Migrants who applied for asylum in the United States but then fled north, fearing they would be swept up in President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, may have miscalculated in viewing Canada as a safe haven.

That is because their time in the United States could count against them when they apply for asylum in Canada, according to a Reuters review of Canadian federal court rulings on asylum seekers and interviews with refugee lawyers.

In 2016, 160 asylum cases came to the federal courts after being rejected by refugee tribunals. Of those, 33 had been rejected in part because the applicants had spent time in the United States, the Reuters review found.

Lawyers said there could be many more such cases among the thousands of applicants who were rejected by the tribunals in the same period but did not appeal to the federal courts.

The 2016 court rulings underscore the potentially precarious legal situation now facing many of the nearly 2,000 people who have crossed illegally into Canada since January.

Most of those border crossers had been living legally in the United States, including people awaiting the outcome of U.S. asylum applications, according to Canadian and U.S. government officials and Reuters interviews with dozens of migrants.

Trump’s tough talk on illegal immigration, however, spurred them northward to Canada, whose government they viewed as more welcoming to migrants. There, they have begun applying for asylum, citing continued fears of persecution or violence in their homelands, including Somalia and Eritrea.

But Canadian refugee tribunals are wary of “asylum-shopping” and look askance at people coming from one of the world’s richest countries to file claims, the refugee lawyers said.

“Abandoning a claim in the United States or coming to Canada after a negative decision in the United States, or failing to claim and remaining in the States for a long period of time — those are all big negatives. Big, big negatives,” said Toronto-based legal aid lawyer Anthony Navaneelan, who is representing applicants who came to Canada from the United States in recent months.

The Canadian government has not given a precise figure on how many of the border crossers were asylum seekers in the United States.

But it appears their fears may have been misplaced. Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, has said that anyone in the United States illegally is subject to deportation, but there is no evidence that asylum seekers with pending cases are considered illegal under the new administration.

‘Lack of seriousness’

The asylum seekers will make their cases before Canada’s refugee tribunals, which rejected 5,000 cases last year. The tribunals’ decisions are not made public, so the reasons are not known. An Immigration and Refugee Board spokeswoman confirmed, however, that an applicant’s time in the United States can be a factor in a tribunal’s decision.

Rejected applicants can appeal to Canada’s federal courts, whose rulings are published. The federal courts upheld 19 of the 33 tribunal rejections they heard last year and recommended fresh tribunal hearings for the other 14 cases.

The judges believed those claimants had a good explanation for having been in the United States first. The outcomes of the new tribunal hearings are not known.

The federal court handles only a small portion of all applications rejected by the refugee tribunals. But overall, applicants who have spent time in the United States have a higher chance of being rejected, said multiple immigration lawyers, including two former refugee tribunal counsel, interviewed by Reuters.

Last year, a federal judge upheld a refugee tribunal rejection of Sri Lankan man who had abandoned a pending U.S. claim. The tribunal said the man’s decision demonstrated a “lack of seriousness” and was “inconsistent with the expected behavior” of someone who fears persecution in their own country.

A Chadian applicant lost his 2016 appeal because he did not claim asylum “at the first opportunity” in the United States.

The asylum-seekers who have crossed the U.S border since January are still going through the claim process and many have yet to go through tribunal hearings.

Well-founded fear?

Canadian officials want refugee applicants to behave the way they think people fleeing for their lives would behave, said lawyer and researcher Hilary Evans Cameron. Living undocumented in the United States for years or abandoning a pending claim, as many people among this latest refugee influx have done, are not seen as consistent with that fear, she said.

Those with failed U.S. asylum claims must prove to Canadian tribunals that the U.S. courts were wrong in their assessment,that their circumstances have changed for the worse, or that they qualify in Canada, several lawyers said.

Crucially, all applicants must show that the often years-old fears that led them to leave their home countries for the United States still exist.

Canada grants asylum if applicants qualify under the United Nations’ definition of someone who has a well-founded fear of persecution based on certain criteria, such as race, religion, nationality or political affiliation.

A federal judge ruled in March that the deportation of a Honduran family, who had lived in the United States for more than three years, could go forward after immigration officials found the family no longer faced a risk in Honduras.

“The longer they’ve been away [from their country of origin], the more difficult it is to establish that they’re a refugee,” said Winnipeg refugee lawyer Ken Zaifman.

 
…

The U.N. human rights office says one of its independent experts will travel to Panama next month to investigate tax avoidance and evasion schemes like those revealed by the so-called “Panama Papers” leak.

 

Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, the office’s expert on foreign debt and human rights, has been asked by the U.N.’s Human Rights Council to study Panama’s efforts to improve financial transparency and reduce illicit financial flows.

 

The U.N. Human Rights Council has asked Bohoslavsky to study the impact of such illicit transactions and report to the 47-member body next March.

 

The Argentinian expert said Thursday that during the May 2-10 visit he also wants to consider how Panama’s “impressive economic growth” has trickled down to citizens, and the possible negative effects of large infrastructure projects on human rights.

 

 

 
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Venezuela’s government announced Wednesday it will go ahead with its threatened withdrawal from the Organization of American States, the regional body whose leader has been one of the fiercest critics of embattled socialist President Nicolas Maduro.

 

The move came on the same day as fierce confrontations in the capital between security forces and anti-government protesters who staged yet another march amid political unrest that has been blamed for 29 deaths in recent weeks. Clashes were also reported in other Venezuelan cities.

OAS pressure

 

Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez called for the OAS withdrawal after a brief but contentious meeting at the group’s Washington headquarters in which its permanent council voted in favor of holding a special session to evaluate Venezuela’s crisis, adding to mounting international pressure for Maduro to schedule delayed elections and free detained political activists.

 

Rodriguez said the OAS’s action was taken to “intervene and take custody of our country, something that fortunately will never happen.”

 

Later, Maduro sent out a tweet calling for support against outside meddling in Venezuela’s affairs. 

“Enough of interventionist abuses and violation of legality,” he said. “Venezuela is the cradle of the Liberators and we will respect it.”

 

Tension has been steadily rising between Venezuela and a group of OAS members that includes the United States since OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro issued a 75-page report in March accusing Maduro’s government of systematically violating human rights and standards of democracy. Almagro unsuccessfully urged OAS members to suspend Venezuela unless general elections were held soon.

Fierce critic

 

As Venezuela’s unrest escalated in recent weeks, Almagro has been outspoken in denouncing the government’s response to opposition protests demanding Maduro hold new elections.

 

“This is an authoritarianism that hides behind the armed forces that, far from acting as the forces of order, act as the forces of repression and terror,” he said after the first reported death. 

 

Late Tuesday, Rodriguez had warned that Venezuela would quit the OAS if the body proceeded with scheduling a special session on the crisis here, calling it an infringement on Venezuela’s sovereignty. She said the pressure being brought by the U.S. on some members like Haiti to punish Venezuela had been considerable. 

Two years to leave 

Withdrawing from the OAS is a two-year process, but Rodriguez said Venezuela would immediately stop participating. Venezuela is estimated to owe the OAS about $10.5 million in unpaid annual dues. No country has ever withdrawn from the group since its founding in 1948.

 

The decision drew quick rebuke from opposition leaders. Former congresswoman Maria Corina Macahdo said Maduro’s exit from the OAS “formalized Venezuela’s outlaw status.”

 

Earlier in the day, thousands of protesters marched on Caracas’ main highway seeking to deliver a message to the national ombudsman, whose job is to stand up for citizens’ rights but who the opposition has tagged the “defender of the dictator.” They were met with plumes of tear gas that sent demonstrators running. 

 

“The repression is very strong,” Luis Florido, an opposition lawmaker, said as clouds of the white gas swirled around him.

 

Opposition leaders said one protester, Juan Pablo Pernalete Llover, 20, died after being struck by a canister of tear gas. He was a student in political accounting at Metropolitan University, which issued a statement saying the institution was mourning the “early and unjust departure of this talented young Venezuelan, who gave his life in exchange for the highest values of democracy.”

Toll continues to mount

 

Ramon Muchacho, a Caracas-area mayor, said at least 22 others were injured in Wednesday’s protests, including 14 with traumatic wounds. Elsewhere, children were evacuated from a school after being exposed to tear gas. In the evening, government officials reported two national guardsmen were wounded by gunshots in the same part of Caracas where Pernalete Llover was killed. 

 

In all, 29 people have been killed, more than 400 injured and nearly 1,300 detained in the monthlong unrest roiling the nation.

 

Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets demanding Maduro hold elections and denouncing his government as being responsible for triple-digit inflation, food shortages and a rise crime. The protests have frequently ended in violent confrontations with security forces, which have used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse crowds, and there also have 

The tide of unrest shows no signs of diminishing soon, with opposition lawmakers vowing to march Thursday to the site where Pernalete Llover was killed. Leaders from both sides of the political divide are calling for mass gatherings on May Day.
…

News reports say President Donald Trump may be preparing to sign an executive order pulling the United States out of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Trump has called the pact that took effect in 1994 a disaster that has primarily benefited Mexico and cost the U.S. jobs.

The reports say the order could come as early as this week, but may be no more than a threat used so the U.S. can renegotiate a better deal.

A Canadian foreign ministry spokesman Wednesday said Canada was “ready to come to the table at any time.”

Earlier this week, Trump ordered a 20 percent tariff on Canadian lumber imports.

Many Mexican officials have called NAFTA a disappointment, saying it has brought slow economic growth despite increased investment in factories and industry.
…

Paraguay’s lower house of Congress on Wednesday rejected a constitutional amendment that would have allowed for presidential re-election, ending a monthlong political crisis that aroused violent protests.

Under the measure, center-right President Horacio Cartes could have sought re-election in 2018. But last week, the former soft drink and tobacco mogul who took office in 2013 said he would not run regardless of whether the amendment was approved.

Protesters set fire to Congress on March 31 after the Senate secretly voted in favor of the amendment. Police later stormed an opposition political party’s headquarters and killed a protester.

Re-election is a sensitive subject in Paraguay, a landlocked South American country where memories still abound of a brutal 35-year dictatorship that fell in 1989. The constitution has prohibited re-election since it was passed in 1992.

“We have lost interest in continuing to push for this due to our candidate’s decision,” said Hugo Velazquez, a member of the lower house and member of Cartes’ Colorado Party.

The lower house’s move was also a blow to former leftist President Fernando Lugo, whom lawmakers ousted in 2012. Several of his congressional allies had supported the proposed amendment in the hope he would run again in 2018.

Investors favor Cartes’ low-tax policies and credit him with spurring growth in Paraguay, the world’s No. 4 soy exporter and long one of South America’s poorest countries. But business groups had urged him not to seek another term, in order to avoid more riots.
…

Venezuelan security forces fired scores of tear gas volleys and turned water cannons on rock-throwing protesters on a bridge in Caracas on Wednesday as the death toll from this month’s anti-government unrest hit at least 29.

A 20-year-old male demonstrator died in those latest clashes in the capital after being hit by a gas canister, said officials of the eastern Chacaco district.

Government authorities also announced two new fatalities from clashes earlier this week: a 22-year-old who received various gunshot wounds at a protest in Valencia city, and a 28-year-old government supporter shot in the stomach in Tachira state.

The wave of protests since early April against socialist President Nicolas Maduro have sparked Venezuela’s worst violence since 2014. Demonstrators want elections to end the socialists’ two-decade rule, but the South American nation’s brutal economic crisis is also fueling anger.

“I want everything to end: the hunger, the murders, the corruption, all the ills we are suffering. We have to stay in the street until there is change. We are the majority,” said student Ricardo Ropero, 20, at a march in Caracas.

Red-shirted supporters of Maduro, the 54-year-old former bus driver who succeeded Hugo Chavez in 2013, also rallied on the streets of the capital, punching their fists in the air and denouncing opposition “terrorists.”

Maduro says his foes are seeking a violent coup, with U.S. connivance, like a short-lived 2002 putsch against Chavez.

Battle on bridge

Amid another day of nationwide opposition rallies, the worst trouble in Caracas on Wednesday occurred when National Guard troops and police blocked off a highway where several thousand demonstrators were marching downtown.

On a bridge in east Caracas, they fired dozens of tear gas canisters, which masked youths picked up to hurl back at them or into a nearby trash-strewn river.

Traffic once again ground to a standstill as the zone resounded to the familiar sounds of the near-daily clashes. When water cannons were turned on the marchers, they fell back and skirmishes spread to surrounding streets through the afternoon.

Opposition leaders accuse Maduro of seizing dictatorial powers and unleashing repression on peaceful protesters, but the opposition’s ranks do include groups of youths who hunt for trouble, hurling Molotov cocktails or burning property.

As well as wanting a general election, Maduro’s opponents are demanding the release of jailed activists, humanitarian aid to help offset shortages of food and medicine, and autonomy for the opposition-led legislature.

More than 1,500 people have been arrested during the protests this month, with 800 still detained, according to rights group Penal Forum.

Maduro narrowly won election in 2013 against opposition leader Henrique Capriles, but the economic crisis has battered his public approval ratings since then.

The latest data from pollster Datanalisis, cited by a client, showed Maduro’s popularity edged up a couple of points to 24.1 percent in March, possibly due to the impact of subsidized food distribution bags known as CLAPs.

He has called for local state elections, postponed from 2016, to be held soon, but has shown no sign of supporting an early presidential election. The opposition now has majority support and the ruling Socialists would likely lose any vote.
…

Ten of the world’s leading human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have chosen three human rights defenders from Cambodia, El Salvador and Egypt as this year’s finalists for the prestigious Martin Ennals Award. 

The three finalists were selected from a field of some 50 human rights defenders. Director of the Martin Ennals Foundation, Michael Khambatta, says the city of Geneva, which will host the award ceremony on October 10, provides project funding of $12,000 for each of the finalists.

“The prize money itself is 30,000 francs for the laureate and 10,000 for the finalists ,” said Khambatta.  “The idea is not really to give a lot of money. The idea is really to give them credibility, recognition and hopefully protection through widespread publicity.” 

Khambatta tells VOA each finalist is at serious risks from their respective governments and others who oppose the work they do to promote human rights. He says a group of five Human Rights Defenders from Cambodia called Free the 5-KH has been held in pre-trial detention for more than a year.

“Which seems to be in violation of any of the justifications that would, normally one would have for pre-trial detention… These are people who are being basically detained for their human rights work, and this is having a chilling effect on human rights defenders throughout Cambodia,” said Khambatta.

Khambatta says a second finalist, Karla Avelar, a transgender woman in El Salvador, has been imprisoned, attacked and nearly killed on several occasions for defending and promoting the human rights of LGBTI people.

He says the third finalist, Mohamed Zaree, a legal scholar from Egypt, has been subject to death threats for his work as director for the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies. He says Zaree, despite the risks, continues to battle human rights violations, which have become worse following the Egyptian revolution in 2011.
…

Brazilian military police in front of Congress hurled tear gas Tuesday at thousands of indigenous protesters, who responded by throwing spears and shooting arrows as a peaceful demonstration turned into chaos.

There were no reports of any injuries on either side.

Police said protesters got too close to a large fountain of water on the esplanade in front of Congress in Brasilia, Brazil’s capital.

“The Indians did not comply with the agreement they made with police” about the boundaries of the protest, a police statement said. “They were threatening to invade Congress.”

Demonstrators denied that, saying police were just looking for an excuse to remove them. They said that police had agreed the protesters could come close to the fountain and that the march was peaceful.

“Unfortunately, the brute force of the police caused this,” said Kleber Karipuna, a protester who came to Brasilia from the northern state of Amapa. “It’s natural that 3,000 Indians are going to respond” with spears and arrows.

Protesters said at least four people were arrested in the clash. Police did not provide details.

Brazil, Latin America’s largest nation, is home to numerous tribes, many of which live in the Amazon region. Clashes with ranchers, logging companies and other businesses operating near or on their lands are common. However, indigenous leaders say the violence has gotten worse in the last year amid Brazil’s economic crisis.

They have called for a campout in front of Congress all week to lodge a long list of complaints. They say the government of President Michel Temer is working to roll back protections in various parts of the Amazon and allowing ranchers and other big-money interests to steal their lands.
…

Bison calves have been born in the area that makes up Alberta’s Banff National Park for the first time in 140 years, Parks Canada officials said Tuesday, marking a milestone in attempts to reintroduce a wild herd to the area.

Conservation officers said three calves had been born since Saturday in the remote Panther Valley on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains and that seven more were expected.

Western Alberta is dealing with unseasonably cold spring weather, but Bill Hunt, resource conservation manager for Banff National Park, said the calves were well-equipped to deal with harsh conditions.

“Last night, we had 2 to 3 feet (60 to 90 centimeters) of snow, but fortunately bison are very well-adapted, so these little calves drop out, get their legs straightaway, start nursing and do fine,” Hunt said.

Parks Canada released a 16-strong herd of plains bison, including 10 pregnant females, in the country’s oldest national park in February.

They are keeping them under observation until summer 2018, when the animals will be released into the full 460-square-mile (1,189-square-kilometer) reintroduction zone after the females calve again next spring.

Bison herds of up to 30 million animals once migrated freely across North America. The shaggy, hump-shouldered animals, also widely known as buffalo, were nearly hunted to extinction in the late 19th century. Rangers estimate that bison have not grazed in Banff National Park since before it was established in 1885.
…

President Donald Trump and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Tuesday said they did not fear a trade war with Canada after American punitive action on lumber and milk.

“They have a tremendous surplus with the United States,” Trump said, adding “people don’t realize Canada’s been very rough on the United States. … They’ve outsmarted our politicians for many years.”

Trump added that he wanted “a very big tax” on Canadian lumber and timber.

He made the comments at a meeting with American farmers where he signed an executive order aimed at helping agriculture and rural areas.   

Trump also talked to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Tuesday. Trudeau “refuted the baseless allegations by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the decision to impose unfair duties,” according to a summary of the call released by Trudeau’s office.

“The prime minister stressed that the government of Canada will vigorously defend the interests of the Canadian softwood industry, as we have successfully done in all past lumber disputes with the U.S.,” the statement said.

The White House later issued its own brief, three-sentence readout of the call, which it called “very amicable.”

The Canadian dollar fell to a 14-month low against the greenback after the United States imposed preliminary tariffs averaging 20 percent — more than $1 billion of countervailing duties — on imported Canadian softwood.

Earlier in the day, Trump vowed moves to protect the American dairy industry.

On Tuesday morning, he tweeted: “Canada has made business for our dairy farmers in Wisconsin and other border states very difficult. We will not stand for this. Watch!”

Against NAFTA

Trump, since his time campaigning for the presidency, has voiced his strong displeasure with the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), but until now he has vented most of his ire southward, toward Mexico.

Ross, speaking to reporters on the White House podium, would not explicitly characterize the actions on lumber and dairy as the opening shots on renegotiating NAFTA, but he did say: “Everything relates to everything else when you’re trying to negotiate.”

He described Canada as “generally a good neighbor,” asserting that its allegedly unfair trade practices regarding lumber and dairy were not very neighborly.

 

Asked on Tuesday in Kitchener, Ontario, about the U.S. trade actions and the fate of NAFTA, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau replied, “Standing up for Canada is my job, whether it’s softwood or software.”

Trudeau added, “Any two countries are going to have issues that will be irritants to the relationship and, quite frankly, having a good, constructive, working relationship allows us to work through those irritants.”

Some other Canadians were less diplomatic in their reactions.

“In Canada, the perception is that we’re always very nice,” said Unifor President Jerry Dias, representing forestry workers across the country. “But we can’t get trampled by this guy [Trump].”

‘Ignore, do not engage’

The majority of Canadians, including the prime minister and his colleagues, “understand that President Trump is prone to making ill-informed, off-the-cuff and arbitrary comments about a host of domestic and foreign policy issues,” Donald Abelson, the chairman of the political science department at the University of Western Ontario in London, told VOA.

“Canada will likely respond to Trump’s Tuesday tweet in a manner similar to how a competent parent responds to a child’s temper tantrum — ignore, do not engage,” added Abelson, who is also director of the school’s Canada-U.S. Institute.  

Other Canadians displayed wry humor — a traditional reaction to irritations from south of the border (at least since the last U.S. invasion during the War of 1812), considering the asymmetry of power.   

The president’s messages prompted immediate puns on Canadian social media, with tweets referencing “sacred cows” and calling the American trade action on dairy “udderly stupid” and “cheesy,” Sparkle Hayter, veteran Canadian journalist and author, told VOA.

The dairy dispute goes back decades. Currently, there is an overproduction of milk, according to dairy farmers on both sides of the border.

The U.S.-Canada lumber squabble is rooted in a couple of centuries of history.

 

 

In response to the proposed tariff on softwood lumber, “Canada to strike back by charging duties on exported Cdn actors,” tweeted the account of 22 Minutes, a satirical news program on national public broadcaster CBC.

Cows are No. 1

The Twitter account also noted the U.S. president “tweeted about Canadian dairy industry first thing this morning, so on his list of priorities: 1. Canadian Cows. 2. North Korea.”  

Trump’s attention on Canada comes amid indications he is pivoting away — at least temporarily — from the southern border and his quest to quickly fund his border wall with Mexico.

“We have plenty of time” to complete the wall during his first term, Trump assured reporters Tuesday afternoon.  

The presidential desire for border protection might find a better reception to the north, considering the comments from some Canadians.

 

“Some [in Canada] would like to separate from the U.S., like literally,” by digging a two-mile moat at the border “and filling it with beavers and mosquitoes,” quipped Hayter from her home province of Alberta.   

But many Canadians see themselves confronting a cross-border creature bigger than a beaver.

“Sleeping with an elephant” is how the late Pierre Trudeau, the current Canadian prime minister’s father, once characterized relations with the United States, “affected by every twitch and grunt.”
…

The U.S. Coast Guard says far fewer Cubans are trying to get to Florida using makeshift rafts since former President Barack Obama ended a policy granting residency to Cubans landing on American soil.

Coast Guard spokeswoman Kate Webb said overall interdictions have dropped from as many as 25 a day to about 20 per month since Obama ended the “wet foot, dry foot” policy.

The policy allowed Cubans who reached U.S. territorial waters to remain in the country but those intercepted in the waters between the two nations were returned home.

Webb said Tuesday that up to 70 percent of interdictions now involve go-fast boats, not the rustic vessels called “chugs.” The speedboats are towed to shore for law enforcement investigations.

Captain Jeffrey Janszen told The Citizen newspaper that migrants pay up to $10,000 each to cross aboard go-fast boats, compared with several hundred dollars in a chug.

The Coast Guard has expressed concern that President Donald Trump’s vow to build a wall along the southern border will likely increase sea traffic of migrants trying to enter the United States.
…

It was the most stunning political victory of the 21st century, one that brought shocked concern in many parts of the world and cheers in others. One uncontroversial certainty was that it would cause reverberations around the globe.

 

Donald Trump campaigned on an “America First” platform, but has found himself as president drawn into thorny geopolitical complexities aplenty in the first 100 days of his administration. Relations with Russia plummeted to “an all-time low,” as Trump himself described it, in the wake of the U.S. missile strikes on the Syrian government’s airfield in response to a deadly chemical attack. The administration’s Syria policy and how to handle President Bashar al-Assad seesawed.

 

A window of opportunity appeared with China after Trump hosted President Xi Jinping for a summit at his Florida estate, but tensions on the Korean Peninsula soared over North Korea’s nuclear program. Mexico showed consternation and agitation over the president’s planned border wall, but gave no sign it would pay for the structure as Trump had repeatedly promised voters.

 

Trump’s travel ban rocked refugees and asylum-seekers in several Muslim-majority nations, though it was blocked by federal courts at home. There were echoes of darker U.S.-Iran days, but nothing yet that would derail the landmark nuclear deal, as the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict continued to simmer.

 

Associated Press journalists in North Korea, Syria, Iran, Somalia, Israel, the West Bank, Russia, Germany and Mexico have gauged the global temperature by asking people five questions:

Do you feel more secure under a Trump presidency, or in danger?

 

Yuliya Konyakhina, Moscow: “I have a feeling that the world became more dangerous in general, not because Trump got elected, but in general it (the world) became more dangerous. When I go down to a metro I have sort of thoughts that something bad can happen.”

 

Shahrzad Ebrahimi, Tehran, Iran: “[The world] is 100 percent a more dangerous place. The U.S. threats to the world had been lessened during [Barack] Obama’s presidency and policies of that country were based on moving toward peace for at least eight years. But as soon as Trump took office, demonstrations began against him and the situations in Syria, Palestine, bombings, military and war threats all got worse. The more he sticks with his current policies, the more insecure and non-peaceful the world, especially the Middle East, will become. As you can see, now he is exchanging verbal blows with North Korea. Sometimes one can assume that this situation can even trigger a third world war.”  

 

Kim Hyang Byol, Pyongyang, North Korea: “It’s coming to 100 days since Trump became president, but we don’t care who the president is. The problem is whether they’re going to stop their hostile policy against North Korea, and whether they will do anything to help us reunify our country.”

 

Rustam Magamedov, Moscow: “[Trump is] agent provocateur, but in reality, he is just a good showman, as they say in the U.S. The fact that he became a president is rather scary, because he can start a war. It seems like that he is already moving toward the Korean borders. I think it is dangerous, first of all for Russia, because as a president and politician he is a bad person, a bad politician who has little understanding of politics.

 

Dan Mirkin, Tel Aviv, Israel: “Yeah, well maybe a little bit more dangerous. But I think that the steps that he took should have been taken a long time ago. And if it became more dangerous, then it’s not only because of Trump. Although, he has other drawbacks.”

 

Is the Trump administration more bark than bite?

 

Diane Lallouz, Tel Aviv: “It’s true that Donald Trump has a loud bark and you can say it’s more bark than bite. But, not really. It’s enough that he takes a few actions as opposed to not doing anything. He talks a lot, sometimes way too much and right off the sleeve without actually thinking about it and that may be a problem. But, at least the world knows that Donald Trump is going to take action when required.”

 

Raya Sauerbrun, Tel Aviv: “If it’s barking or if it’s doing, at least it shows that it’s doing something.  If it will sustain for a long time, we don’t know.”

 

Mohamed Shire, Mogadishu, Somalia: “This might be a new step; this might be a new strategy. We probably have to wait and see, but I think the United States administration needs to be very careful in just getting involved in Somalia without having a clear strategy and program that they align with the current Somali government.”

 

Yadollah Sobhani, Tehran: “Trump comes out with a lot of hype at first but eventually backs down from some of his stances on issues such as Russia, Middle East, Syria and so on. His inconsistent actions have proven that his bark is worse than his bite and he should not be taken very seriously.”

 

Majed Mokheiber, Damascus, Syria: “This is why we cannot predict whether there will be stability or more military security. In addition to that, we see that there are military tension spots around the world in other areas such as North Korea … that frankly may lead to a big explosion and a world war.”

 

Juan Pablo Bolanos, Mexico City: “I think it’s a bit of both. On the issue of sending Mexicans back, it is being fulfilled by the guy, Trump, and on the issue of building the wall, I definitely think he will not achieve it.”

Has Trump changed your views about America?

Ra So Yon, Pyongyang, North Korea: “After Trump became president, there has been no improvement in America’s image. If America doesn’t stop its aggression against us and pressure on us, then we’ll never have any good image of America; it will only get worse. We’ll never be surprised, whatever America does. And we’re not expecting any surprises from Trump.”

 

Yuri (no last name given), Moscow: “Nothing actually had changed, for real. Nothing had changed in Russian-American relations. They aren’t our friends or enemies. Geopolitical enemies, maybe, that’s it.”

 

Margret Machner, Berlin: “My trust at the moment is a lot less than it was earlier. One had the feeling that America was a strong, safe partner and I do not believe this anymore.”

 

Dan Mirkin, Tel Aviv: “I think that the U.S. remains the beacon of democracy because the U.S. itself is much more than its president. The president can be less or more of a beacon. But, America is a beacon.”

 

Hamza Abu Maria, Hebron, West Bank: “I’m about 30 years old, and since I grew up and started to understand and follow news, I don’t think the United States up until today was a beacon of democracy. If it was truly democratic, then from a long time ago they would have done justice to the Palestinian people.”

 

Mohammad Ali, Damascus: “We should never bet on any American administration, either Republican or Democrat. It’s the same front, supposedly to fight terrorism, but they didn’t do any of that. Instead they carried out an aggression against a sovereign state, which is Syria. They attacked Syria and they attacked the air base of a sovereign state and a member of the Arab League.”

 

Deqo Salaad, Mogadishu: “The U.S. was once both the beacon of democracy and human rights, but nowadays, a big change has happened as we can see more segregation committed by President Trump, especially when he said he was going to ban Muslims coming to the U.S. And with that, he has damaged the reputation of the U.S. of being the beacon of democracy and human rights in this world that the U.S. government promoted for ages now.”

 

Are we now living in a “post-truth” world?

 

Diane Lallouz, Tel Aviv: “I don’t think that we’re existing in a post-truth world and I don’t think that the way we consume information has anything to do with Trump. Actually over the last several decades we are getting information more and more on social media, so people are getting small amounts of information. Not too much real knowledge and that’s part of the problem. People are making judgments based on tiny amounts of truth or half-truth or non-truths, and it’s impossible to know, by the social media, what is really true. Is Trump the cause of this? I don’t think so. I think Trump is just a part of the picture that we live in today.”

 

Dan Mirkin, Tel Aviv: “I don’t think it affects the way that I consume information but it certainly changes the way in which the information is delivered, and the fact of alternative truth, alternative facts is a new invention, so we have to apply filters more than before.”

 

Mahmoud Draghmeh, Nablus, West Bank: “The world is far from the truth, despite the fact the technological development helped the news to reach. But I think that there is a distance from the truth, because the media, with all my respect to the different media outlets, everyone adopts his idea and exports it to the world.”

 

What has surprised you about President Trump?

 

Ute Hubner, Berlin: “I find he is very honest – more honest than I thought in the sense that a lot isn’t pushed under the table. He says it like it is, while here in our case so much is said and talked about that “everything is fine, wonderful and all is good,” while we know that the reality is more often than not something else.”

 

Fatmeh (full name not given) Damascus: “Trump increased problems in the Arab world and the first proof is the strike on Syria. This has increased problems and confusion. He didn’t do anything against terrorism; he only increased it. There is nothing new. His policy has been to oppress people, especially the Arab people. We didn’t see anything new.”

 

Yadollah Sobhani, Tehran: “What shocked me most from Trump was a sudden shift in his policies toward Russia from a friendly position to a clash. I did not expect such instability in a politician’s behavior.”

Payam Mosleh, Tehran: “What scared me most was the classification of human beings (under Trump’s proposed Muslim ban). I think history has taught and shown us enough times that separating people from each other has never done anyone any good. Building walls either in Berlin or America has no results and is disastrous.”

 

Mahdieh Gharib, Tehran: “What surprised me most was preventing Iranians from entering the United States or even barring those Iranians who were U.S. residents and had temporarily left that country. Bombing Syria was the second thing that surprised me.”

 

Shimon Abitbol, Tel Aviv: “He’s playing too much golf. That’s the only thing I’m surprised by. I mean, how can he have so much time to play so much golf?
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