US Seeks to Deflate Chinese Balloon Worries

FILED - 04 February 2023, US, Myrtle Beach: Chinese spy balloon is pictured shortly before it was shot down by an F22 military fighter jet over Surfside Beach in South Carolina. Photo: Joe Granita/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
FILED - 04 February 2023, US, Myrtle Beach: Chinese spy balloon is pictured shortly before it was shot down by an F22 military fighter jet over Surfside Beach in South Carolina. Photo: Joe Granita/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
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US Seeks to Deflate Chinese Balloon Worries

FILED - 04 February 2023, US, Myrtle Beach: Chinese spy balloon is pictured shortly before it was shot down by an F22 military fighter jet over Surfside Beach in South Carolina. Photo: Joe Granita/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
FILED - 04 February 2023, US, Myrtle Beach: Chinese spy balloon is pictured shortly before it was shot down by an F22 military fighter jet over Surfside Beach in South Carolina. Photo: Joe Granita/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

The White House sought Tuesday to take the air out of an escalating diplomatic crisis with Beijing, saying that preliminary evidence suggests three unidentified aerial objects shot down by US jets were not involved in a broader Chinese spy balloon program.

The United States has been in a state of alarm since a huge white balloon from China was spotted tracking over a series of top secret nuclear weapons sites, before being shot down just off the east coast on February 4, said AFP.

In the wake of the incident, the US military adjusted radar settings to detect smaller objects and promptly discovered three more unidentified craft that President Joe Biden ordered shot down -- one over Alaska, another over Canada and the third over Lake Huron off Michigan.

US authorities "haven't seen any indication or anything that points specifically to the idea that these three objects were part of (China's) spy balloon program or that they were definitely involved in external intelligence," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

With Congress, the media and the public speculating over everything from a coordinated Chinese spying offensive to aliens, officials are now stressing that the three new objects appear to be neither Chinese nor involved in spying.

Kirby said they "could be balloons that were simply tied to commercial or research entities and therefore benign."

That "could emerge as a leading explanation here," he said.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre acknowledged that the ownership of the three objects remains unknown but "we do want to make sure that the Americans, American people, understand that there's no need to panic."

Beijing denies it uses spy balloons and says the huge craft shot down off the coast February 4 was for weather research, while another spotted over South America was for pilot training.

On Monday, Chinese authorities upped the ante by accusing Washington of sending its own spy balloons over their territory -- something US officials deny.

The spat has already inflicted diplomatic damage between the rival superpowers, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken abruptly canceling a rare visit to Beijing.

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Kirby stressed that China is running a "well funded, deliberate program" to use high-altitude, hard-to-detect balloons for spying on the United States and other countries.

But whether the three latest objects downed were part of that will not be definitively known until the debris is analyzed -- and that is taking more time than US authorities would like.

"It will certainly help us hone in on that if and when we can get the debris," Kirby said.

But due to "pretty tough" weather and geographical conditions in all three cases, "we're recognizing that it could be some time before we locate and recover the debris," Kirby said. "We haven't found them yet."

The next question will be how to calibrate the military's radar shield.

If the three destroyed objects turn out to have been private or otherwise non-hostile aircraft, then the Pentagon will have to decide whether it should be responding so aggressively after every sighting.

An inter-agency security review is underway, Kirby said, and in the meantime there's no reason to expect a similar rate of drama. "I never said there was some sort of blanket policy, that we're just going to shoot things out of the sky."

Asked if Biden had overreacted and should be embarrassed if the three objects shot down turn out to be something innocuous, like weather study balloons, Jean-Pierre said: "I don't think the president should be embarrassed by the fact that he took action to make sure that our airspace, civilian airspace, was safe."



Trump Expands US Travel Ban to Nationals of 12 Countries

US President Donald Trump speaks during a swearing-in ceremony for the new US ambassador to China, former US Senator David Perdue, at the White House in Washington, DC, US, May 7, 2025. (Reuters)
US President Donald Trump speaks during a swearing-in ceremony for the new US ambassador to China, former US Senator David Perdue, at the White House in Washington, DC, US, May 7, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump Expands US Travel Ban to Nationals of 12 Countries

US President Donald Trump speaks during a swearing-in ceremony for the new US ambassador to China, former US Senator David Perdue, at the White House in Washington, DC, US, May 7, 2025. (Reuters)
US President Donald Trump speaks during a swearing-in ceremony for the new US ambassador to China, former US Senator David Perdue, at the White House in Washington, DC, US, May 7, 2025. (Reuters)

US President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Wednesday banning the nationals of 12 countries from entering the United States, saying the move was needed to protect against "foreign terrorists" and other security threats.

The directive is part of an immigration crackdown Trump launched this year at the start of his second term, which has also included the deportation to El Salvador of hundreds of Venezuelans suspected of being gang members and efforts to deny enrollments of some foreign students and deport others.

The countries affected by the latest travel ban are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, reported Reuters.

The entry of people from seven other countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela, will be partially restricted.

"We will not allow people to enter our country who wish to do us harm," Trump said in a video posted on X. He said the list could be revised and new countries could be added.

The proclamation is effective on June 9, 2025 at 12:01 am EDT (0401 GMT). Visas issued before that date will not be revoked, the order said.

During his first term in office, Trump announced a ban on travelers from seven Muslim-majority nations, a policy that went through several iterations before it was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018.

Former President Joe Biden, a Democrat who succeeded Trump, repealed that ban on nationals from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen in 2021, calling it "a stain on our national conscience."

Trump said the countries subject to the most severe restrictions were determined to harbor a "large-scale presence of terrorists," fail to cooperate on visa security and have an inability to verify travelers' identities, inadequate record-keeping of criminal histories and high rates of visa overstays in the United States.

"We cannot have open migration from any country where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen those who seek to enter the United States," Trump said.

He cited Sunday's incident in Boulder, Colorado in which a man tossed a gasoline bomb into a crowd of pro-Israel demonstrators as an example of why the new restrictions are needed.

An Egyptian national, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, has been charged in the attack. Federal officials said Soliman had overstayed his tourist visa and had an expired work permit - although Egypt is not on the list of countries facing travel limits.

BEING IN THE US A 'BIG RISK'

Somalia immediately pledged to work with the US to address security issues.

"Somalia values its longstanding relationship with the United States and stands ready to engage in dialogue to address the concerns raised," Dahir Hassan Abdi, the Somali ambassador to the United States, said in a statement.

Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, a close ally of President Nicolas Maduro, responded on Wednesday evening by describing the US government as fascist and warning Venezuelans of being in the US.

"The truth is being in the United States is a big risk for anybody, not just for Venezuelans ... They persecute our countrymen, our people for no reason."

A spokesperson for the Taliban-led Afghan foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Pakistan’s foreign ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment on how it would handle the thousands of Afghans waiting in Islamabad who had been in the pipeline for US resettlement.

Calls early on Thursday to the spokesperson of Myanmar's military government were not answered. The foreign ministry of Laos did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump campaigned on a tough border strategy and previewed his plan in an October 2023 speech, pledging to restrict people from the Gaza Strip, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and "anywhere else that threatens our security."

Trump issued an executive order on January 20 requiring intensified security vetting of any foreigners seeking admission to the US to detect national security threats. That order directed several cabinet members to submit a list of countries from which travel should be partly or fully suspended because their "vetting and screening information is so deficient."

The latest travel restrictions were first reported by CBS News.

In March, Reuters reported that the Trump administration was considering travel restrictions on dozens of countries.