Mayotte, Golan Heights, Canada’s border and Trump vs EVs
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Today, French military aid starts to arrive in cyclone-battered Mayotte. Israel aims to double its population on the occupied Golan Heights. Trump's transition team wants to cut off support for electric vehicles. And why Canada's border crackdown pledge is easier said than done.

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Scenes of devastation in the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, where hundreds or even thousands are feared dead after it was hit by a powerful cyclone. The storm brought winds of more than 124 miles per hour, ripping apart the makeshift shelters where many people live.

Aerial footage shows the wreckage of hundreds of homes on the islands, which have become a focal point for illegal immigration. It's the strongest storm to hit the islands in more than 90 years. John Balos lives there and told us he feared for his life. On Monday, rescue teams continued the search for survivors, with authorities warning a precise death toll was difficult to ascertain.

Israel's government has approved a plan to double its population on the occupied Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria in 1967. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says strengthening the Golan is strengthening the state of Israel following the fall of the Assad regime. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE have condemned the decision.

Abu Muhammad al-Gholani, Syria's de facto leader, has said Israel is using false pretexts to justify attacks on Syria, but says he is not interested in engaging in a new conflict.

Mayan Lubel is in Jerusalem. Well, Israel's announcement on Sunday was mainly a declarative move. Israel saw the regime of Assad falling. It's not a bad thing for Israel. But at the same time, the Israelis are suspicious of Syria's new leadership. Is the return of Donald Trump to the White House significant here? So Israel annexed

the Golan Heights in the 80s. And that was a move that remains unrecognized by most international powers. But during Trump's first term in office, he recognized Israeli or declared support for Israeli sovereignty over the Golan. So it's quite possible that Israel has Trump in its mind when it makes such a declaration.

Israel is closing its Dublin embassy due to what it describes as the Irish government's, quote, extreme anti-Israel policies, including recognition of a Palestinian state, as well as support for international legal action against its war in Gaza. South Korea's constitutional court has begun reviewing the impeachment of President Yoon Suk-yool over his botched attempt at martial law. The court has up to six months to make a call on whether to remove him from office or reinstate him.

Prime Minister Han Dok-soo has stepped in as interim leader until the court rules. It's nearly a given for investors that the Fed will cut interest rates by 25 basis points when it meets this week. The more pressing question is will rate cuts continue next year?

Howard Schneider covers the Fed in Washington. There's a lot of uncertainty about what's coming around the pike with the Trump administration coming in. Are you going to get tariffs that lead to some price increases? Are you going to get rounds of massive deportations, as they've said, to expect that pull workers out of jobs and send them back to a home country? Does that lead to wage pressure? So along with the rate cut, the messaging is important. I would expect it to be

Open the door at least to the possibility that they're not going to cut again in January. They don't want to set an expectation that they're just going to keep going lower, lower, lower with all this uncertainty and with inflation as sticky as it's been. President-elect Donald Trump's transition team is recommending cutting off federal support for electric vehicles and charging stations.

That's according to a document seen by Reuters. The new focus instead will be to strengthen measures blocking imports of cars, components and battery materials from China, the world's biggest EV market.

Chris Kirkham has the exclusive. What this document shows is that the Trump transition team is really looking to undo sort of the Biden administration's federal investments in EV and EV infrastructure overall. This sort of the supply chains that are necessary to produce batteries for EVs are also pretty important for

the military and for the defense industry. And a lot of it has to do with these critical minerals. Lithium is one, graphite is another. And a lot of the supply chain is controlled by China. What the Biden administration was trying to do was get the United States to sort of have its own domestic supply chain that could fuel EV batteries. And really what this document shows is that the Trump administration is trying

sort of doubling down on wanting to cut off China and, but also, you know,

They're basically saying the supply chain for EVs, we want to really redirect that away from EVs and into these defense priorities and what they call critical infrastructure priorities. Will this impact Elon Musk? Yeah, that's a big question mark in all of this. Electric vehicles are not Elon Musk's only business. And so there could be ways that SpaceX might also benefit from some of this critical

critical infrastructure. He's walking a tightrope kind of between the United States and China because Tesla has an enormous business in China and a big production facility in China as well. So what would this all mean for the EV industry in the US? Losing the consumer subsidy for EV purchases is going to have a huge impact on EV sales in the United States. And so will

the lack of federal money for charging infrastructure. Charging is often cited as kind of like a top reason that people are hesitant to purchase EVs. So if an EV becomes more expensive,

And there's not as much movement on charging infrastructure. That's really going to set back the transition to electric vehicles. Trump transition spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt said when he takes office, Trump will support the auto industry, allowing space for both gas-powered cars and electric vehicles. Canada has promised Donald Trump a border crackdown. But as our reporter Anna Mailer-Paperney learned on a recent ride along with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police...

Preventing crossings along the world's largest land border is complicated. We're a few hundred meters. If you look over here, this is pretty unfriendly territory. It was dark, it was cold, there was blowing snow. And what we saw was the challenge facing police trying to stop migrants from crossing. As RCMP Sergeant Charles Poirier told me. They can cross in the fields, they can cross through the forest, which is very dangerous, by the way.

And like you can see, it's probably what now, minus five-ish, and there's still water everywhere, so the water is cold as well. They can arrest people who cross northbound into Canada.

but they can't arrest you for looking like you're about to cross into the United States. More than 23,000 people were apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol near the northern border in the 12 months ending in October of 2024. But it's still far smaller than what we're seeing at the Mexico border, where about 1.5 million people were apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol in the 12 months ending in October. So what are officials in Canada actually able to do to prevent these crossings?

Well, they can beef up border patrols. They can use cameras and sensors, drones and helicopters. But at the end of the day, Sergeant Parier told me, even if they were everywhere, they still couldn't stop everyone. In addition to the border patrols, we see residents taking matters into their own hands. I spoke with one man. His name is Terry Rowe. He lives in Champlain, New York, about a mile from the Canadian border.

And he installed CCTV cameras on his property to watch the wildlife. And then we started picking up, other than wildlife, migrants coming south. And he says he's seeing more people crossing northbound than in the past. And I think it's going to pick up. This is something that Canada is bracing for, anticipating that some people, fearing Trump's threat of mass deportations, might

might flee the U.S. and try to enter Canada.

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For today's recommended read, a story about President Bashir al-Assad's final hours in Syria. He confided in almost no one about his plans to flee. And don't miss our special weekend episode, where we hear from Reuters journalist Suleiman al-Khalidi, who shares a harrowing account of his experiences of torture inside Syria's notorious detention system. A link to both the story and the episode is in the pod description.

For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.