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    Trump calls Colombia president ‘illegal drug dealer’ as US says it hit another ship

    Donald Trump on Sunday accused Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, of being an “illegal drug dealer” and threatened to immediately cut US funding to the country as the defense secretary confirmed in a social media post an attack on a vessel associated with a Colombian leftist rebel group.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Sunday that US forces had attacked another vessel, this time associated with a Colombian leftist rebel group. Hegseth, in a post on X, said “three terrorists were killed” in the operation which was “conducted in international waters”.“These cartels are the Al Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere,” Hegseth said. “The United States military will treat these organizations like the terrorists they are – they will be hunted, and killed.”In a post on Truth Social just hours earlier, Trump blamed the South American leftwing leader for encouraging the mass production of illegal drugs, saying he “does nothing to stop it, despite large-scale payments and subsidies from the US”.“Petro, a low rated and very unpopular leader, with a fresh mouth toward America, better close up these killing fields immediately,” Trump wrote, “or the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely”.The remarks come after Petro said the US committed “murder” following a strike on an alleged drug boat in Colombian territorial waters in September.Posting on X on Saturday, Petro said: “US government officials have committed a murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters,” adding “we await explanations from the US government.”The threat to cut off aid marks the latest point of tension between the two nations, despite historically, Colombia being one of the United States’s closest allies in Latin America.The victim of the strike was identified by Petro as Alejandro Carranza, a Colombian fisherman from the coastal town of Santa Marta. He was allegedly killed when US forces fired at his boat on 15 September.“Carranza had no ties to the drug trade and his daily activity was fishing,” Petro wrote. “The Colombian boat was adrift and had its distress signal up due to an engine failure.”But Trump has continued to justify the necessity for these ongoing boat attacks, despite his administration offering little information about the vessels or the identities of those on board.On Thursday, the US moved to send two survivors of the most recent strike – the sixth since early September – overseas instead of seeking long-term military detention for them.“The two surviving terrorists are being returned to their Countries of origin, Ecuador and Colombia, for detention and prosecution,” Trump said.The strike targeted a semi-submersible vessel which the president said “was loaded up with mostly Fentanyl, and other illegal narcotics.” Two crew members were killed and experts said the decision to repatriate the survivors meant the US military would avoid complex legal questions surrounding the detention of suspected drug traffickers. This was the first recorded instance of there being survivors, an official told NBC.“It was my great honor to destroy a very large DRUG-CARRYING SUBMARINE that was navigating towards the United States on a well known narcotrafficking transit route,” Trump posted in the aftermath of the attack.So far, at least 29 people have been killed in strikes the administration upholds are targeting drug traffickers, raising alarm among some legal experts and Democratic lawmakers, who question whether they adhere to the laws of war.Currently, the US is building up a prominent military presence in the Caribbean and bordering coastlines, one that includes guided missile destroyers, F-35 jets, and the authorization of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to conduct covert operations in Venezuela.Colombia is the recipient of the largest amount of US aid to any country in Latin America and former president Joe Biden designated the nation as a major non-Nato ally in 2022. While Congress allocated $377.5m for foreign assistance for the country in 2024 with similar projections for 2025, there were restrictions put in place out of concern for Petro’s policies and his efforts to counteract the drug trade.In September, the Trump administration asserted that Colombia was failing to cooperate in the drug war, adding them to a list of other nations for the first time in almost 30 years.More recently, they said they would revoke Petro’s visa while he was in New York for the UN general assembly after his “reckless” actions at a pro-Palestine protest. Petro had urged US soldiers to “disobey Trump’s order”, and “not point their rifles at humanity”.In reaction to Trump’s most recent accusations and funding cuts, Petro responded in a post on X saying: “I respect the history, culture, and people of the USA. They are not my enemies, nor do I feel them as such.”He added at the end: “The problem is with Trump, not with the USA.” More

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    Trump claims Maduro willing to give ‘everything’ to ease US tensions

    Donald Trump used an expletive to threaten the Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro, on Friday, claiming that the leftist autocrat had offered major concessions to appease the US.The US president was speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday during a meeting with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.Asked about reports that Maduro offered “everything in his country, all the natural resources” to ease tensions, Trump agreed: “He’s offered everything; you’re right. You know why? Because he doesn’t want to fuck around with the United States.”Maduro, who came to power in 2013, has recently shored up his security powers and deployed tens of thousands of troops around the country. He also accused Trump of seeking regime change, an allegation the US president has downplayed.Last week the New York Times reported that Maduro offered a stake in Venezuela’s oil and other mineral wealth in recent months to stave off mounting pressure from the US.Meanwhile, Venezuelan government officials are said to have floated a plan in which Maduro would eventually leave office. The Miami Herald newspaper reported that Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez and her brother Jorge, who is president of the national assembly, had funneled proposals through intermediaries in Qatar to present themselves to Washington as a “more acceptable” alternative.The US has acknowledged carrying out at least five strikes on vessels near Venezuela that it says were transporting drugs, killing at least 27 people.A sixth strike targeted a suspected drug vessel in the Caribbean on Thursday, and in what is believed to be the first such case, there were survivors among the crew, who were reportedly rescued and are being held on a navy ship.One source told Reuters that the vessel struck on Thursday moved below the water and was possibly a semi-submersible, which is a submarine-like vessel used by drug traffickers to avoid detection.Trump confirmed to reporters: “We attacked a submarine. That was a drug-carrying submarine built specifically for the transportation of massive amounts of drugs – just so you understand.”He added: “This was not an innocent group of people. I don’t know too many people that have submarines and that was an attack on a drug-carrying loaded-up submarine.”The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who was also present, did not dispute that there were survivors and repeatedly said details would be forthcoming.The US has described some of the victims in the first five strikes as Venezuelans, while the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, has suggested some were from his country. In Trinidad, family members of one man believed killed in a strike this week have demanded proof he was a drug trafficker.Venezuela’s government has said the strikes are illegal, amount to murder and are an aggression against the country.Trump has justified the strikes by asserting that the US is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, relying on the same legal authority used by the George W Bush administration when it declared a war on terror after the September 11 attacks.But legal scholars have warned that the president’s use of overwhelming military force to combat the cartels, along with his authorisation of covert action inside Venezuela, possibly to oust Maduro, stretches the bounds of international law.Juanita Goebertus Estrada, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, said the attacks violated international human rights law and amounted to extrajudicial executions.“The US is not engaged in an armed conflict with Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, or with alleged criminal groups involved. Under human rights law standards, officials engaging in law enforcement must seek to minimize injury and preserve human life. They may use lethal force only when strictly unavoidable to protect against an imminent threat of death or serious injury,” she said.The strikes have caused unease among Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, with some Republicans saying they had not received sufficient information on how the strikes were being conducted.Friday’s outburst was not the first that Trump has peppered the language of diplomacy with profanities. In June, frustrated with Israel and Iran attacking each other after a ceasefire, he told a group of reporters that the countries had “been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing”. More

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    US anti-vax stance to blame for continent-wide surge in measles, say experts

    Governments across Latin America are stepping up efforts to vaccinate their populations against measles, as outbreaks in North America drive a 34-fold increase in the number of cases reported in the region this year.Measles cases have surged worldwide to a 25-year high, due to low vaccine coverage and the spread of misinformation about vaccine safety. However, there is added concern in parts of Latin America over unequal access to healthcare and the worrying situation in the US, which is facing its worst measles outbreak in decades following a reversal of vaccine policy led by Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.“The US’s political position in relation to health and vaccination is an outrage,” said Rosana Richtmann, an infectious disease doctor and coordinator of the Brazilian Society of Infectious Disease’s immunisation committee. “It’s a problem for us.”View image in fullscreenMeasles was successfully eliminated from the Americas in 2016, and then again in 2024, but the continent is now at risk of losing its measles-free status. There have been 11,668 cases reported across 10 countries in North and Latin America, according to the latest data from the Pan-American Health Organization (Paho).More than half of these cases are in the US and Canada, with three deaths in the US and two in Canada so far.Mexico is the hardest-hit country in Latin America, with more than 4,800 cases and 22 deaths, followed by Bolivia with 354 cases. Other countries, including Brazil, Belize and Paraguay, are dealing with a few dozen infections linked to imported cases.Concern over high numbers of cases in North America has led the Brazilian health ministry to focus more on the highly contagious disease with a nationwide vaccination campaign launched for children and teenagers in October. Adults who did not have the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine as children are also being offered the jab.View image in fullscreenBrazil also has protocols in place to respond swiftly to individual cases. When a nine-year-old tested positive for measles on 7 October in Várzea Grande, health authorities were swift to act. Nurses kitted out in protective gear visited the child’s school and worked quickly to implement “ring vaccination”, inoculating everyone who had been in contact with her.The city’s health teams have also been going from door to door to identify unvaccinated people and holding vaccination drives in a shopping centre and the international airport.Richtmann said the biggest fear was imported cases. “We are much more worried about Brazilians travelling to Europe, to the US or Canada [catching measles and bringing it back], than about those who live here,” she said.Amira Roess, a professor of global health and epidemiology at Virginia’s George Mason University, agreed that the outbreaks in the US posed a threat to neighbouring countries.“Now suddenly, you’re more likely to run into someone who has some kind of infectious disease [in the US]. You visit the US, you go home with souvenirs – and you might also go home with measles,” she said.Mexico’s first measles case in February was imported from Texas by an unvaccinated Mennonite boy. Bolivia’s first cases also spread through pockets of unvaccinated people living in Mennonite settlements.Mennonites are Anabaptist Christian communities of European descent who reject many aspects of modern life, including vaccines.Daniel Salas, executive manager of Paho’s special programme for comprehensive immunisation, said: “Having close-knit communities that are often reluctant to receive vaccinations and having large flows [of people] from country to country through the region are aggravating factors.”View image in fullscreenHealth authorities should identify communities resistant to vaccination and target their efforts there, Salas said.There is no cure for measles, which can lead to serious complications and even death, but it is easily preventable with two doses of the MMR vaccine, which provides 97% protection.MMR vaccination rates in Latin America fell during the Covid pandemic and the years leading up to it but have recovered since 2022, reaching 86% last year, according to the World Bank. However, this remains below the 95% threshold needed for herd immunity, with a lag in uptake of second doses and significant disparities between countries and within them.View image in fullscreenLack of information and access to heathcare has contributed to lower vaccination rates, but doctors also blame the influence of the growing anti-vaxxer movement in the US.“A lot of South American countries look to the US,” said Carlos Paz, head of infectious diseases at the Mario Ortiz Suárez paediatric hospital in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where 80% of the country’s cases have been reported.“The population sees what a US minister says about vaccines, and some people start to say, ‘well, we shouldn’t get vaccinated here either’,” he said.While the US health secretary did endorse the MMR vaccine after an outbreak in Texas in April, Kennedy has also spread misleading information about it and misinformation about measles treatment.This month the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, now led by a biotech investor, suggested the MMR vaccine should be given as three separate jabs, even though the safety and efficacy of combined shots have been demonstrated by decades of research and going against the CDC’s own longstanding advice.Bolivia declared a national health emergency in June, extended school holidays to avoid contact between children, and launched a widespread vaccination drive, relying partly on donations from Brazil, India and Chile. But coverage in October had still only reached 45%, while the government still has 1.6m doses available.“We’ve been campaigning to increase the vaccination rate. Each doctor, each paediatrician, is a soldier advocating for vaccination,” said Paz. More

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    Trump confirms that he authorized covert CIA operations in Venezuela

    Donald Trump confirmed reports on Wednesday that he authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela, marking a sharp escalation in US efforts to pressure President Nicolás Maduro’s regime.The New York Times first reported the classified directive, citing US officials familiar with the decision.The US president said he authorized the action for two main reasons.First, he claimed Venezuela had been releasing large numbers of prisoners, including individuals from mental health facilities, into the United States, often crossing the border due to what he described as an open border policy. Trump did not specify which border they were crossing.The second reason, he said, was the large amount of drugs entering the US from Venezuela, much of it trafficked by sea.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I think Venezuela is feeling heat,” Trump added, but declined to answer when asked if the CIA had the authority to execute Maduro. More

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    Trump threatens to cut US aid to Argentina if Milei loses election

    Donald Trump has warned he could cut financial aid to Argentina if his ally Javier Milei loses crucial legislative elections later this month.“If he loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina,” the US president said as Milei visited the White House to seek the Republican’s political and economic support. “I’m with this man because his philosophy is correct. And he may win and he may not win – I think he’s going to win. And if he wins we are staying with him, and if he doesn’t win we are gone.”Trump’s administration has already promised $20bn to prop up Argentina’s struggling economy but his backing has failed to calm the markets – or help Milei’s polling before midterms on 26 October.The results of the elections, in which Milei’s minority party is hoping to boost its seat tally, will dictate whether he can pass tough cost-cutting reforms or will face a legislative brick wall for the next two years of his term.Hailing Milei as a “great leader”, Trump said he would “fully endorse” his ideological ally in the elections. “He’s Maga all the way, it’s ‘Make Argentina Great Again,’” he added.Trump has, however, faced questions about how a big bailout for Argentina tallies with that same “America First” policy. Asked by reporters what the benefit to the United States was, Trump replied: “We are helping a great philosophy take over a great country. We want to see it succeed.”With Argentina struggling to stave off yet another financial crisis and Milei’s disapproval ratings rising, the country’s president has come to his rightwing ally Trump for help.Trump has repeatedly voiced political support for Milei, while backing it up with a promise of huge economic aid, but the markets remain spooked by Argentina. In recent weeks, the highly indebted country has had to spend more than $1bn to defend the peso, a strategy most economists believe is unsustainable.That prompted Milei’s allies in Washington to step in with a financial bailout. “Argentina faces a moment of acute illiquidity,” the US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said last week, announcing a $20bn deal.The announcement sparked a rally in Argentine bonds and stocks and helped ease pressure on the peso. It also marked a rare instance of direct US intervention in Latin American currency markets, underscoring Washington’s strategic interest in Milei’s success.In Argentina, there has been fevered speculation about what Trump might want from Milei in return for his support. Before Milei took power, Argentina – a major lithium producer – had been deepening ties with China.The Argentine president’s office said the leaders would discuss “multiple topics”.Trump also threatened trade penalties, including tariffs, against Spain on Tuesday, saying he was unhappy with its refusal to raise defence spending to 5% and calling the move disrespectful to Nato.“I’m very unhappy with Spain,” he told reporters at the White House. “They’re the only country that didn’t raise their number up to 5%. I was thinking of giving them trade punishment through tariffs because of what they did, and I think I may do that.”Nato leaders agreed in June to raise military spending to 5%, although the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, secured a last-minute exemption at the time, saying Spain would only spend up to 2.1%. Madrid has argued it compensates for the lower spending with strong troop contributions to Nato missions, including deployments in Latvia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey. More

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    Trump says six were killed in US strike on another boat allegedly carrying drugs near Venezuela

    Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that the United States has struck another small boat that he accuses of carrying drugs in waters off the coast of Venezuela, killing six people aboard.“The strike was conducted in International Waters, and six male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike,” Trump said in a statement on his Truth Social social media platform. “No U.S. Forces were harmed.”Trump wrote that “intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics” and said that it was “associated with illicit narcoterrorist networks” but did not provide any evidence. Trump said that defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, ordered the strike on Tuesday morning and also shared video footage of the strike, as he has with prior strikes.This marks the fifth deadly US strike in the Caribbean, according to the Associated Press since the beginning of September, and comes just weeks after Trump administration officials said that the US is now in a “non international armed conflict” with drug cartels.An internal Trump administration memo obtained by the New York Times earlier this month reportedly stated that Trump has deemed cartels engaged in drug smuggling as “non-state armed groups” whose actions “constitute an armed attack against the United States”.The US has defendedthe boat strikes as countering “narco-terrorist” members of Tren de Aragua, which has been designated a foreign terrorist organization. The White House has argued that military action is a necessary escalation to disrupt the flow of drugs into the US.However, some lawmakers and human rights groups have questioned the legality of the attacks. In September, experts at the United Nations condemned the US strikes on small boats it believes to be trafficking drugs as extrajudicial executions.“International law does not allow governments to simply murder alleged drug traffickers,” the experts said. “Criminal activities should be disrupted, investigated and prosecuted in accordance with the rule of law, including through international cooperation.”Last week, Colombian president Gustavo Petro said that there were “indications” that one of the recently targeted boats was Colombian “and had Colombians onboard”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe White House quickly pushed back against Petro’s claims, demanding that he retract his statement, which the White House described as “baseless and reprehensible”.Also last week, an attempt in the US Senate to prevent further US strikes on alleged drug-carrying boats off the coast of Venezuela without congressional approval failed, after nearly all Republicans and Democratic Senator John Fetterman voted against the measure. More

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    Senate Republicans vote against check on Trump using deadly force against cartels

    Senate Republicans voted down legislation Wednesday that would have put a check on Donald Trump’s ability to use deadly military force against drug cartels after Democrats tried to counter the administration’s extraordinary assertion of presidential war powers to destroy vessels in the Caribbean.The vote fell mostly along party lines, 48-51, with two Republicans, Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski, voting in favor and the Democrat John Fetterman voting against.It was the first vote in Congress on Trump’s military campaign, which according to the White House has so far destroyed four vessels, killed at least 21 people and stopped narcotics from reaching the US. The war powers resolution would have required the president to seek authorization from Congress before further military strikes on the cartels.The Trump administration has asserted that drug traffickers are armed combatants threatening the United States, creating justification to use military force. But that assertion has been met with some unease on Capitol Hill.Some Republicans are asking the White House for more clarification on its legal justification and specifics on how the strikes are conducted, while Democrats insist they are violations of US and international law. It’s a clash that could redefine how the world’s most powerful military uses lethal force and set the tone for future global conflict.The White House had indicated Trump would veto the legislation, and even though the Senate vote failed, it gave lawmakers an opportunity to go on the record with their objections to Trump’s declaration that the US is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels.“It sends a message when a significant number of legislators say: ‘Hey, this is a bad idea,’” said the senator Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat who pushed the resolution alongside Adam Schiff, a Democrat of California.Wednesday’s vote was brought under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which was intended to reassert congressional power over the declaration of war.“Congress must not allow the executive branch to become judge, jury and executioner,” Paul, a Kentucky Republican who has long pushed for greater congressional oversight of war powers, said during a floor speech.Paul was the only Republican to publicly speak in favor of the resolution before the vote, but a number of Republican senators have questioned the strikes on vessels and said they are not receiving enough information from the administration.The senator Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican, acknowledged “there may be some concern” in the Republican conference about the strikes. However, Republican leaders stridently argued against the resolution on the Senate floor Wednesday, calling it a political ploy from Democrats.“People were attacking our country by bringing in poisonous substances to deposit into our country that would have killed Americans,” said the senator Jim Risch, the chair of the Senate foreign relations committee. “Fortunately most of those drugs are now at the bottom of the ocean.”Risch thanked Trump for his actions and added that he hoped the military strikes would continue.Members of the Senate armed services committee received a classified briefing last week on the strikes, and Cramer said he was “comfortable with at least the plausibility of their legal argument”. But, he added, no one representing intelligence agencies or the military command structure for Central and South America was present for the briefing.“I’d be more comfortable defending the administration if they shared the information,” he said.Kaine also said the briefing did not include any information on why the military chose to destroy the vessels rather than interdict them or get into the specifics of how the military was so confident the vessels were carrying drugs.“Maybe they were engaged in human trafficking, or maybe it was the wrong ship,” Schiff said. “We just have little or no information about who was onboard these ships or what intelligence was used or what the rationale was and how certain we could be that everyone on that ship deserved to die.”The Democrats also said the administration has told them it is adding cartels to a list of organizations deemed “narco-terrorists” that are targets for military strikes, but it has not shown the lawmakers a complete list.“The slow erosion of congressional oversight is not an abstract debate about process,” the senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate armed services committee, said in a floor speech. “It is a real and present threat to our democracy.”The secretary of state Marco Rubio visited the Republican conference for lunch Wednesday to emphasize to senators that they should vote against the legislation. He told the senators that the administration was treating cartels like governmental entities because they had seized control of large portions of some Caribbean nations, according to the senator John Hoeven of North Dakota.Rubio told reporters at the Capitol: “These drug-trafficking organizations are a direct threat to the safety and security of the United States to unleash violence and criminality on our streets, fueled by the drugs and the drug profits that they make. … And the president, as the commander in chief, has an obligation to keep our country safe.”Still, Democrats said the recent buildup of US maritime forces in the Caribbean was a sign of shifting US priorities and tactics that could have grave repercussions. They worried that further military strikes could set off a conflict with Venezuela and argued that Congress should be actively deliberating whenever American troops are sent to war.Schiff said, “This is the kind of thing that leads a country, unexpectedly and unintentionally, into war.” More