The mood on Canada’s border with US is more a fragile truce than crisis averted

Published

3 months ago

February 4, 2025

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Stand on the riverbank in Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit is directly in front of you. It’s not quite spitting distance but it’s swimmable.

Canada‘s auto capital and America‘s motor city are divided by the Detroit River, tied by the Ambassador’s Bridge which transports $323m (£260m) worth of goods between Canada and the US every day.

Donald Trump‘s threatened 25% tariff on all Canadian exports – with a carve-out for energy at 10% – would have weighed heavy here, and that’s putting it mildly. Car parts can criss-cross the border multiple times before they roll off the finish line in either Detroit or Windsor.

The tariff would have put tens of thousands of jobs on the line in Ontario – in the auto industry, in agriculture, and in the energy sector too.

So the one-month pause – announced on Monday after last-minute talks between Mr Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – is a huge relief.

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Drew Dilkens, the mayor of Windsor, told Sky News: “25% across the board is catastrophic. It’s not even a hard response, it is a catastrophic response.

“We just hope not to be back in this same situation with the amount of uncertainty that we felt 30 days from now.”

The mayor announced on Monday that he would suspend funding for the cross-border tunnel bus, which transports 40,000 Canadians to Detroit each year for shopping or entertainment, or whatever it is they might choose to do there.

“If I’m under economic attack by our best friend and closest trading partner, I absolutely do not want to subsidise and support bringing transit to their community to help with their economic development,” he said.

In a liquor store in Windsor, the shelves are still stacked with American whisky and Californian wines.

“You’re still selling that stuff?” one customer asks a sheepish-looking salesman.

Ontario premier Doug Ford had ordered stores to remove American liquor starting Tuesday if the tariffs went into effect. That order is now on hold, along with his announcement that he would rip up Ontario’s $68m (£55m) contract with Elon Musk’s Starlink to provide internet access to rural homes. But they could be reinstated in an instant.

“Trump’s an idiot,” says James Summerfield, who stops to chat on the street. “He’s trying to get money from every angle he possibly can, to be the ‘best president’ there’s ever been, but most likely he’s the worst president we’ve ever had on that side of the border.

“I don’t think anyone from Canada thinks we’re going to pay to ship their cars over there.”

In a local car repair workshop, a group of workers are tucking into a lunch of hummus and falafel which they generously offer around.

“We have a lot of power when it comes to them receiving electricity and energy,” Jin tells us. “None of this is going to be good. Like both sides are going to lose if the tariff ends up going through.”

For now, the mood feels more like a fragile truce than a crisis averted.

“No one wants to support a bully,” mayor Dilkens says. “We’re close friends, we’re close neighbours. One president of the United States is not going to disrupt centuries of friendship. It’s just going to be choppy waters for the next three years and 11 months.”

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Nicusor Dan beats hard-right favourite George Simion in surprise win in Romanian election

Published

6 hours ago

May 18, 2025

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Nicusor Dan beats hard-right favourite George Simion in surprise win in Romanian election

Pro-Western candidate Nicusor Dan has unexpectedly beaten hard-right populist George Simion in the Romanian presidential election.

Mr Simion, 38, and his rival – a centrist who’s mayor of Bucharest – faced off in the second round of the contest.

According to the official tally, Mr Dan was leading by nearly nine percentage points with more than 98% of the votes counted.

After exit polls suggested he wasn’t going to win, Trump-supporting Mr Simion rejected the result and said estimates put him 400,000 votes ahead.

Speaking after voting ended, Mr Simion said his election was “clear” as he posted on Facebook: “I won!!! I am the new President of Romania and I am giving back the power to the Romanians!”

Romania’s last election was annulled after its highest court ruled the leading candidate, nationalist Calin Georgescu, should be disqualified due to claims of electoral interference by Russia.

The result is surprising because in the first round, 38-year-old Mr Simion, founder of the right-wing Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), took 40.96% of the vote – almost 20 points ahead.

An opinion poll on Friday had it much closer, but still suggested the two men were virtually tied.

Mr Dan, a 55-year-old mathematician, is running as an independent and has pledged to clamp down on corruption.

He is also staunchly pro-EU and NATO, and has said Romania’s support for Ukraine is vital for its own security.

When voting closed at 9pm local time, 11.6 million people – about 64% of eligible voters – had cast ballots. About 1.64 million Romanians living abroad also took part.

The election is being closely watched across Europe amid a rise of support for President Donald Trump.

After polls closed, Mr Dan said “elections are not about politicians” but about communities and that in the latest vote “a community of Romanians has won, a community that wants a profound change in Romania”.

“When Romania goes through difficult times, let us remember the strength of this Romanian society,” he said.

“There is also a community that lost today’s elections. A community that is rightly outraged by the way politics has been conducted in Romania up to now.”

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Israel to allow ‘basic quantity of food’ into Gaza to avoid ‘starvation crisis’

Published

6 hours ago

May 18, 2025

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Israel to allow 'basic quantity of food' into Gaza to avoid 'starvation crisis'

Israel has said it will allow a “basic quantity of food” into the besieged enclave of Gaza to avoid a “starvation crisis” following a near three-month blockade.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the decision was “based on the operational need to enable the expansion of the military operation to defeat Hamas”.

Gaza, where local authorities say more than 53,000 people have died in Israel’s 19-month campaign, has been under a complete blockade on humanitarian aid since 2 March.

It comes as global food security experts warn of famine across the territory and after a UN-backed report issued last Monday which warned one in five people in Gaza were facing starvation.

The statement from the prime minister’s office said it would “allow a basic quantity of food to be brought in for the population in order to make certain that no starvation crisis develops in the Gaza Strip”.

“Such a crisis would endanger the continuation of Operation ‘Gideon’s Chariots’ to defeat Hamas,” it added.

“Israel will act to deny Hamas’s ability to take control of the distribution of humanitarian assistance in order to ensure that the assistance does not reach the Hamas terrorists.”

It comes after a British surgeon working in Gaza said in a video to Sky News the enclave is now “a slaughterhouse” amid Israeli bombardment.

Israel has just ramped up its offensive in Gaza, with Palestinian health officials reporting at least 130 people were killed overnight into Sunday.

Israel Defence Forces (IDF) confirmed troops had begun “extensive ground operations throughout the northern and southern Gaza Strip”.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said 464 people had died in Israeli military strikes in the week to Sunday.

In a statement on Sunday, IDF said its air force struck “over 670 Hamas terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip to disrupt enemy preparations and support ground operations” over the past week.

Israel has launched an escalation to increase pressure on Hamas, seize territory, displace Palestinians to the south and take greater control over the distribution of aid.

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British surgeon working in Gaza says it is now ‘a slaughterhouse’ amid Israeli bombardment

Published

14 hours ago

May 18, 2025

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British surgeon working in Gaza says it is now 'a slaughterhouse' amid Israeli bombardment

A British surgeon working in southern Gaza has compared the region to a “slaughterhouse” because of the daily bombardment from Israeli forces.

Dr Tom Potokar, who is based at the European Hospital near Khan Younis in southern Gaza, offered his assessment of Israel’s military offensive after Palestinian health officials reported at least 130 people were killed overnight into Sunday.

Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have confirmed their troops have begun “extensive ground operations throughout the northern and southern Gaza Strip”.

In a video, Dr Potokar said it was “another day of devastation here in Gaza”, adding: “The stories coming from the north… absolutely horrific… particularly around the Indonesian Hospital.”

“I mean, it’s difficult to describe in words what’s happening here… [with the] constant sound of bombardment jets overhead.

“If Cambodia was the killing fields, then Gaza now is the slaughterhouse.”

His reference to Cambodia’s killing fields refers to when more than a million people were murdered in mass executions and buried by the extreme communist guerrilla group, the Khmer Rouge, under Pol Pot, between 1975 and 1979.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said 464 people had died in Israeli military strikes in the week to Sunday.

Dr Potokar described the impact on those on the ground, saying: “We’ve been operating all morning so far and [treating] awful explosive injuries… [including] one young woman with leg fracture and shoulder fracture and a large wound on her buttock, who came in yesterday and is not yet aware that everyone in our family was killed in the onslaught.”

Israel has launched an escalation of its war in Gaza to ramp up pressure on Hamas, seize territory, displace Palestinians to the south and take greater control over the distribution of aid.

On Sunday, it announced and launched “extensive” new ground operations in Gaza.

It came after airstrikes killed more than 100 people, including dozens of children, overnight and into Sunday, hospitals and medics said, and forced northern Gaza’s main hospital to close.

A spokesperson for the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said: “Complete families were wiped off the civil registration record by Israeli bombardment”.

The ministry also said the bombardment had forced the closure of the Indonesian Hospital, the main hospital serving people in northern Gaza.

Nasser hospital, in the southern city of Khan Younis, said more than 48 people – mostly women and children – were killed in the area which includes tents sheltering displaced people.

In Deir al Balah, in central Gaza, at least 12 people were killed in three separate strikes, according to Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital and the Nuseirat camp’s Awda Hospital.

Meanwhile, the Gaza health ministry and the Palestinian Civil Defence – which operates under the Hamas-run government – reported that 19 people were killed in several strikes in Jabalia in northern Gaza.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the strikes.

Read more from Sky News:
How Israel has escalated Gaza bombing campaign

Ceasefire talks are taking place in Qatar this weekend – with Israel saying they involve discussions on ending the war as well as a truce and hostage deal.

A statement from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said any lasting truce must include the demilitarisation of Gaza as well as the exile of Hamas militants.

But a senior Israeli official added there had been little progress so far during talks in Qatar’s capital Doha.

Sky News Arabia reported Hamas had proposed freeing about half its Israeli hostages in exchange for a two-month ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

A Palestinian official close to the discussions said: “Hamas is flexible about the number of hostages it can free, but the problem has always been over Israel’s commitment to end the war.”