BLACKWATER USA | DAILY BRIEF - Blackwater Worldwide

Posted by BW Actual on Oct 28th 2025

Canada

Pres. Trump announced an additional 10% tariff on Canadian goods in retaliation for Ontario's "hostile act" of airing the anti-tariff ad that caused a stir when it was unveiled last week. The ad - which featured an audio clip of the late, pro-free trade U.S. President Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs - aired Friday, over Trump's objections.
It's not clear when the higher rates would take effect or which Canadian imports they would apply to. Most Canadian imports are exempt from existing levies under the USMCA trade agreement and will likely be excluded from the increase, too.
But two key categories of imports subject to sector-specific tariff rates - metals at 50% and automobiles at 25% - come predominantly from Ontario, making them fitting targets for retaliation against the province's offending ad.
The row with Ontario has damaged U.S.-Canada relations at a national level. Trump said he planned to snub Canadian Prime Minister Carney at this week's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit - which both leaders are attending - and would reject Carney's outreach "for a while."
Instead, Carney will meet China's Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC summit and is also engaging with other Indo-Pacific leaders with an aim "to double our non-US exports."

China

China is also courting Southeast Asian countries that are smarting from hefty new U.S. tariffs. Beijing and the 11-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc signed an "upgrade" to their free trade agreement at the ASEAN summit in Malaysia over the weekend.

Sudan

Sudan's army chief, Gen. Abdel Fattah al Burhan, confirmed that his troops have withdrawn from the North Darfur capital of El Fasher after the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) captured the city's army headquarters.
The RSF now effectively controls all of Darfur.
Gen. al Burhan said he'd made the decision to withdraw "to spare the citizens and the rest of the city from destruction," but there are concerning reports that the RSF is taking revenge on the city's long-trapped population anyway and using ethnic targeting to execute fleeing civilians.
[Gen. al Burhan is no saintly defender of human rights either: his troops have also been credibly accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.]

Gaza

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu declared that his government will have authority to approve or reject other countries' participation in the post-war Gaza peacekeeping force established in Pres. Trump's 20-point peace plan that Israel and Hamas agreed to earlier this month.
So far, no nation has stepped up to formally commit peacekeepers to the Gaza force: even Arab and Muslim leaders who enthusiastically lobbied for the peace plan want to wait for more clarity on the force's mandate before they agree to help carry it out.
Turkey seems to be the country that Netanyahu wants to reserve the right to reject from the Gaza force over Pres. Erdogan's longstanding criticism of Israel.

Belarus

Lithuania closed its airspace with Belarus after detecting at least 66 balloons floating smuggled cigarettes into the EU member state, where cigarettes are much more expensive.
Lithuania's Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė described the smuggling balloons as part of the "hybrid attacks" Russia is carrying out in collaboration with Belarus, its closest ally. Ruginienė vowed to shoot down any further aerial intruders.
Belarus's strongman, Alexander Lukashenko, condescendingly criticized Lithuania's reaction with a shrug: "Even for a small country, Lithuania, it is petty. We are not talking about any extraordinary smuggling."
That's a petty comment from a man whose country boasts 3x more people and land area than Lithuania but generates just 90% of its EU neighbor's GDP (and only 28% of its GDP per capita).

Afghanistan

Peace talks between Afghanistan and Pakistan in Turkey broke down without a long-term resolution, though their Oct. 19 ceasefire is still mostly holding up.
Both sides blamed the other for the talks' failure, as usual. It sounds like the only thing they agreed on in Turkey was avoiding a broader war that neither can afford to wage right now.