political attack and an attempt to prohibit Members of Congress from conducting oversight,” Cisneros wrote.

The charge was announced on Monday evening, with federal prosecutor Alina Habba —Trump’s former personal lawyer — accusing McIver of having “assaulted, impeded, and interfered” with law enforcement.

“The conduct cannot be overlooked,” Habba wrote in a statement. “It is my constitutional obligation to ensure that our federal law enforcement is protected when executing their duties.”

The criminal charge stemmed from an incident on May 9, when McIver joined two other members of Congress for an oversight tour of Delaney Hall, a privately run immigration detention facility in Newark, New Jersey.

The visit devolved into a fracas involving elected officials, protesters and federal law enforcement agents. The mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, was arrested at the scene for alleged trespassing.

In Monday’s statement, Habba announced the charge against Baraka has since been dropped “for the sake of moving forward”. But his arrests likewise spurred outcry over possible political motives.

‘Intimidate and interfere’

Late on Monday, McIver responded to the charges against her with a statement of her own, saying she and other members of Congress were “fulfilling our lawful oversight responsibilities” when they visited the detention centre.

McIver accused ICE agents at the scene of creating an “unnecessary and unsafe confrontation”. She added that the charges against her “mischaracterise and distort my actions”.

“The charges against me are purely political,” McIver wrote.

Top Democrats also remained defiant in the face of the Trump administration’s accusations, saying they would continue their oversight duties at immigration facilities like Delaney Hall.

“The criminal charge against Congresswoman LaMonica McIver is extreme, morally bankrupt and lacks any basis in law or fact,” Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives said in a joint statement.

They underscored that they have a right as Congress members to show up at federal facilities unannounced for inspections.

The charges against McIver, they argued, are a “blatant attempt by the Trump administration to intimidate Congress and interfere with our ability to serve as a check and balance on an out-of-control executive branch”.

In a separate statement, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee said the criminal charge was a “dangerous precedent” that “reveals the increasingly authoritarian nature of this administration”.

“Representative McIver has our full support, and we will do everything in our power to help fight this outrageous threat to our constitutional system,” they said.

Democrats have denounced the Trump administration’s push for “mass deportation” as violating constitutional and human rights. As part of that push, the Trump White House has sought to expand the use of private detention centres to house the growing number of people arrested for deportation.

Mayor Baraka, in particular, has repeatedly protested the 1,000-bed Delaney Hall for opening without the proper permits and approvals. Its operator, The GEO Group, has denied any violations.

The facility became operational in early May, under a 15-year agreement made with ICE.

May 20 (UPI) — The Trump administration has lifted a stop-work order on New York’s offshore wind energy project and will allow construction to resume.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Monday evening that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and President Donald Trump had agreed to lift the order after making progress on a natural gas compromise with the state.

“Americans who live in New York and New England would see significant economic benefits and lower utility costs from increased access to reliable, affordable, clean American natural gas,” Burgum wrote in a post on X.

The offshore and wind energy project Empire Wind 1, off Long Island, is the first offshore wind project that would deliver electricity directly to New York City. It was approved by the Biden administration and stopped last month by Trump.

Throughout his campaign, Trump made his opposition to wind power clear as he pushed offshore fossil fuel production instead. In January, Trump signed an executive order that bans new leases for offshore wind in U.S. waters.

Equinor, the parent company of Empire Offshore Wind LLC, suspended offshore construction last month in compliance with the Interior Department order.

According to Burgum, the Empire Wind 1 project was tabled “until further review of information that suggests the Biden administration rushed through its approval without sufficient analysis.”

Hochul pushed back last month, saying, “Empire Wind 1 is already employing hundreds of New Yorkers, including 1,000 good-paying union jobs as part of a growing sector that has already spurred significant economic development and private investment throughout the state and beyond.”

On Tuesday, Equinor expressed gratitude for the administration’s agreement with New York.

“We appreciate the fact that construction can now resume on Empire Wind, a project which underscores our commitment to deliver energy while supporting local economies and creating jobs,” said Anders Opedal, president and chief executive officer of Equinor.

Equinor’s work began last year with the goal of gearing up commercial operations in 2027. The Empire Wind 1 project is 30% complete. It will include 54 turbines, up to 910-feet tall, that will generate 810 megawatts of electricity for half a million homes.

“I would like to thank President Trump for finding a solution that saves thousands of American jobs and provides for continued investments in energy infrastructure in the United States,” Opedal added. “I am grateful to Gov. Hochul for her constructive collaboration with the Trump administration, without which we would not have been able to advance this project and secure energy for 500,000 homes in New York.”

Washington, DC – Top United States diplomat Marco Rubio has suggested his country’s “engagement” is what led Israel to allow a limited amount of aid into Gaza after a months-long blockade on food, medicine and other basic supplies.

At a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday, Democrat Jeff Merkley pressed Rubio, a Republican, about his stance on Israel’s blockade, which spurred fears of imminent famine in the Palestinian territory.

The secretary of state replied that the US is happy to see humanitarian assistance start to enter the territory.

“Ultimately, I don’t think you would have seen the events of the last couple days without our engagement and the engagement of others,” Rubio said.

Israel allowed several aid trucks to enter Gaza on Monday, and United Nations officials have said that around 100 more were cleared to reach the territory on Tuesday.

But that quantity still represents a fraction of the daily needs of Gaza’s population, which numbers over 2.1 million people.

“Israel remains a strong ally. We’re supportive,” Rubio continued. “We understand why for their security Hamas cannot exist. We are also very happy to see that they have allowed aid to begin to flow, and we hope that that will continue.”

Several Western countries, including close partners of Israel, have recently decried the Israeli siege on Gaza. On Monday, the leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Canada said in a joint statement that they were “horrified” by Israel’s military escalations in Gaza and its blockade on humanitarian aid.

They threatened to pursue “concrete actions” like sanctions if Israel continued to expand its military assault.

The administration of US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has remained staunchly pro-Israel, but experts say recent moves from the White House signal a growing gap between the US and Israel.

For example, Trump did not include Israel as a stop in his recent trip to the Middle East. He has also initiated diplomatic talks with Iran and declared a ceasefire with Yemen’s Houthi group — both of which are adversaries of Israel in the region.

The Houthis, for instance, continue to launch missiles and drones at Israel in a show of support for the Palestinians in Gaza.

Still, over the past three months, the US has refused to directly criticise Israel’s decision to prevent food and medicine from reaching Gaza.

But last week, at a stop in the United Arab Emirates, Trump indicated he wanted to get the situation in Gaza “taken care of”.

“A lot of people are starving. There’s a lot of bad things going on,” he said.

Also last week, in an interview with the BBC, Rubio said he was “troubled” by the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher also told the BBC on Tuesday that as many as 14,000 children in Gaza are at risk of dying in the next 48 hours if food does not reach them.

Last year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over possible war crimes in Gaza, including the use of starvation as a method of war.

On Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel would only allow a “basic quantity of food” into the Palestinian territory to stave off international pressure.

“Our best friends in the world – senators I know as strong supporters of Israel – have warned that they cannot support us if images of mass starvation emerge,” he said, according to the publication Haaretz.

The Gaza Government Media Office said on Tuesday that at least 58 Palestinians have died of malnutrition over the past 80 days.

At Tuesday’s Senate hearing, Rubio appeared to acknowledge that more aid needs to reach the Palestinians in Gaza.

“I understand your point that it’s not in sufficient amounts,” Rubio told Merkley. “But we were pleased to see that decision was made.”

A United States citizen has been transferred to the US after being held for nearly six months in Venezuela.

The family of US Air Force veteran Joseph St Clair confirmed his release on Tuesday, following his detention in November of last year.

“This news came suddenly, and we are still processing it, but we are overwhelmed with joy and gratitude,” St Clair’s parents, Scott and Patti, said in a statement.

US President Donald Trump’s envoy for special missions, Richard Grenell, later explained on social media that he had met with Venezuelan officials on the Caribbean island of Antigua to negotiate the release.

Grenell credited St Clair’s freedom to Trump’s “America First” political platform.

“Joe St. Clair is back in America,” he wrote. “I met Venezuelan officials in a neutral country today to negotiate an America First strategy. This is only possible because [Trump] puts Americans first. ”

Citing anonymous sources familiar with the negotiations, the Reuters news agency reported that Grenell discussed St Clair’s case on Tuesday with Jorge Rodriguez, the president of Venezuela’s National Assembly and an ally of President Nicolas Maduro.

Reuters and another news agency, Bloomberg, both reported that a deal was struck to extend a licence for the US oil company Chevron to operate in Venezuela by 60 days.

The Trump administration had previously announced it was revoking the licence in February, on the basis that Venezuela had not upheld its commitment to fair elections. The licence was due to end on May 27.

Any extension will likely need the approval of the US Department of State and the US Treasury.

The South American country relies on oil as the pillar of its economy. But since the mid-2010s, Venezuela has experienced an economic crisis that has pushed even basic supplies like food and medicine beyond what some families can afford.

That, combined with alleged political repression, has prompted an exodus of nearly 7.9 million people out of Venezuela, according to the United Nations.

In 2023, Venezuela committed to electoral reforms under the Barbados Agreement, a deal that the US applauded. Then-US President Joe Biden loosened restrictions on Venezuela’s oil industry in the aftermath of the agreement.

But Venezuela’s presidential election on July 28, 2024 was widely criticised for its lack of transparency. While Maduro and his allies claimed he had won a third term, the electoral authorities did not provide any proof of his victory.

Instead, the opposition coalition published voting tallies it said proved that its candidate had won by a landslide. That prompted widespread protests and a deadly crackdown from law enforcement.

During his first term in office, from 2017 to 2021, Trump had pursued a campaign of “maximum pressure” on Maduro’s government, even offering a $15m bounty for information that led to the Venezuelan leader’s arrest.

But critics have pointed out that Trump may need Venezuela’s cooperation to carry out his goal of “mass deportation” during his second term.

Since returning to office in January, Trump has signalled a willingness to negotiate with Maduro. In late January, he even sent Grenell to meet with Maduro in person in the capital of Caracas. Part of Grenell’s directive was to ensure all detained Americans in the country were returned home.

As Grenell left the country, he revealed he was returning with six Americans who had previously been imprisoned in Venezuela.

In March, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio estimated that nine Americans remained in Venezuela’s custody.

Venezuela, for its part, has started to accept deportation flights from the US, although in the past it has refused to accept migrants removed from the US.

St Clair’s family has said that the military veteran was a language specialist who was seeking treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder in South America.

A United States judge has rebuked the administration of President Donald Trump, saying that reports of deportations to South Sudan appear to violate his previous court order.

On Tuesday in Boston, Massachusetts, US District Court Judge Brian Murphy held a virtual hearing to weigh an emergency motion on behalf of deported migrants reportedly on board a flight to South Sudan.

He asked lawyers for the Trump administration to identify where the migrants were. He also indicated that he could ask for the flight to be turned around.

“Based on what I have been told, this seems like it may be contempt,” Judge Murphy told Elianis Perez, a lawyer for the Trump Justice Department.

In a recent annual report, the US Department of State accused South Sudan of “significant human rights issues”, including torture and extrajudicial killings.

But the Trump administration has been looking abroad for destinations to send undocumented immigrants currently detained in the US, particularly those whose home countries will not accept them.

In Tuesday’s hearing, Judge Murphy said the flight to South Sudan appeared to violate a preliminary injunction he issued on April 18, which prohibited migrants from being deported to third-party countries that were not their own.

That injunction required the Trump administration to give the migrants an adequate opportunity to appeal their removal.

The migrants, Judge Murphy ruled, were simply seeking “an opportunity to explain why such a deportation will likely result in their persecution, torture, and/or death”.

He cited the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees the right to due process: in other words, a fair hearing in the US court system.

Earlier this month, on May 7, lawyers for the migrants had indicated that their clients were slated to be sent to Libya, another country with significant human rights concerns.

Judge Murphy, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, ruled that such a deportation would be in violation of his injunction.

In Tuesday’s emergency court filing, the lawyers for those migrants emphasised how close a call that incident was. The migrants in question were already on a bus, sitting on the tarmac of an airport, when they were ordered to be returned.

The emergency motion identifies the migrants only by their initials and countries of origin, Myanmar and Vietnam among them.

But it explains what allegedly happened to them over the last 24 hours and seeks immediate action from the court.

The lawyers allege that one migrant from Myanmar, called NM in the court filings, received a notice of removal on Monday. It identified the destination as South Africa. Within 10 minutes, the court filing said the email was recalled by its sender.

A couple of hours later, a new notice of removal was sent, this time naming South Sudan as the destination.

In both instances, NM refused to sign the document. Lawyers in the emergency petition indicate that NM has “limited English proficiency” and was not provided a translator to understand the English-language document.

While one of NM’s lawyers stated her intention to meet with him on Tuesday morning, by the time their appointment time came, she was informed he had already been removed from his detention facility, en route to South Sudan.

The emergency filing includes a copy of an email sent to the lawyers from the family members of those deported.

“I believe my husband [name redacted] and 10 other individuals that were sent to Port Isabel Detention Center in Los Fresnos, TX were deported to South Africa or Sudan,” the email begins.

“This is not right! I fear my husband and his group, which consist of people from Laos, Thailand, Pakistan, Korea, and Mexico are being sent to South Africa or Sudan against their will. Please help! They cannot be allowed to do this.”

May 20 (UPI) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, marked the 123rd anniversary of Cuban Independence Day on Tuesday.

“On Cuba’s Independence Day, I want to express my unwavering support and solidarity for the Cuban people,” Rubio said in a prepared statement.

“I commend all those who have stood up against over six decades of brutal repression, censorship and human rights violations at the hands of the illegitimate Cuban regime,” Rubio said.

“Their tireless advocacy for a free, democratic and prosperous Cuba remains a beacon of hope and resistance for the world,” he added. “Today we honor their sacrifice, courage and resilience.”

Cuban Independence Day marks the anniversary of the date when Cuba officially became independent of Spain in 1902.

Cuban pro-democracy groups in the greater Miami area also are celebrating Cuban Independence Day with a rally scheduled in Tamiami Park during the evening hours, WFLA reported.

The rally’s aim is to pressure the Cuban dictatorship and communist government to leave the island nation.

Bay of Pigs Assault Brigade veteran Rafael Montalvo said President Donald Trump could help remove the Cuban regime through his foreign policy and “restore the island into a first-class destination,” according to the WFLA report.

Rubio is the son of Cuban immigrants and in February expanded visa restrictions on Cuban officials and others who are forcing Cuban citizens to participate in the Cuban labor export programs.

Rubio said Cuban elites profit from the forced labor of workers, including skilled healthcare workers who are forced to provide healthcare services overseas.

The Cuban labor export program deprives Cubans of much-needed medical care, he said.

“The United States is committed to countering forced labor practices around the globe,” he added.

“To do so, we must promote accountability, not just for Cuban officials responsible for these policies, but also those complicit in the exploitation and forced labor of Cuban workers,” Rubio said.

Washington, DC – United States President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have laid out their clearest plan yet for the “Golden Dome” missile defence programme, which would include putting weapons in space for the first time.

Speaking from the White House on Tuesday, Trump said he had “officially selected an architecture” for the system, designed to take down “hypersonic missiles, ballistic missiles and advanced cruise missiles”.

“I promised the American people that I would build a cutting-edge missile defence shield to protect our homeland from the threat of foreign missile attack,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

The Golden Dome system, he added, would include “space-based sensors and interceptors”.

“ Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world and even if they’re launched from space,” Trump continued. “We will have the best system ever built.”

The announcement comes just less than four months after Trump signed an executive order kicking off the programme’s development. General Michael Guetlein – who currently serves as the vice chief of space operations at Space Force, a branch of the US military – is slated to manage the programme.

Speaking at the event, Hegseth hailed the plan as a “game changer” and a “generational investment in security of America and Americans”.

The White House did not immediately release further details about the missile defence system, and the Pentagon is reportedly still working out its capabilities and requirements.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated earlier this month that the space-based components of the Golden Dome alone could cost as much as $542bn over the next 20 years.

It noted that a high number of sensors and interceptors would be needed for a space-based system to be effective, particularly as foreign militaries like North Korea’s grow more sophisticated.

But on Tuesday, Trump outlined a much lower price tag and timeline.

“It should be fully operational before the end of my term. So, we’ll have it done in about three years,” Trump said.

He estimated the total cost to add up to about $175bn, adding that he planned to use existing defence capabilities to build the system.

But the funding for the programme has so far not been secured. At Tuesday’s news conference, Trump confirmed that he was seeking $25bn for the system in a tax cut bill currently moving through Congress, although that sum could be cut amid ongoing negotiations.

There is likely to be some variation in the total cost of the project. The Associated Press news agency, for example, cited an unnamed government official as saying that Trump had been given three versions of the plan, described as “medium”, “high” and “extra high”.

Those tiers corresponded to how many satellites, sensors and interceptors would be put in space as part of the programme. The news agency reported that Trump chose the “high” version, which has an initial cost ranging between $30bn and $100bn.

Questions over viability

As he explained his plans for the Golden Dome on Tuesday, Trump cited several inspirations, including Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile defence system, which is funded in part by the US.

He also pointed to the work of a fellow Republican, the late President Ronald Reagan, who served in the White House during the Cold War in the 1980s.

As part of his Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983, Reagan had proposed a barrier to nuclear weapons that included space-based technology.

“ We will truly be completing the job that President Reagan started 40 years ago, forever ending the missile threat to the American homeland,” Trump said.

But questions have persisted over the viability of a space-based defence system, its price, and whether it could ignite a new arms race.

Democrats have also questioned the possible involvement of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which is a frontrunner among the technology companies seeking to build key components of the system.

A group of 42 Democratic lawmakers have called for a probe into Musk’s role in the bidding process, pointing to his position as a special adviser to Trump and his substantial campaign donations to the president.

“If Mr. Musk were to exercise improper influence over the Golden Dome contract, it would be another example
of a disturbing pattern of Mr. Musk flouting conflict of interest rules,” the Democrats wrote in a letter, calling for the probe.

On Tuesday, Trump did not directly respond to a question about which companies would be involved in the Golden Dome. Instead, he highlighted that the system would boost industries in states like Alaska, Indiana, Florida and Georgia.

He added, “Canada has called us, and they want to be a part of it. So we’ll be talking to them.”

The administration of US President Donald Trump has granted refugee status to 49 white Afrikaners, echoing a debunked conspiracy theory about “white genocide” in South Africa. The move comes after Trump cut aid to the nation and threatened to boycott meetings with its government. What’s behind Trump’s fixation on South Africa?