Turning the US Refugee Program on Its Head

The Washington Post published on 21 September 2026 an exclusive analysis titled "How Trump Turned a Refugee Bureau into a $410 Million Deportation Operation" by David Nakamura and Adam Taylor. 

The State Department's new Office of Remigration reverses a long-standing policy of resettling refugees in the United States to a focus on expelling them.  The State Department implements the policy by bribing governments in Africa and Latin America to accept the deportees.  

The United States has suspended accepting almost all refugees except for White South Africans.  So far, the Trump administration has deported under this program more than 25,000 people, most of them to Mexico and the others to Africa and Latin America.  This is a tiny percentage of the 985,000 deportations conducted by the Department of Homeland Security during Trump's second term.  

China Shops for Military Base on Africa's Atlantic Coast

 The Wall Street Journal published on 10 February 2024 an article titled "U.S.-China Tensions Have a New Front: A Naval Base in Africa" by Michael M. Phillips.

As China seeks permission to establish a naval base on Africa's Atlantic coastline, the United States is working behind the scenes to prevent it from happening.  So far, the United States has been winning the contest, which has been playing out in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.  

A Chinese Naval Base in Equatorial Guinea?

 Japan Forward published on 7 December 2022 a commentary titled "The Security Implications of a Chinese Military Base in Equatorial Guinea" by Monika Chansoria. 

There have been persistent rumors that China is negotiating with Equatorial Guinea for construction of a naval base at the mainland port of Bata.  

Comment:  The article does not provide any new evidence to support this rumor, although China's naval base in Djibouti was also a surprise.   

China's Hidden Debt

 The China Africa Research Initiative published in October 2021 a briefing paper titled "What is the Real Story of China's 'Hidden Debt'?" by Deborah Brautigam and Yufan Huang.  

This paper examines the data underpinning the recent conclusions reached by AidData, a research lab at William and Mary University.  It concludes that the AidData report is unduly alarmist because it is distorted by outliers such as Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Congo, and Venezuela.