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    US strikes another alleged drug boat bringing death toll from campaign in Latin America to 70

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    US forces struck another alleged drug trafficking boat in the Caribbean, killing three people, defense secretary Pete Hegseth has said, bringing the death toll from the Trump administration’s controversial campaign to at least 70.The US began carrying out such strikes – which some experts say amount to extrajudicial killings even if they target known traffickers – in early September, taking aim at vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.The US strikes have destroyed at least 18 vessels so far – 17 boats and a semi-submersible – but Washington has yet to make public any concrete evidence that its targets were smuggling narcotics or posed a threat to the United States.Hegseth released footage on X of the latest strike, which he said took place in international waters like the previous strikes and targeted “a vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization.”No US forces were harmed in the operation, he said.“To all narco-terrorists who threaten our homeland: if you want to stay alive, stop trafficking drugs. If you keep trafficking deadly drugs – we will kill you,” he wrote.Like some previous videos released by the US government, a section of the boat is obfuscated for unspecified reasons.President Donald Trump’s administration has built up significant forces in Latin America, in what it says is its campaign to stamp out drug trafficking.So far it has deployed six Navy ships in the Caribbean, sent F-35 stealth warplanes to Puerto Rico, and ordered the USS Gerald R Ford carrier strike group to the region.On Thursday, the US Senate blocked a Democratic war powers resolution that would have forced Donald Trump to seek congressional approval to launch strikes in Venezuela, allowing the president to remain unchecked in his ability to expand his military campaign against the country.The administration has developed a range of options for military action in Venezuela, according to two people familiar with the matter, and Trump’s aides have asked the justice department for additional guidance that could provide a legal basis to strike targets other than boats.The governments and families of those killed in the US strikes on alleged drug boats have said many of the dead were civilians – primarily fishers.Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro has repeatedly accused Trump of seeking to oust him.US bombers have also conducted shows of force near Venezuela, flying over the Caribbean Sea off the country’s coast on at least four occasions since mid-October.Maduro – who has been indicted on drug charges in the United States – insists there is no drug cultivation in his country, which he says is used as a trafficking route for Colombian cocaine against its will.The Trump administration has said in a notice to Congress that the United States is engaged in “armed conflict” with Latin American drug cartels, describing them as terrorist groups as part of its justification for the strikes.With Agence France-Presse More

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      Three killed in US military strike on alleged drug vessel in the Caribbean

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      The US military has carried out another lethal strike on alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean Sea, US defense secretary Pete Hegseth said.Hegseth said on Saturday the vessel was operated by a US-designated terrorist organization but did not name which group was targeted. He said three people were killed in the strike.It’s at least the 15th such strike carried out by the US military in the Caribbean or eastern Pacific since early September.In a posting on X, Hegseth said the vessel “was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics.”The US military has now killed at least 64 people in the strikes.Trump has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States. He has asserted the US is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, relying on the same legal authority used by the Bush administration when it declared a war on terrorism after the 11 September 2001 attacks.US lawmakers have been repeatedly rebuffed by the White House in their demand that the administration release more information about the legal justification for the strikes as well as greater details about which cartels have been targeted and the individuals killed.Hegseth said in the posting that “narco-terrorists are bringing drugs to our shores to poison Americans at home” and the Defense Department “will treat them EXACTLY how we treated Al-Qaeda.”Senate Democrats renewed their request for more information about the strikes in a letter on Friday to secretary of state Marco Rubio, director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Hegseth.“We also request that you provide all legal opinions related to these strikes and a list of the groups or other entities the President has deemed targetable,” the senators wrote.Among those signing the letter were senate minority leader Chuck Schumer as well as senators Jack Reed, Jeanne Shaheen, Mark Warner, Chris Coons, Patty Murray and Brian Schatz.The letter says that thus far the administration “has selectively shared what has at times been contradictory information” with some members, “while excluding others”.Earlier Friday, the Republican chair and ranking Democrat on the senate armed services committee released a pair of letters sent to Hegseth written in late September and early October requesting the department’s legal rationale for the strikes and the list of drug cartels that the Trump administration has designated as terrorist organizations in its justification for the use of military force. More

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      Haitians helped boost Springfield’s economy – now they’re fleeing in fear of Trump

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      Every morning, Alicia Mercado makes the 50-minute drive from her home in Columbus to Springfield, where she runs the Adasa Latin Market store. She opened the business next to a Haitian restaurant in 2023, having spotted a gap in the market for Caribbean and Latin foods – the neighborhood’s Haitian population was booming at the time.But over the past year, she says her business, which includes an international money transfer kiosk, has taken a major hit.“About 80 to 90% of our customers were Haitians; now that’s down to about 60% over the past six months,” she says. “No more people are moving to Springfield.”Mercado’s experiences are being echoed around the city of 58,000 people that garnered international attention last year when Donald Trump falsely claimed during a presidential debate that immigrants were eating people’s pets.Until the end of last year, Springfield was something of a surprise economic juggernaut.A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland found that it ranked second among all Ohio cities for job growth since the pandemic.New housing projects, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, are among the biggest investments the city has ever made.That growth was partly fueled by the availability of manufacturing and blue-collar jobs that were eagerly filled by the more than 15,000 Haitian immigrants who had moved to the city over the past eight years, fueling businesses such as Mercado’s.Local companies got cheap, reliable labor, while Haitian workers received stable income, health insurance and a safe place to live. Many bought homes and invested their hard-earned income into improving the city’s housing stock that, in turn, padded the city’s tax coffers. For the most part, it was a win for all involved.But since then, the city’s economic fortunes have spiraled.Springfield businesses, big and small, are struggling in the aftermath of thousands of Haitians fleeing the town after the Trump administration’s termination of the humanitarian parole program for citizens of several countries, including Haiti, in June. On top of that, the government has ended temporary protected status, affecting the immigration status of more than half a million Haitians, which comes into effect on or before 5 February 2026.The Department of Homeland Security says conditions in Haiti have improved to allow US-based Haitians to return. However, violence prompted Haiti’s government in August to issue a state of emergency in parts of the country. The US Department of State currently has a level four “do not travel” advisory for Haiti.The consequences of these moves are being keenly felt in places such as Springfield.Since January, when the Trump administration took office, the percentage of manufacturing jobs in Springfield has been falling by double digits as the civilian labor force also declines, something thought to be partly fueled by Haitians leaving the city due to fear of the administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.At Topre America, an automotive parts manufacturing company north-east of downtown Springfield, dozens of jobs that Haitians had once filled – forklift drivers, supervisors and stackers – have remained unfilled on the company’s employment webpage for months.Unemployment has ticked up slightly in the city – but still at a rate twice the state’s increase – in the 12 months since Trump’s racist comments.In a city where income tax makes up the majority of municipal funding, the loss of thousands of Haitian workers means fewer dollars for public services for all residents.“Our tax revenue, which is the backbone of our general fund, has flattened. After years of strong growth post-pandemic, the rebound is behind us,” Springfield’s city finance director, Katie Eviston, reported at a city commission public meeting in June.Previous estimates had tracked that 2025 would see a 3.5% increase in income tax funds for the city. By June, that anticipated growth, however, had been wiped out in what Eviston said was a “level of decline [that] hasn’t occurred since the early days of the Covid shutdown”.Moreover, the city faces a worrying $4.25m financial hole due to the cancellation of a host of Biden-era programs and grants by the Trump administration.Springfield and its businesses aren’t alone in dealing with the fallout of the Trump administration’s immigration policies.Experts say it has consequences for businesses and companies right across the country. In June, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) said that ending visas for international workers would leave 85,000 jobs unfilled.“Stripping [immigrants’] ability to work and threatening them with removal is not just a human cost; it is an economic one,” an AEM executive wrote in the Washington Examiner.Small communities in Indiana, Pennsylvania and elsewhere in Ohio that enjoyed an economic rebound in the aftermath of the pandemic are also experiencing depressed purchasing power due to White House-fueled job cuts.“Trump’s immigration policy slowed inflows. Suddenly, more firms have seen their immigrant worker supplies decline, forcing them to pay more to attract native workers, thereby placing upward pressure on inflation,” says Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Metro thinktank.“This, combined with Trump’s tariffs, has created serious upward price pressure along with the rise in labor costs – not a great combination for many US producers in the heartland.”Without the ability to work, many Haitians are leaving the US.According to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, more than 26,000 Haitians sought asylum there in the first six months of 2025, many of whom are thought to have fled the US. By contrast, just 21,756 claims were made for all of 2024.Many Haitians in Springfield, however, are stuck in place, without jobs and with bills mounting up.“A lot of people have work problems – we have lost half our customers,” says Youdins Solon, who helps out at his family’s Keket Bongou Caribbean restaurant in south-east Springfield. Solon moved to Springfield last March, having lived in Florida for 18 months prior. But by the summer, he lost his job at a local Amazon distribution center when his immigration status was revoked. He says he is one of hundreds who have been laid off.“I’m lucky because I have my family here, but for a lot of people, they moved [out of Springfield] because they were afraid of the situation.”But for those who have staked their businesses on a thriving immigrant community in Springfield, it’s not easy to pack up and leave.“We order Haitian food from companies in Florida and Chicago every two weeks,” says Mercado, “but now, that’s greatly reduced.” More

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      Why is Trump, the self-proclaimed ‘president of peace’, aiming to topple the Venezuelan regime?

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      It was a solemn pledge at the heart of Donald Trump’s “America first” appeal.A “Make America great again” (Maga) foreign policy would mean the end of military commitments that had in the past sucked the US into draining and drawn-out wars far from its own shores.Now an intense military buildup targeting the authoritarian regime of Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela is stretching that commitment to the breaking point, as the White House strikes a bellicose posture that seems to mock Trump’s self-proclaimed “president of peace” image.In recent weeks, US forces have carried out at least eight strikes, killing at least 38 people, against boats in the Caribbean off Venezuela’s coast that Washington said were being used for drug trafficking. The latest strike, announced on Friday by Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, reportedly killed six people on a boat allegedly being used to smuggle drugs on what was said to be “a known narco-trafficking route”.Two further strikes in the Pacific this week killed at least five people as tensions also rose between the US and Colombia over the Trump administration’s tactics against alleged traffickers.But the main focus has been Venezuela amid a buildup that has seen nuclear-capable B-52 bombers and elite special operations forces deployed off the South American country’s shores.Trump this month signaled a further escalation by authorising the CIA to conduct operations inside the country, fuelling fears that the US was trying to foment a military coup against Maduro – whom it has designated a “narco-terrorist” and for whose arrest it has offered a $50m bounty – or even prepare a ground invasion.“Action on the ground would be the least preferred option, and it certainly wouldn’t be GI Joe – it would be special ops people,” said Fulton Armstrong, a former CIA analyst and national intelligence officer for Latin America.“With technology, you don’t need to invade any more. The whole idea, I believe, is to get the Venezuelans to take him out.”Some Venezuelan analysts say local support for a coup is thin.The policy has been shaped by a Trump administration power struggle that has seen Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and acting national security adviser, triumph over Richard Grenell, Trump’s envoy to Venezuela, who was sidelined after arguing for a pragmatic approach that would help secure oil deals.Maduro and other senior regime figures are said to have offered extensive concessions in an effort to end the confrontation with Washington, including offering the US a dominant stake in Venezuela’s oil industry. The Trump administration has even eased some sanctions on Venezuelan oil, granting Chevron a licence to resume operating in the country and increase exports from Venezuela. But longstanding tensions have instead escalated further after Rubio pressed the case for a tough approach.“Trump had, in many conversations, meetings with different people emphasized that he really only cared about [Venezuela’s] oil,” said a US businessman with longstanding ties to Venezuela and close knowledge of the White House’s policy. “But Rubio was able to drum up this ‘narco-terrorist’ rhetoric and get Trump to pivot completely. The U-turn really reflects Rubio’s expanded influence in the administration.”Rubio, a longtime critic of Maduro’s socialist regime, won the support of Stephen Miller, the powerful White House deputy chief of staff, and Susie Wiles, the chief of staff, in persuading Trump.He did so partly by seizing on the administration’s designation of Tren de Aragua, a transnational gang of Venezuelan origin, as a “foreign terrorist organisation” that had infiltrated the US and allegedly fuelled the influx of undocumented migrants fleeing Maduro’s regime.A White House proclamation last March further identified the gang as being in cahoots with the Cartel de los Soles, a shadowy grouping of Venezuelan military figures which the administration insists is headed by Maduro and is responsible for trafficking drugs to the US. Other sources have questioned that characterisation of the cartel and Maduro’s connections to it.Experts also question Venezuela’s significance as a drugs supplier. Although the country is a conduit for trafficking, it is not a primary source for most illegal substances entering the US. Fentanyl, which is responsible for most US drug-related deaths, is mainly sourced from Mexico.There are doubts over the legality of the boat strikes – which Rubio has vociferously justified – and the military escalation in the name of combating drugs.The White House insists the actions, believed to be led by the CIA, are legal under the 2001 USA Patriot Act – passed after the 9/11 al-Qaida attacks – which affords scope for action against designated foreign terrorists, a category that now includes Maduro.William Brownfield, a former ambassador to Venezuela and ex-state department drugs and law enforcement czar, said the policy was unprecedented and vulnerable to legal challenge.“I never had anyone seriously suggest to me during my seven years as drugs and law enforcement chief that this issue could be addressed the way it is now,” he said. “I couldn’t even propose it because no one would even entertain the thought of using the military for a law enforcement mission.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionUnderlying Rubio’s drive may be a mixture of ideology and political ambition. The son of Cuban immigrants, he has long denounced Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, for the financial and oil support they have provided to Cuba’s communist regime.Observers say Rubio is eyeing the Republican presidential nomination in 2028 – when Trump is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term and where adopting a hard line on Venezuela could help secure the Cuban ethnic vote in a close primary election.Tommy Pigott, a state department spokesman, played down Rubio’s role in shaping the policy, saying in a statement: “The president is the one who drives and determines our foreign policy. It is the job of the cabinet to implement. Secretary Rubio is honored to be a part of the president’s team.”He added: “Maduro is not the legitimate leader of Venezuela; he’s a fugitive of American justice who undermines regional security and poisons Americans and we want to see him brought to justice.”But there are also wider foreign policy considerations as the US tries to revive its historical habit of treating Latin America as its back yard.“Rubio’s position is that the United States was not paying sufficient attention to the Latin American region writ large and I actually agree with that,” said Brownfield. “The Trump administration is, in fact, being fairly clear when it says that the Maduro regime is a threat to basic democratic values throughout the western hemisphere.”Angelo Rivero Santos, a Latin American studies professor at Georgetown University and former diplomat in Venezuela’s embassy in Washington, said the Trump administration was reasserting the Monroe doctrine, devised in the 19th century and which saw the US claiming Latin America as its exclusive sphere of influence.“It’s not only Venezuela,” he said. “When you look at their statements on the Panama canal, at the impositions of tariffs on Brazil, the latest spat with the Colombian government, not to mention the military presence in the Caribbean, you see a return of the Monroe doctrine.”One aim, Santos argued, was to install more Trump-friendly governments in the region similar to those of Javier Milei, Argentina’s president; Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador; and Ecuador’s president, Daniel Noboa.Another, said Armstrong, the former CIA analyst, was an “ultra-nationalist” projection of strength.“The message is: ‘We’re tough guys,’” he said. “Maduro, like the Cubans, has given the United States the finger and told us to go fuck ourselves, and we have failed with all of the so-called maximum pressure policy that started in Trump 1.0 and has continued and increased in Trump 2.0.”The result, he warned, could be an unpredictable sequence of events as the US tries to goad Maduro into retaliation, which could be used to engineer his downfall.“They can hit a naval target, say a coastal civilian facility, and that might be the provocation that gets Maduro to hit back and maybe do something dumb,” he said. “Then you go for big targets in Caracas, and get a form of chaos. If that doesn’t do it, you put a couple of guys in, special forces or Navy Seals, to do a snatch. Of course he’s not going to go alive. I don’t see a pretty solution.”Aram Roston contributed additional reporting More

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

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      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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      US admiral to retire amid military strikes in Caribbean and tensions with Venezuela

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      Amid escalating tensions with Venezuela and US military strikes on suspected drug smugglers in the Caribbean, the US admiral who commands military forces in Latin America will step down at the end of this year, defense secretary Pete Hegseth announced on social media.The admiral, Alvin Holsey, just took over the US military’s southern command late last year for a position that normally lasts three years.A source told Reuters that there had been tension between him and Hegseth as well as questions about whether he would be fired in the days leading up to the announcement.The New York Times reports that an unnamed US official said that Holsey “had raised concerns about the mission and the attacks on the alleged drug boats”.Hegseth, in his social media post, did not disclose the reason for Holsey’s plan “to retire at year’s end”.The post noted that Holsey began his career “through the NROTC program at Morehouse College in 1988”. Morehouse is a private, historically Black college in Atlanta.In February, Donald Trump abruptly fired the air force general CQ Brown Jr as chair of the joint chiefs of staff, sidelining a history-making Black fighter pilot and respected officer as part of a campaign to purge the military of leaders who support diversity and equity in the ranks.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn 2021, Holsey recorded a public service announcement urging Black Americans to get the Covid-19 vaccine. More

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      Trump says drug cartels operating in the Caribbean are ‘unlawful combatants’

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      Donald Trump has said that drug cartels operating in the Caribbean are “unlawful combatants” and says the United States is now in a “non-international armed conflict”, according to a White House memo obtained by the Associated Press on Thursday.A US official familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly told the AP that Congress was notified about the designation by Pentagon officials on Wednesday.The story was first reported by the New York Times.It comes after the US military conducted strikes on three boats in the Caribbean Sea last month that killed 17 people and triggered widespread international outrage, especially in Central and South America.The administration is required by law to report to Congress the US government’s use of armed forces. The Times reports that the administration’s memo cites that statute and also repeats its past justifications that the strikes were conducted in self-defense and accusing the boats of containing members of a Venezuelan drug gang. But the memo also reportedly goes further and frames the US military’s attacks on the boats to be part of a sustained conflict.The memo also reportedly states that Trump has deemed cartels engaged in smuggling drugs as “non-state armed groups” whose actions “constitute an armed attack against the United States”.The Trump administration has been increasing its military presence in the Caribbean in recent months, deploying a number of ships and military personnel to Puerto Rico. It has justified the military action as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the US. But some lawmakers as well as human rights groups have questioned the legality of the attacks.The notice to Congress is an aggressive escalation in the US government’s attempts to stop the flow of narcotics. The US government’s drug war in recent years has increasingly focused on political targets, and this latest escalation may be seen as an attempt by the administration to further place pressure on the Venezuelan government.Earlier this year, the Trump administration determined several criminal groups to be “terrorist” organizations. The designation by the administration included a number of Mexican cartels, the MS-13 gang, the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and the Venezuelan so-called Cartel de los Soles.For years, the US government has accused the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro of being involved in drug trafficking. The Trump administration earlier this year accused Maduro of directing the activities of Tren de Aragua, and used it as a justification to expel hundreds of immigrants to a notorious Salvadorian prison under the Alien Enemies Act.Intelligence assessments have determined there is little proof of Maduro’s links to Tren de Aragua.Maduro and members of his cabinet and military also stand accused by the US of running the Cartel de los Soles and seeking to traffic cocaine to the US. The infrastructure of the cartel has been disputed, with drug trafficking analysts and experts saying that the Cartel de los Soles is a loose network of lower-ranking military officials without a strict hierarchical structure.Earlier this year, the US government raised its bounty for Maduro to $50m. There is an active indictment in a Manhattan federal court related to the Cartel de los Soles case. A co-defendant and former top Venezuelan military intelligence chief pleaded guilty earlier this year to narco-terrorism crimes.The three vessels that were targeted by the US in recent weeks were traversing through the Caribbean. Trump administration officials, without proof, have said the vessels were carrying members of Tren de Aragua with drugs destined for the US.The administration has been adamant in escalating its fight against fentanyl trafficking into the US. However, fentanyl typically arrives across the southern US border from Mexico. More

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      As US warships prowl the Caribbean, our region must hold fast against Trump’s gaslighting

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      For decades, the Caribbean has been caught in the slipstream of other people’s wars – from cold war proxy battles to Washington’s “war on drugs” and “war on terror”. Our islands have too often been turned into the frontlines for policies scripted elsewhere but fought in our waters, our communities, and on the backs of our most vulnerable.The recent US naval strikes against alleged “drug boats” leaving Venezuela, and the decision of Trinidad and Tobago’s prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, to grant access to territorial waters without first consulting the Caribbean collective of developing countries, Caricom, risk dragging our islands into yet another manufactured storm.As US warships fire missiles at vessels they claim carry “narco-terrorists”, the Caribbean faces the prospect of being sacrificed in someone else’s theatre of war. The consequences could be catastrophic for livelihoods and fragile regional stability. Unless diplomacy and regional solidarity prevail, we could be destabilised in ways we are ill-equipped to endure.The US narrative rests on a familiar trope: that the Caribbean is nothing more than a trans-shipment hub for narcotics flowing north. Geography makes the accusation plausible. For decades, cocaine from Colombia has moved through Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and across the archipelago to Miami, New York, Madrid and London.But the narrative is dishonest. The true driver is demand. The US insatiable appetite for cocaine and opiates created the billion-dollar trade routes that snake through Trinidad, Jamaica, the Bahamas and Guyana. Rather than own its addiction, the US projects blame outward, painting the Caribbean as “narco-territory” while denying the role of its own citizens as consumers, financiers, and enablers.View image in fullscreenFishing communities have long paid the highest price. In Trinidad and Tobago, countless fishers have been harassed, detained or shot at by Venezuelan coastguards. Some have been killed. These people, eking out a precarious living in overfished waters, now fear being mistaken for traffickers by US drones and warships.When the US broadcasts videos of small boats exploding into fireballs, they endanger every fisher who dares cast a net in the Gulf of Paria, between Trinidad and Venezuela.Washington’s sudden military zeal is telling. After decades of indifference to Caribbean pleas for fair trade, reparations and climate justice, we are asked to believe US destroyers lurk offshore to protect us. But the reality is this is about squeezing the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, destabilising the country and preparing the ground for regime change.It would be naive to ignore the oil factor. Between Trinidad’s long-established energy base, Venezuela’s colossal reserves and Guyana’s massive discoveries, the southern Caribbean has become one of the most coveted hydrocarbon regions anywhere.Donald Trump’s fixation on “narco boats” cannot be separated from the desire to influence who controls this wealth. From Iraq to Libya, Washington has repeatedly intervened in oil states, toppling governments and installing pliable leaders. The Caribbean must recognise the danger of being drafted into the next act of this playbook.History shows the consequences; Grenada in 1983, Panama in 1989, Haiti through multiple interventions. Each was justified as defending democracy; each left behind wreckage. To believe these new strikes are purely about drugs is to ignore the US’s long habit of cloaking imperial ambition in moral language.In a statement, Persad-Bissessar endorsed US naval forces’ presence as a necessary step to tackle organised crime.View image in fullscreen“For two decades, our country has been overwhelmed by bloodshed and rising violence,” she said. Acknowledging remarks by the US vice-president, JD Vance, she added: “He was right to point to our alarming crime and murder rates. My government will not be deterred by partisan outbursts or anti-American rhetoric when it comes to accepting help in confronting the terrorist drug cartels.”In one stroke, she undermined the regional solidarity that has been the Caribbean’s only shield in international politics. Caricom exists precisely so that no island has to face down a superpower alone. Persad-Bissessar has inadvertently conceded a harsher truth: that her administration, like those before it, is clueless in curbing the crime and corruption that continues to bleed the nation.Her unilateral approval of US access was dangerous statecraft. It weakens our collective negotiating hand and leaves Trinidad exposed as the naive accomplice of a superpower with a history of gaslighting its allies. The US knows it can pick off states one by one, securing “basing rights” or “access agreements” without facing a unified Caricom.Venezuela’s response has been furious. Maduro branded the US strikes “extravagant, unjustifiable, immoral and absolutely criminal” and warned of “the biggest threat our continent has seen in 100 years”.His vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, told Trinidad and Guyana: “Don’t dare, don’t even think about it. You are lending yourselves to the perverse plans of aggression against the Venezuelan people.” She ridiculed US claims of narco-trafficking: “How can there be a drug cartel if there’s no drugs here?”View image in fullscreenDiosdado Cabello, Venezuela’s interior minister, flatly rejected US allegations, saying: “They openly confessed to killing 11 people … none were drug traffickers.”Caracas has since mobilised its navy and air force, raising the risk of accidental clashes at sea. With Trinidad tethered to Washington, the danger of being pulled into the line of fire is very real.All of this plays out against the backdrop of our demographic reality: with more than 22,000 Venezuelan refugees officially registered in Trinidad, and estimates suggesting the true figure may be 45,000 — the country hosts the highest per capita population of Venezuelan migrants anywhere in the Caribbean. The human consequences of any escalation will therefore be borne not only at sea but also within our own communities.At the UN general assembly last week, regional leaders voiced their unease. Barbados’s Mia Mottley warned that militarisation of the Caribbean “could occasion an accident that put the southern Caribbean at disproportionate risk” and insisted that “full respect for the territorial integrity of each, and every state in the Caribbean must be respected.”St Vincent and the Grenadines’ prime minister, Ralph Gonsalves, described US-Venezuela tensions as “most unhelpful”, reminding the world that the Caribbean had long declared itself to be a “zone of peace”.Their interventions reflected a deep regional anxiety about becoming collateral damage in a quarrel between larger powers. Yet in sharp contrast, Persad-Bissessar used her own UN platform to defend her embrace of Washington’s presence, dismissing the “zone of peace” as an “elusive promise”, while justifying security cooperation with the US as necessary to combat crime.The most chilling element of Washington’s narrative is the absence of any proof, though 11 people were killed in the first strike and three in the second. More, allegedly, were killed in subsequent strikes. Yet not a shred of credible evidence has been produced to show that these individuals were traffickers, much less members of the gang Tren de Aragua, as was claimed. Venezuelan officials insist their investigations found no gang affiliations.Are Caribbean citizens simply expected to accept Washington’s word? After Iraq’s phantom weapons of mass destruction and after decades of interventions elsewhere justified by doctored intelligence, we know better. If these were truly narco-traffickers’ boats, why were suspects not detained and questioned? Why was the norm of investigation abandoned in favour of summary execution at sea?The answer lies not in law but in politics. Trump thrives on chaos. His strategy is division, gaslighting and distraction. These strikes play directly to his Maga base – fiery video clips of boats blowing up, paraded as proof of “decisive action”. It is spectacle, not strategy.To believe these operations are genuine counternarcotics measures rather than campaign optics is to ignore everything Trump has shown us about his politics of manipulation. And it is the Caribbean that risks paying the price for his theatre.View image in fullscreenIf this trajectory continues, the consequences will be dire. Fishers may abandon their livelihoods if they fear being mistaken for traffickers, collapsing entire coastal communities. Tourism will falter in a militarised Caribbean where warships and drones haunt the waters. Trade through the Gulf of Paria and regional ports could be disrupted, raising costs for fragile economies already strained by debt and inflation. Diplomacy will fracture as Caricom’s delicate balance with Washington and Caracas collapses, leaving small states exposed.What is needed now is not more posturing but restraint. Talks between Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Caricom, and Colombia – the historic source of the cocaine pipeline – are essential. The international community must demand transparency and de-escalation. Small island states cannot afford to become battlegrounds.The Caribbean must also insist on restoring international norms: detain suspects, investigate, prosecute. To kill without evidence and bomb small vessels without warning or due process is a descent into lawlessness that endangers every fisher, trader and innocent seafarer.Trinidad and Tobago, and the wider Caribbean, cannot be reduced to staging grounds for US electioneering or Venezuelan brinkmanship. Without restraint – from Caricom, the UN and sober voices in the hemisphere – the region risks being dragged into a conflict that is not of its making.Our fishing industry, our tourism, our fragile economies all stand to suffer. And beyond this lies sovereignty over our most valuable assets: oil and gas. The southern Caribbean is a resource frontier of immense global importance. History shows that US interventions in oil-rich states rarely end in stability or prosperity for the people who live there.Caribbean leaders must rediscover the discipline of solidarity, the wisdom of diplomacy, and the courage to say no to superpowers who mistake small states for pawns.The price for silence will not be paid in Washington or Caracas, but in the lives, economies and futures of Caribbean people. More

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      Travelling to Trump’s US is a low-level trauma – here’s what Africans can do about it

      by

      Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. This week, I reflect on the increasing difficulty of travel and immigration for many from the African continent, and how one country is plotting a smoother path.Parallel experiences of travelView image in fullscreenI have just come back from holiday, and I’m still not used to how different travel is when not using an African passport. My British citizenship, which I acquired about five years ago, has transformed not only my ability to travel at short notice but it has eliminated overnight the intense stress and bureaucratic hurdles involved in applying for visas on my Sudanese passport.It is difficult to explain just how different the lives of those with “powerful” passports are to those without. It is an entirely parallel existence. Gaining permission to travel to many destinations is often a lengthy, expensive and sickeningly uncertain process. A tourist visa to the UK can cost up to £1,000, in addition to the fee for private processing centres that handle much of Europe’s visa applications abroad. And then there is the paperwork: bank statements, employment letters, academic records, certified proof of ownership of assets, and birth and marriage certificates if one is travelling to visit family. This is a non-exhaustive list. For a recent visa application for a family member, I submitted 32 documents.It may sound dramatic but such processes instil a sort of low-level trauma, after submitting to the violation of what feels like a bureaucratic cavity search. And all fees, whatever the decision, are non-refundable. Processing times are in the hands of the visa gods – it once took more than six months for me to receive a US visa. By the time it arrived, the meeting I needed to attend for work had passed by a comically long time.Separation and severed relationshipsView image in fullscreenIt’s not only travel for work or holiday that is hindered by such high barriers to entry. Relationships suffer. It is simply a feature of the world now that many families in the Black diaspora sprawl across continents. Last month Trump restricted entry to the US to nationals from 20 countries, half of which are in Africa. The decision is even crueler when you consider that it applies to countries such as Sudan, whose civil war has prompted many to seek refuge with family abroad.That is not just a political act of limiting immigration, it is a deeply personal one that severs connections between families, friends and partners. Family members of refugees from those countries have also been banned, so they can’t visit relatives who have already managed to emigrate. The International Rescue Committee warned the decision could have “far-reaching impacts on the lives of many American families, including refugees, asylees and green card holders, seeking to be reunified with their loved ones”.A global raising of barriersView image in fullscreenThe fallout of this Trump order is colossal. There are students who are unable to graduate. Spouses unable to join their partners. Children separated from their parents. It’s a severe policy, but shades of it exist elsewhere by other means. The UK recently terminated the rights of foreign care workers and most international students to bring their children and partners to the country. And even for those who simply want to have their family visit them, access is closed to all except those who can clear the high financial hurdles and meet the significant burdens of proof to show that either they can afford to maintain their visitors or that they will return to their home countries.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIt was 10 years before I – someone with fairly stable employment and a higher-education qualification – satisfied the Home Office’s requirements and could finally invite my mother to visit. I broke down when I saw her face at arrivals, realising how hard it had been for both of us; the fact that she had not seen the life I had built as an adult. Compare this draconian measure to some countries in the Gulf, such as Saudi Arabia, that have an actual visa category, low-cost and swiftly processed, for parental visits and residency.A new African modelView image in fullscreenBut as some countries shut down, others are opening up. This month, Kenya removed visa requirements for almost all African citizens wanting to visit. Here, finally, there is the sort of regional solidarity that mirrors that of the EU and other western countries.Since it boosts African tourism and makes Kenya an inviting destination for people to gather at short notice for professional or festive reasons, it’s a smart move. But it also sends an important signal to a continent embattled by visa restrictions and divided across borders set by colonial rule.We are not just liabilities, people to be judged on how many resources they might take from a country once allowed in. We are also tourists, friends, relatives, entrepreneurs and, above all, Africans who have the right to meet and mingle without the terror, and yes, contempt, of a suspicious visa process. If the African diaspora is being separated abroad, there is at least now a path to the option that some of us may reunite at home.

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