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The United States said Wednesday it will pull out some troops from NATO’s eastern flank but denied the move amounted to an American withdrawal from Europe, as analysts warned it could embolden Russia. Officials were quick to downplay the reduction in personnel, which comes amid a review of US military deployments worldwide that has worried European allies concerned about President Donald Trump’s commitment to the continent.”This is not an American withdrawal from Europe or a signal of lessened commitment to NATO and Article 5,” the US Army in Europe and Africa, said in a statement, referring to the alliance’s collective defence principle. Trump has repeatedly criticised NATO and insisted that Europe boosts military spending and takes more responsibility for its defence as Ukraine battles Russia’s invasion.The Pentagon says there are nearly 85,000 US military personnel in Europe — a number that has fluctuated between 75,000 and 105,000 since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.- ‘Resizing’ – The US military said Wednesday an infantry brigade combat team and an airborne division were to redeploy to their Kentucky home base without replacement.It was not immediately clear how many troops were concerned. A brigade usually numbers up to 5,000 soldiers.”This force posture adjustment will not change the security environment in Europe,” the US army said. Reports earlier this year said Washington could withdraw 10,000 troops from eastern Europe as it shifts focus towards the Indo-Pacific region, which the Pentagon called its “priority theatre”.Romania’s defence ministry, which previewed the pullout beating Washington to an official announcement Wednesday, said the “resizing” was the result of new US priorities and a strengthened NATO presence on the eastern flank.It would affect a brigade with elements in several NATO countries, including Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary, Bucharest added. A NATO official told AFP the alliance had been informed by the Trump administration in advance, describing the US move as nothing “unusual”.”Even with this adjustment, the US force posture in Europe remains larger than it has been for many years, with many more US forces on the continent than before 2022,” the official said.Washington’s commitment to NATO remained “clear”, the official added.- ‘Wrong signal’ -Romania’s Defence Minister Ionut Mosteanu said 900-1,000 US soldiers would remain in the country to help “deter any threat”.  According to the latest government figures, about 1,700 US troops are currently deployed in the Black Sea nation, which borders war-torn Ukraine.But experts such as George Scutaru, co-founder of the New Strategy Center, a Romanian think tank, warned that while not significantly affecting the military balance, the move sent the “wrong signal”.”Russia will consider that Black Sea is not so important for American interests in Europe,” he told AFP. Moscow could be encouraged to pile pressure on Romania by, for example, violating its airspace with drones and other aircraft, he said.Germany, home to the largest contingent of American troops in Europe, said it was not affected by the redeployment.Poland’s Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz also said the country had “not received any information… about a reduction in the contingent in Poland”.Romania’s Mosteanu insisted strategic capabilities were “unchanged”. He added that a missile-defence system at the Deveselu NATO base “remains fully operational”.”The Campia Turzii air base continues to be a key point for air operations and allied cooperation, the Mihail Kogalniceanu base continues to be developed, and the American flag will remain present at all three sites,” he added.”An air-combat group will remain at the Kogzlniceanu airbase, as was the case before the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine,” he said.The US decision will however “weaken the security” of “frontline state” Romania, Phillips O’Brien, an analyst based at Scotland’s University of St Andrews, warned.”Please wake up, Europe — the USA will not defend you against Russia,” he wrote on X.bur-pc-kym-ub/st

A US appeals court has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump from deploying National Guard troops in Portland, Oregon.The move by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals vacates a ruling by a three-judge panel that would have allowed Trump to deploy troops in the Democratic-run city, part of an ongoing drive by the Republican to send troops to cities run by his political rivals that he claims are plagued by crime. The 9th Circuit voted late Tuesday to have the case reheard by an 11-judge panel, a decision welcomed by Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield.”This ruling shows the truth matters and that the courts are working to hold this administration accountable,” Rayfield said in a statement.”The Constitution limits the president’s power, and Oregon’s communities cannot be treated as a training ground for unchecked federal authority,” he said.”The court is sending a clear message: the president cannot send the military into US cities unnecessarily.”Trump has ordered hundreds of National Guard troops to Democratic-led cities claiming they are needed to combat crime and protect federal agents carrying out his sweeping immigration crackdown.The US president has repeatedly called Portland “war-ravaged” and riddled with violent crime, a description dismissed as “simply untethered to the facts” by a Trump-appointed district court judge who initially blocked the National Guard deployment.A district court and an appeals court have also blocked the deployment of National Guard troops in Chicago, the United States’ third-largest city, and the Trump administration has asked the conservative-dominated Supreme Court to lift the lower court rulings.Trump’s extraordinary domestic use of the National Guard was also challenged by Democratic-ruled California earlier this year after the Republican president sent troops to Los Angeles to quell protests sparked by the rounding up of undocumented migrants.A district court judge ruled it unlawful but an appeals court panel allowed the Los Angeles deployment to proceed.National Guard troops have also been sent to Memphis, Tennessee, and the US capital, Washington.

AI chip juggernaut Nvidia became the world’s first $5 trillion company on Wednesday, as investors remain confident that artificial intelligence will deliver a new wave of innovation and growth.The California-based tech giant saw its share price rise by 4.91 percent to $210.90 at the open of trading on Wall Street, pushing Nvidia’s market capitalization past the never-before-seen threshold.By way of comparison, the level was greater than the GDP of France or Germany or higher than that of Tesla, Meta (Facebook), and Netflix combined.Microsoft and Apple, the two other largest global market capitalizations, only just exceed $4 trillion in valuation each.The surge in Nvidia’s share price follows continued strong sales, a flurry of new deals — including a partnership with Europe’s Nokia announced on Tuesday — as well as expectations that the company may soon regain access to China.The company is “largely ahead of any competitor who finds it hard to catch up in the world that Nvidia lives in,” Art Hogan of B. Riley Wealth Management told AFP.”While it’s almost unfathomable to think about a company reaching this milestone, it comes from a company with so many operational efficiencies that seems to announce massive deals on a daily or weekly basis.”Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is expected in South Korea this week, where he will attend the sidelines of the APEC summit at which US President Donald Trump will meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, with issues related to AI development expected to be discussed.Nvidia chips are currently not sold in China due to a combination of Chinese government bans, national security concerns, and ongoing trade tensions between the United States and China.The Trump administration favors a more nuanced approach to selling AI chips to Beijing, but faces deep skepticism from China hawks across the US political spectrum who favor tougher bans on AI technology.Nvidia has announced a series of partnerships in recent weeks, including an intention to invest up to $100 billion in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI over the coming years.It also said it would invest $5 billion in struggling chip rival Intel, in response to the Trump administration’s desire to bring back more manufacturing of semiconductors to the United States.- ‘Better, not worse’ -Nvidia produces the advanced graphics processing units (GPUs) that power most generative AI systems, including those behind ChatGPT and other large language models.Although it was not the first to develop GPUs, the California-based group made them its specialty in the late 1990s, quickly pivoting from video games to the then-emerging field of cloud computing, and thus has unique experience in the area.The eyewatering valuations linked to artificial intelligence also include OpenAI becoming the world’s most valuable private company, currently valued at $500 billion.This has sparked talk that the AI frenzy may have entered bubble territory, reminiscent of the 1990s internet investment boom that saw a major reckoning in 2000, when high-flying companies saw their share prices collapse suddenly.Analyst Sam Stovall of CFRA, a research firm, said Nvidia’s expected growth was still very strong and that investors should expect news surrounding the company “will only get better, not worse.”Still, “valuations are elevated… and could therefore be vulnerable to any upsetting news,” he added.

Startup Character.AI announced Wednesday it would eliminate chat capabilities for users under 18, a policy shift that follows the suicide of a 14-year-old who had become emotionally attached to one of its AI chatbots.The company said it would transition younger users to alternative creative features such as video, story and stream creation with AI characters, while maintaining a complete ban on direct conversations that will start on November 25.The platform will implement daily chat time limits of two hours for underage users during the transition period, with restrictions tightening progressively until the November deadline.”These are extraordinary steps for our company, and ones that, in many respects, are more conservative than our peers,” Character.AI said in a statement. “But we believe they are the right thing to do.”The Character.AI platform allows users — many of them young people — to interact with beloved characters as friends or to form romantic relationships with them.Sewell Setzer III shot himself in February after months of intimate exchanges with a “Game of Thrones”-inspired chatbot based on the character Daenerys Targaryen, according to a lawsuit filed by his mother, Megan Garcia.Character.AI cited “recent news reports raising questions” from regulators and safety experts about content exposure and the broader impact of open-ended AI interactions on teenagers as driving factors behind its decision.Setzer’s case was the first in a series of reported suicides linked to AI chatbots that emerged this year, prompting ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and other artificial intelligence companies to face scrutiny over child safety.Matthew Raines, a California father, filed suit against OpenAI in August after his 16-year-old son died by suicide following conversations with ChatGPT that included advice on stealing alcohol and rope strength for self-harm.OpenAI this week released data suggesting that more than 1 million people using its generative AI chatbot weekly have expressed suicidal ideation.OpenAI has since increased parental controls for ChatGPT and introduced other guardrails. These include expanded access to crisis hotlines, automatic rerouting of sensitive conversations to safer models, and gentle reminders for users to take breaks during extended sessions.As part of its overhaul, Character.AI announced the creation of the AI Safety Lab, an independent nonprofit focused on developing safety protocols for next-generation AI entertainment features. The United States, like much of the world, lacks national regulations governing AI risks.California Governor Gavin Newsom this month signed a law requiring platforms to remind users that they are interacting with a chatbot and not a human. He vetoed, however, a bill that would have made tech companies legally liable for harm caused by AI models.

The US Federal Reserve is almost certain to cut interest rates for a second straight meeting on Wednesday, and could also shed light on what it will do next.  Analysts and traders expect most policymakers on the Fed’s rate-setting committee will back a quarter percentage-point cut, which would lower the bank’s benchmark lending rate to between 3.75 percent and 4.00 percent. The meeting began at 9:00 am in Washington (1300 GMT), as scheduled, the Fed said in a statement. A cut would boost a US economy still digesting the effects of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, and buy policymakers some more time as they wait for the end of the government shutdown.Republicans and Democrats remain politically gridlocked almost a month after the start of the shutdown, which has resulted in a suspension of publication of almost all official data. The Fed has a dual mandate to act independently to tackle both inflation and unemployment, which it does by either hiking, pausing, or cutting its key lending rate. Lower rates stimulate the economy and the labor market, typically feeding through into lower mortgage rates. Higher rates act to constrain activity and dampen inflation. Fed officials have in recent months flagged concerns that the labor market is cooling, causing them to shift their attention to bolstering hiring, even though inflation remains above the Fed’s target.”There’s definitely some weakening on the employment side of the mandate, and I think they’ll go ahead and take out another insurance cut against that risk,” former Cleveland Fed president Loretta Mester told AFP. “But it’s important that they not lose sight of the inflation part of the mandate,” added Mester, now an adjunct professor of finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. “The inflation risks, I believe, remain to the upside,” she said.- December less clear-cut – Quarter-point cuts in both October and December are more-or-less baked into the financial markets, according to CME Group data, mirroring the median expectation of Fed policymakers at last month’s rate decision. But analysts widely expect Fed chair Jerome Powell to tell reporters during the bank’s post-decision press conference on Wednesday that the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is keeping an open mind about the following meeting. “I don’t think it’s a given that there will be a majority of FOMC voters that will favor easing in December,” EY chief economist Gregory Daco told AFP. Powell “has not made up his mind yet for one as to whether a December rate cut will be necessary,” added Daco, who nevertheless expects the Fed to make two quarter-point rate cuts this year. The Fed could also use Wednesday’s rate decision to announce an end date for its steps to reduce the size of its balance sheet, which ballooned in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. “I think they’re very cautious about stresses in the financial markets,” said Mester. “They could probably get the balance sheet down a little bit further,” she added. “But I don’t think there’s much appetite for that.” Also simmering in the background are Trump’s attempts to exert greater control over the management of the Federal Reserve, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s widely-publicized plans to find a replacement for Powell, whose term as Fed chair ends in May. But that is unlikely to feature in the actual discussions this week, with policymakers most likely remaining squarely focused on interest rate policy, according to Mester, a former voting member of the FOMC. “They’re really basing it on their best assessment… of where the economy is, where it’s likely (to) go, and how they can set monetary policy to achieve maximum employment and price stability,” she said. 

Washington has told Romania, which neighbours war-torn Ukraine, and allies it will reduce the number of US troops deployed on NATO’s eastern flank, Romania’s defence ministry said Wednesday, a move some officials downplayed while analysts warned it could embolden Russia.US President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticised NATO, and insisted that European allies boost military spending as Ukraine battles Russia’s invasion.Some 85,000 American troops are stationed in Europe, including 20,000 troops deployed to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, according to the US Defence Department.The latest announcement came after reports this year that Washington could withdraw 10,000 troops from eastern Europe as the US focus shifts more towards the Indo-Pacific region, which the Pentagon called it’s “priority theatre”.”The resizing of US forces is a result of the new priorities of the presidential administration, announced back in February,” Romania’s defence ministry said in a statement.The decision “also took into account the fact that NATO has strengthened its presence and activity on the eastern flank,” it added.- ‘Wrong signal’ -A NATO official told AFP that the body had been informed by the Trump administration in advance, and played down its significance.”Even with this adjustment, the US force posture in Europe remains larger than it has been for many years, with many more US forces on the continent than before 2022,” the official said.Washington’s commitment to the alliance remained “clear”, the official added.But experts such as George Scutaru, co-founder of the New Strategy Center, a Romanian think tank, warned the move was the “wrong signal” to send to Russia regarding the Black Sea region. “Russia will consider that Black Sea is not so important for American interests in Europe,” he told AFP. Moscow “will be encouraged trying to put pressure more especially on Romania using drones, excursions in airspace,” he added.Scutaru said it was important for European allies to send “a signal of solidarity” and consider enhancing their “military presence to compensate,” citing France in particular, on the eve of a visit by French Defence Minister Catherine Vautrin to Romania.”1000 more, 1000 less, it does not influence a lot the military balance in the Black Sea. It’s about a political signal,” he said.Poland’s Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz told reporters that the country had “not received any information… about a reduction in the contingent in Poland”.Romania’s Defence Minister Ionut Mosteanu however said the US decision was not a “withdrawal”.It was the “cessation of the rotation of a brigade that had elements in several NATO countries, including Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary”, he told journalists. – ‘Unchanged’ capabilities -Mosteanu said that 900-1,000 US soldiers would remain in Romania.They will help “to deter any threat” and represent “a guarantee of the United States’ commitment to regional security”, he said.According to the latest government figures, about 1,700 US troops are currently deployed in Romania.Mosteanu insisted that strategic capabilities were “unchanged”. He added that a missile-defence system at the Deveselu NATO base “remains fully operational”.”The Campia Turzii air base continues to be a key point for air operations and allied cooperation, the Mihail Kogalniceanu base continues to be developed, and the American flag will remain present at all three sites,” he added.”An air-combat group will remain at the Kogzlniceanu airbase, as was the case before the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine,” he said.The US decision will however “weaken the security” of Romania, which is a “frontline state”, Phillips O’Brien, an analyst based at Scotland’s University of St Andrews, warned.”Please wake up, Europe — the USA will not defend you against Russia,” he wrote on X.

US President Donald Trump voiced optimism Wednesday on the eve of crunch trade talks with China’s Xi Jinping, while also announcing that a deal with South Korea was “pretty much” finalised.Agreeing a truce in the US-China trade war in the meeting with Xi on Thursday in South Korea would mark a fitting grand finale to Trump’s Asia tour marked by praise, pomp and presents.But a new meeting between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the close of the marathon voyage looked unlikely, with the US president saying “timing” didn’t work out.Beijing said the talks between Xi and Trump would take place in South Korea’s Busan, with the US leader telling reporters “a lot of problems are going to be solved” at the “great meeting”.Global markets will zero in on the outcome to determine whether Trump and Xi can draw a line under a tussle that has snarled supply chains and unsettled businesses the world over.Negotiators from both sides have both confirmed a “framework” has been agreed leading up to Trump and Xi’s first face-to-face meeting during the US president’s second term.”We are willing to work together with the US side to ensure that this meeting yields positive outcomes, provides new guidance, and injects new momentum into the stable development of China-US relations,” foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said.Trump indicated that the agreement would include lowering 20 percent tariffs on Chinese goods related to fentanyl, which has killed tens of thousands of Americans.Other burning issues include Chinese imports of US soybeans, export controls on rare earths, semiconductors for artificial intelligence, and the fate of TikTok.- Golden touch -Trump’s three-country Asia tour has seen Malaysia, Japan and South Korea lavishing the US president with praise and showering him with gifts.New Japanese premier Sanae Takaichi said she would nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize and gave him a putter owned by assassinated ex-leader Shinzo Abe, a close friend of the US president, plus a gold-plated golf ball.Not to be outdone, the US leader disembarked in South Korea to the strains of 1970s disco anthem and Trump rally standard “Y.M.C.A.”, which was thumped out by a military band.President Lee Jae Myung — sporting a golden tie — conferred upon Trump South Korea’s highest order and gave him a replica of an ancient golden crown.”It’s a great honour,” the US president said of the award. “I’d like to wear it right now.”South Korea’s presidential office said Wednesday’s state dinner for the APEC summit in Gyeongju would feature a golden citrus dessert and a gold-adorned brownie.In July, Trump said Washington had agreed to cut tariffs on South Korean imports to 15 percent in exchange for a $350-billion investment pledge.Steep auto tariffs had remained in place, and the two governments were still divided over the structure of the investment pledge.But Trump said at the APEC dinner that the deal had been “reached” before appearing to walk back to say that it was “pretty much” finalised.South Korean presidential aide Kim Yong-beom said the two sides had “reached an agreement on the details of the tariff negotiations”.”South Korea’s financial investment package for the United States, worth $350 billion, consists of $200 billion in cash investment and $150 billion in shipbuilding cooperation,” Kim added.Kim also said they had agreed to maintain reciprocal tariffs at 15 percent and cut auto tariffs to 15 percent.- ‘Enemies’ -North Korea meanwhile announced hours before Trump’s arrival that it test-launched sea-to-surface cruise missiles in a show of strength against Pyongyang’s “enemies”.Trump had extended an invitation to North Korea’s Kim to meet while the US leader was on the peninsula, but Trump said on Wednesday that it would not take place this time around.He said he expected to meet with Kim in the “not too distant future”.Trump added he would aim to “straighten out” tensions between North Korea and South Korea, which technically remain at war.Trump and Kim last met in 2019 at the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), the fraught Cold War frontier that has separated North and South Korea for decades.Kim has since been emboldened with crucial backing from Russia after sending thousands of North Korean troops to fight alongside Moscow’s forces.Gi-Wook Shin, a Korea expert and sociology professor at Stanford University, told AFP that Kim would likely seek to “maximise his leverage with Trump”.”Still, a future meeting remains possible, as Kim likely sees Trump as his best chance to secure the kind of deal he wants, including recognition as a nuclear state,” Shin said.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday he is “not allowed” to run for a third term, acknowledging the limits laid out in the US Constitution.Trump and his supporters have repeatedly raised the question of a 2028 presidential run for the 79-year-old, drawing concern from his foes and cheers from backers.”I have my highest poll numbers that I’ve ever had and, you know, based on what I read, I guess I’m not allowed to run, so we’ll see what happens… It’s too bad,” Trump said on Air Force One.The US Constitution limits presidents to two terms, and Trump began his second in January.Trump, who served his initial term from 2017 to 2021, often mentions that his supporters have called for him to govern beyond his current tenure despite the constitutional restriction.The former reality TV star has also recently displayed red hats emblazoned with the slogan “Trump 2028” on a desk in the Oval Office.A popular theory among his supporters is that Vice President JD Vance could run for president in 2028 on a ticket with Trump.Trump ruled that idea out this week, and said on Wednesday it was “pretty clear” he couldn’t run again.”But we have a lot of great people,” he said.House Speaker Mike Johnson told a news conference at the Capitol on Tuesday that he spoke with Trump about seeking a third term but doesn’t “see the path for that.””It’s been a great run, but I think the president knows, and he and I’ve talked about, the constrictions of the Constitution,” Johnson said.”There is the 22nd Amendment,” Johnson added, saying that the Constitution is clear even though Trump enjoys taunting Democrats with slogans and hats emblazoned with “Trump 2028″.”I don’t see a way to amend the Constitution because it takes about 10 years,” Johnson said.”You’d need two-thirds of Congress and three-fourths of the states to ratify (it).”Talk of a third term came after Steve Bannon, Trump’s former advisor and one of the key ideologues of the Make America Great Again movement, said last week “there is a plan” to keep him in the White House.”He is going to get a third term… Trump is going to be president in ’28. And people just ought to get accommodated with that,” Bannon told The Economist.Asked about the 22nd Amendment, which mandates term limits, Bannon said: “There’s many different alternatives. At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is.”This isn’t the first time confusion swelled over the US President’s return for a third term.In May, Trump openly raised the possibility in a highly political address to US troops in Qatar.Speaking at the Al Udeid Air Base, Trump again falsely claimed to have won the 2020 election against Joe Biden.”We won three elections, ok? And some people want us to do a fourth. I don’t know. We’ll have to think about that,” Trump said.

US President Donald Trump may be facing “no kings” protests back home, but in South Korea officials had the perfect gift for the monarch-loving magnate — a replica golden crown.Trump met South Korean counterpart Lee Jae Myung on Wednesday, part of a visit in which he is expected to hold tense trade talks with China’s Xi Jinping.And capping a lavish welcome ceremony in the historic capital Gyeongju, Trump was presented with a replica of a crown worn by the kings of Silla, the dynasty that ruled from 57 BC to 935 AD.The gift was a replica of “the largest and most extravagant of the existing gold crowns” from the Silla period, Trump was told.It represented “the divine connection between heavenly and earthly leadership”.Seoul’s presidential office said the headgear symbolises “peace, coexistence, and shared prosperity on the peninsula — values that mirror the Silla dynasty’s long era of stability”.Trump has made no secret of his love of monarchies the world over.Americans rallied across the country this month in opposition to what organisers call Trump’s “king-like” presidency and erosion of democratic norms in the United States.Trump mocked the rallies on social media, sharing AI-generated posts showing himself wearing a crown while flying a fighter jet emblazoned with the words “King Trump” dumping faeces on protesters.The US leader was also presented in South Korea with the Grand Order of Mugunghwa — the country’s highest decoration.The medal had a laurel leaf design that symbolises prosperity and it was given “in anticipation of the peace and prosperity you will bring to the Korean peninsula”, Trump was told.”It’s a great honour,” the US president said. “I’d like to wear it right now.”Trump’s love of gold is also well-known.He has bedecked the Oval Office with gold the White House described as “of the highest quality”.And he was gifted a gold-plated golf ball during a visit to Tokyo this week.President Lee wore a gold tie to his meeting with Trump symbolising the “golden future” of the alliance between the two countries.The Silla crown replica was also chosen in light of Trump’s “known preference for gold decorations at the White House”, the presidential office said. Seoul also said Wednesday’s state luncheon for Trump will include a “gold-themed dessert” symbolising the “alliance’s enduring trust and the two nations’ shared commitment to peace and prosperity”.The golden citrus dessert dish will include a “gold adorned brownie and seasonal fruits served with buckwheat tea”.The dessert plate will feature the word “PEACE!”, Seoul’s presidential office said, echoing the two leaders’ first meeting when they pledged to act as a “peacemaker” and a “pacemaker” for peace on the Korean Peninsula.But tensions with North Korea remain high after Pyongyang brushed aside Lee’s outreach and instead deepened military and economic links with Russia.And Trump said Wednesday he was not able to arrange a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his visit to the South, ending fierce speculation over a possible summit after years of diplomatic deadlock.

When the United States suddenly moved to dismantle its foreign aid system earlier this year, the UN’s landmine safety and removal project in Nigeria braced for impact.Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and unexploded ordnance killed or injured 418 civilians in northeast Nigeria in 2024, more than double the year prior — but workers knew the severity of the crisis was no guarantee that the programme would survive. US President Donald Trump’s cuts came for everything, from malaria treatment to emergency food for starving people.But then, nothing happened.”We were very surprised,” said Edwin Faigmane, programme chief for the UN Mine Action Service in Nigeria, noting USAID accounted for 20 percent of its funding. The dismantling of USAID, Washington’s main foreign aid arm, has been catastrophic for people across the world. It has also been confusing. Faigmane said he “couldn’t really get an answer” for why UNMAS survived cuts in Nigeria, where a violent jihadist insurgency has been raging since Boko Haram’s 2009 uprising. Earlier this year, AFP reported that malaria clinics in Borno state, the epicentre of the violence, had shut down after USAID funding stopped.UNMAS’s mission in Mali ended when USAID — its sole sponsor — cut its funding. Washington also clawed back funding for UNMAS in Sudan.Earlier this year, UNMAS pre-emptively stopped its USAID-funded operations, until Faigmane got confirmation from USAID officials in Abuja, the capital, that they could continue as normal.”We were able to deploy some other teams in the areas that we were supposed to cover with the USAID funding” during the pre-emptive suspension, Faigmane told AFP. “We were able to survive because of our other donors.”US funds help UNMAS provide education for rural farmers and displaced persons on how to detect mines, IEDs and unexploded ordnance from the conflict — and how to report them for removal.With funds from other donors, UNMAS also trains security personnel on disposal — a crucial job as Nigeria builds up a fledgling National Mine Action Centre established in 2024. The US State Department did not respond to a request for comment.- Civilians on the frontlines -At the El-Miskin displacement camp in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, workers from the local nonprofit The Big Smile Foundation gather groups for education sessions. This camp’s activities are funded by other donors, but the Americans’ presence is still felt: USAID logos adorn education materials, including a chutes-and-ladders style game for children. “We’ve learned how to stay safe… how to mark (suspected) ordnance from a distance, and report it to the community leader,” said Hauwa Inusa, a 60-year-old camp resident who fled her home a decade ago.She might be forced to use her training soon: the Borno state government has marked the camp for closure. With violence down from its peak a decade ago, the government in recent years has been shutting down camps and sending people back to the countryside.But swathes of the rural northeast remain outside of government control.The long-abandoned town of Darul Jamal, near the Cameroonian border, was recently repopulated with its former residents only for jihadists to massacre scores of them in a September raid.UNMAS meanwhile isn’t out of the woods yet. After some initial uncertainty, Faigmane said, another tranche of US funding, some $225,000, arrived a few weeks ago, which should last until March 2026.But if the United States eventually pulls out, “our reach collapses.”