>>reporter: barack obam obama re point when he met the nigerian president in the white house in july. now they're sending 90 troops. they're on the ground in cameroon and will be involved in surveillance, reconnaissance, and intelligence gathering. they will be armed but only for force protection rather than any offensive role and they will work in support of the countries in the region taking the fight to boko haram. now, just in the last few hours, the white house press secretary was asked what does this mean. >> what the united states has done is tried to offer some of the unique capabilities that we have in the united states military to assist that regional effort. so this deployment will be part of an effort to conduct air born intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance operations in the region. this is a unique capacity that the united states has in this effort and it will be used in support of the ongoing regional counter extremist efforts ongoing there. >>reporter: the president had to write to congress to let them know that this deployment was underway. he said in the lette

now president obam president barack obama said it's going to get rid of tariffs on american products. which is that, we won't know, we might not be able to read the agreement for another month. but the president is trying to sell the deal to the american people who were very much put off by the deal between canada and mexico and the united states nafta. they'll some out and said that this is a horrible deal. this is going to be tough to get this through, but he's following a good fight because his team has put a lot of emphasis on getting this deal done. >> we've got the other ones like nafta, why did it come to pass? why is do people think that this one was needed? think saw manufacturing jobs leave b, and tens of thousands of jobs were lost. what the obama administration said that this does is when it comes to labor laws, it evens the playing field. they say that it expands the use of unions. unions can form in all of these countries. bans child labor. one of the keys that nobody knows is how is this going to be enforceable. that is one of the keys. again, we don't know yet. >> thes

president abraham obam barack obama said that they would send troops nigeria will lead the fight against the armed group. let's join pa my colleague in the u.s. capital washington, d.c. what are these american crops going to do? >> they will be involved in swans and reconnaissance and aerial operation. that will mean the deployment over the board in cameroon and nigeria. now they've said that the americans that they wanted to help the regional countries in their fight against boko haram, so you can see why they're putting this number on to the ground. they will be armed, but we're told that this is for forced protection rather than any offensive role. it's a situation where it was talked about when he was in kenya during the summer and the last few months. now he's following up with their promise given that they have come to him and asked for help. >> length of type in what he's going to do. is it open ended or saying that you're only going to this amount of time and then you're going home. >> well, he has it write a letter to congress saying i'm going to tell you about it. 19 have gone