BOUJDOUR CAMP, Algeria: Selembouha Dadi can only imagine the homeland she dreams of but has never seen, agonizingly out of reach beyond the Algerian refugee camp where she has spent her whole life.
“They tell me it was beautiful,” the 25-year-old said.
The territory that Dadi yearns for is Western Sahara, a sprawling swathe of desert on Africa’s Atlantic coast that has been disputed by Morocco and independence fighters from the Polisario Front for decades.
Her father Moulay abandoned everything and fled 42 years ago when Moroccan troops arrived in 1975 during the rush to claim the former Spanish colony as Madrid let it go.
Now, along with tens of thousands of other refugees, their family of nine lives in one of a string of refugee camps just 50 kilometers away, beyond the Algerian border and a “defense wall” erected by Morocco in the 1980s.
Morocco and Mauritania were meant to share Western Sahara when Spain relinquished control, but in 1976 the Polisario proclaimed the independence of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic — and was determined to fight for it.
Mauritania in 1979 gave up its claim, leaving Morocco to seize most of the 266,000 square kilometer territory, but it was not until 1991 that a UN-backed cease-fire came into force.
Rabat considers Western Sahara an integral part of Morocco and proposes autonomy for the resource-rich territory, but the Algerian-backed Polisario Front insists on a United Nations-backed referendum on independence.
The 2,700-kilometer barrier erected by Morocco slicing from north to south divides the 80 percent of Western Sahara controlled by Morocco from the 20 percent held by the Polisario.
Moulay Dadi, 72, served tea in a large traditional tent, a vestige of the Sahrawis’ nomadic past, and cooler than the nearby family cottage with its zinc roof.
He recalled his life back in his desert homeland herding the family’s animals. He was 30 when the Moroccan forces arrived.
“We fled and we left everything behind us, our animals, our property, the houses,” he said.
“We left everything behind us.”
He settled in Algeria’s Tindouf region with his wife and parents, who did not live to see their homeland again.
Some 100,000 Sahrawi refugees live today in the camps around Tindouf. They belong to a mosaic of nomadic tribes who have for centuries plied the sandy expanses of the Sahara with their camels.
The Dadi family’s Boujdour camp, which, like the other camps, bears the name of an area of the Western Sahara controlled by Morocco, is dotted with brown-walled houses the color of the surrounding desert, one of the most inhospitable in the world.
Their home consists of a large living room, a small dining room and a kitchen. The shower and toilets are in a separate building.
There is intermittent electricity and no running water. Trucks pass regularly to fill a large canvas water reservoir.
Like the Dadis, many Sahrawis have set up traditional tents next to their houses in the camp, where life moves slowly.
After the morning prayer, Selembouha Dadi and her mother, in her sixties, cook and clean.
The youngest of the children, 12-year-old Mellah, goes to school.
Some of her brothers work on building sites and the others are in the army of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.
Sahrawi refugees in Algeria live mostly on funds from exiled relatives in Europe and on international aid.
The EU provides some, $11.6 million a year, despite the Polisario Front being accused of embezzlement in recent years.
Some residents have set up small shops — groceries, bakeries, fruit and vegetable stalls — in the camps.
Others work as officials for the SADR, which has its central administration in Rabouni, not far from Tindouf.
Isolated for decades and largely forgotten by the world, many Sahrawis still believe that they will one day return to the lands of their ancestors.
“We want our land whatever we find there,” Selembouha said.
Refugees in Algeria yearn for homeland in Western Sahara
Refugees in Algeria yearn for homeland in Western Sahara
Trump pivots to new 10 percent global tariff, new probes after Supreme Court setback
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump moved swiftly on Friday to replace tariffs struck down by the Supreme Court with a temporary 10 percent global import duty for 150 days while opening investigations under other laws that could allow him to re-impose the tariffs.
Trump told a briefing he was ordering new tariffs under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, duties that would go on top of surviving tariffs. These would partly replace tariffs of 10 percent to 50 percent under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act that the top court declared illegal.
Trump said later on Truth Social that he had signed an order for the tariffs on all countries “which will be effective almost immediately.”
A spokesperson for the US Customs and Border Protection agency declined comment when asked when collections of the illegal IEEPA tariffs would halt at ports of entry.
Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, said the new 10 percent duties and potentially enhanced tariffs under the Section 301 unfair practices statute and the Section 232 national security statute would result in virtually unchanged tariff revenue in 2026.
“We will get back to the same tariff level for the countries. It will just be in a less direct and slightly more convoluted manner,” Bessent told Fox News, adding that the Supreme Court decision had reduced Trump’s negotiating leverage with trading partners.
The never-used Section 122 authority allows the president to impose duties of up to 15 percent for up to 150 days on any and all countries to address “large and serious” balance of payments issues. It does not require investigations or impose other procedural limits. After 150 days, Congress would need to approve their extension.
“We have alternatives, great alternatives,” Trump said. “Could be more money. We’ll take in more money and we’ll be a lot stronger for it,” Trump said of the alternative tools.
While the administration will likely face legal challenges, the Section 122 tariffs would lapse before any final ruling could be made, said Josh Lipsky, international economics chair at the Atlantic Council, a think tank in Washington.
Trump said his administration also was initiating several new country-specific investigations under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 “to protect our country from unfair trading practices of other countries and companies.”
Trump’s shift to other statutes, including Section 122, while initiating new investigations under Section 301 had been widely anticipated, but these have often taken a year to complete.
The 10 percent tariffs only last five months, but Trump said that would allow his administration to complete investigations to enhance tariffs.
Asked if rates would ultimately end up being higher after more probes, Trump said: “Potentially higher. It depends. Whatever we want them to be.”
He said some countries “that have treated us really badly for years” could see higher tariffs, whereas for others, “it’s going to be very reasonable for them.”
The fate of dozens of trade deals to cut IEEPA-based duties and negotiations with major US trading partners remained unclear in the wake of the ruling, though Trump said he expected many of them to continue. He said deals that are abandoned “will be replaced with the other tariffs.”
“This is unlikely to affect reciprocal trade negotiations with our trading partners,” said Tim Brightbill, trade partner with the law firm Wiley Rein in Washington. “Most countries would prefer the certainty of a trade deal to the chaos of last year.”
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said details on new Section 301 investigations would be revealed in coming days, adding these are “incredibly legally durable.” Trump relied on Section 301 to impose broad tariffs on Chinese imports during his first term.
The Supreme Court’s ruling puts about $175 billion in tariff revenue collected over the past year subject to potential refunds, according to estimates provided to Reuters by Penn-Wharton Budget Model economists.
Asked if he would refund the IEEPA duties, Trump said, “I guess it has to get litigated for the next two years,” a response indicating that a quick, automatic refund process was unlikely.
Speaking in Dallas, Bessent told business leaders that since the Supreme Court did not provide any instructions on refunds, those were “in dispute,” adding: “My sense is that could be dragged out for weeks, months, years.”
Part of the reason why Trump opted for IEEPA to impose tariffs last year was because the 1977 sanctions statute allowed fast and broad action with almost no constraints. Until Friday, he had also used it as a cudgel to swiftly punish countries over non-trade disputes, such as Brazil’s prosecution of former president and Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro.
While Trump’s new investigations will prolong tariff uncertainty, they could inject more order into his tariff policy by forcing him to rely on trade laws that have well-understood procedures, research and public comment requirements, and longer timelines, said Janet Whittaker, senior counsel with Clifford Chance in Washington.
“The administration will need to follow these set processes, conduct the investigations, and so for businesses, that means more visibility into the process,” Whittaker said.
Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s trade chief during his first term, said on Fox News that he hoped Congress would revise decades-old trade laws to give Trump new tariff tools.
“I think there’s consensus in this Congress that we have to change the old system, and I hope that they will take this as an opportunity to do that,” Lighthizer said.
