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The 33-year-old Columbia University protester had been held in immigration detention centre for a year.

Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman detained in the United States after taking part in pro-Palestine demonstrations in 2024, has been released after a year in custody.

The 33-year-old, who grew up in the occupied West Bank before moving to the US in 2016, was held at a detention facility in the state of Texas since March last year.

“I don’t know what to say. I’m free! I’m free! Finally, after one year,” a smiling Kordia told reporters after leaving the detention centre on Monday.

An immigration judge had ruled Kordia was eligible to be released on bond three times. Immigration officials appealed the first two rulings but Kordia was freed on $100,000 bond after government lawyers did not challenge the third.

After her release, Kordia said she was looking forward to going home and hugging her mother “so hard.” But she also said she would keep fighting on behalf of people still being held at the detention centre

“There is a lot of injustice in this place,” she said. “There is a lot of people that shouldn’t be here the first place.”

Kordia, who lost nearly 200 members of his family during Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, was among several protesters targeted by immigration officials for taking part in pro-Palestine demonstrations at Columbia University in 2024.

Until Monday, she was the only person targeted in connection with the demonstration who was still in immigration detention after the release of others, including Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi.

Kordia, who was held at Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, was recently hospitalised for three days following a seizure after fainting and hitting her head at the privately run detention facility.

At a hearing on Friday, Kordia’s lawyers said she had a neurological condition that had worsened while in custody, putting her at an elevated risk of seizure. They reiterated that she could stay with US citizen family members and did not pose a flight risk.

The immigration judge, Tara Naslow, agreed.

“I’ve heard testimony. I’ve seen thousands of pages of evidence presented by the respondent, and very little evidence presented by the government in any of this,” Naslow said.

Offering another rationale for the US-Israeli war on Iran, Donald Trump claimed he ordered strikes to prevent a nuclear conflict that would have turned into World War III. He also said not even the “greatest experts” thought Iran would retaliate with attacks on Gulf states.

Activists gathered outside the White House to protest the war with Iran, reenacting the Minab school strike, a deadly missile attack on a girl’s school in southern Iran that killed more than 170 people during early US-Israeli operations.

March 14 (UPI) — President Donald Trump announced that U.S. forces “totally obliterated” every military target on Iran’s Kharg Island, a key port that exports the vast majority of Iran’s oil.

In a post on Truth Social on Friday evening, Trump described the attack as “one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East.”

He said he directed U.S. Central Command to carry out the bombings after Iran halted ships’ passage through the Straight of Hormuz. About 20% of the world’s crude oil passes through the strait.

“For reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the island,” Trump wrote.

“However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision.”

Kharg Island is about 15 miles south of the Iranian mainland through which about 90% of the country’s oil exports pass, The Washington Post reported. It’s a critical piece of Iran’s economy and a full attack on the oil infrastructure there could hinder Iran’s ability to pay its military.

Iranian officials said the site was “proceeding normally” after the U.S. attack.

In response to Friday’s bombings on Kharg Island, Iran threatened its own attack on key oil infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates, CNN reported.

Oil has been a key factor in the war in Iran, which began Feb. 28 with surprise U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on dozens of Iranian sites. AAA reported Saturday that the average price of a gallon of gasoline was $3.68 in the United States, up 23% since the start of the war.

This could, in turn, have a dramatic impact on other aspects of the U.S. economy, including food prices, jet fuel and fertilizer.

Washington, DC – In September, the United States began launching dozens of deadly military strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific.

Nearly half a year later, remarkably little is known about the strikes. The identities of the nearly 157 people killed have not been released. Any purported evidence against them has not been made public.

But a group of United Nations and international law experts are hoping to change that on Friday, when they testify at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

The international hearing will be the first of its kind since the strikes began on September 2, and rights advocates hope it can help lead to accountability as individual legal cases related to the strikes proceed.

Steven Watt, a senior staff lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union’s human rights programme, said the goal of the hearing will be threefold.

“Our ask will be to conduct a fact-finding investigation into what’s going on,” Watt said.

The second aim, he continued, would be “to assert or to arrive at a conclusion that there is no armed conflict here”, in what would be a rebuke to US President Donald Trump’s previous claims.

Finally, Watt said, he hopes the proceedings will yield long-sought transparency from the Trump administration on “whether or not they have a legal justification for these boat strikes”.

“We don’t think there are any,” Watt added.

‘We don’t know the names’

The experts set to testify at Friday’s hearing said the IACHR has a unique mandate to uncover the truth behind the US strikes.

The commission, based in Guatemala City, Guatemala, is an independent investigative body within the Organization of American States, of which the US was a founding member in 1948.

While the Trump administration has claimed it has a right to carry out the deadly attacks as part of a wider military offensive against so-called “narco-terrorists”, rights groups have decried the campaign as a series of extrajudicial killings.

They argue that Trump’s deadly tactics deny those targeted of anything that approaches due process.

Legal experts have also dismissed Trump’s claims that suspects in drug-related crimes are equivalent to “unlawful combatants” in an “armed conflict”.

Few details have emerged from the air strikes. Several families have come forward, however, to informally identify the dead as their loved ones.

Victims are said to include 26-year-old Chad Joseph and 41-year-old Rishi Samaroo, who were sailing home to Trinidad and Tobago when they were killed in October, according to relatives.

A complaint filed against the US government said both men travelled often between the islands and Venezuela, where Joseph found work as a farmer and fisherman, and Samaroo laboured on a farm.

The family of Colombian national Alejandro Carranza, 42, have also said he was killed in September when the US military attacked his fishing boat off the country’s coast.

The US has yet to confirm the victims’ identities, and only two survivors have ever been rescued in the 45 reported strikes.

A clearer picture of what happened will be a significant step towards accountability, according to experts like Watt.

“[The IACHR] is uniquely positioned to identify who all these persons are,” Watt said. “We just know the numbers from the United States. We don’t know the names or the backgrounds of these people.”

The IACHR has launched a range of human rights investigations in recent decades, including probes into the 2014 mass kidnapping of 43 students in Iguala, Mexico, and a series of murders in Colombia from 1988 to 1991 dubbed the Massacre of Trujillo.

The commission has also examined US policies, including extrajudicial detentions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, during its so-called “global war on terror”.

The IACHR has the power to seek resolutions to human rights complaints or refer them for litigation before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Just last week, the court ordered Peru to pay reparations to the family of a woman who died during a government-led forced sterilisation campaign in the 1990s.

The Carranza family has filed its own complaint to the IACHR, and the families of Joseph and Samaroo have also lodged a lawsuit against the US in a federal court in Massachusetts.

Angelo Guisado, a senior staff lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), said a fuller accounting of the US actions is needed to prevent future abuses. He is among the experts testifying on Friday.

“You can’t normalise assassinating fishermen off the coast of South America,” Guisado told Al Jazeera. “That’s just sadistic and an abomination to the rules-based order that we’ve created.”

“So we hope that the commission can do some investigation.”

A war against ‘narco-terrorists’?

One of Guisado’s goals for Friday’s hearing will be to unpack the Trump administration’s argument that the attacks are necessary from a national security standpoint.

Even before the US strikes began, the Trump administration began framing the Latin American drug trade as an existential threat to the US.

As part of that re-framing, the administration borrowed messaging from its “global war on terror”, taking the unorthodox approach of labelling several cartels “foreign terrorist organisations”.

Speaking last week at a meeting of Latin American leaders, White House security adviser Stephen Miller maintained there is no “criminal justice solution” to drug cartels.

Instead, he affirmed that the US would use “hard power, military power, lethal force, to protect and defend the American homeland”, even if that meant carrying out deadly operations throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Guisado, however, noted that the administration has admitted that the targeted boats were largely carrying cocaine, not the highly addictive fentanyl responsible for the majority of US drug overdoses.

He explained that the administration has done little to prove its claims that drug traffickers are part of a coordinated effort to destabilise the US.

Such hyperbolic language, Guisado added, could be used as a smokescreen to conceal illegal actions.

“When you invoke national security interest, it seems as if scrutiny and any legitimate analysis or condemnation gets pushed to one side in favour of an ersatz martial law,” Guisado said.

“The idea that you could just proclaim anyone a narcoterrorist and do whatever you want with them is just so repugnant to our system of fairness, justice and law.”

Watt, meanwhile, said he hopes the IACHR will draw a clear “line in the sand”, separating drug crimes from what is conventionally considered an armed conflict.

He also would like to see the IACHR clearly outline the US’s human rights obligations.

“But even if there was an armed conflict — of which there isn’t — the laws of war would prohibit the type of conduct that the United States is engaging in here,” Watt explained.

“It would be an extrajudicial killing. It would be a war crime.”

Transparency or accountability

Friday’s hearing will only be an initial step towards accountability, and critics question how effective the IACHR will ultimately be.

The US has regularly shrugged off human rights probes at international forums, and it is not party to entities like the International Criminal Court in The Hague, raising barriers to the pursuit of justice.

Despite being a member of the OAS, the US has also not ratified the American Convention on Human Rights, one of the organisation’s founding documents.

It is, therefore, unclear how binding any IACHR decisions could be, although Watt argued that it is “longstanding jurisprudence of the commission that the declaration imposes obligations on non-ratifying member states”.

Still, legal experts said Friday’s hearing may yield clarity on the Trump administration’s legal argument for the boat strikes.

The IACHR has said US government representatives are set to appear at the hearing.

To date, the US Department of Justice has not released the Office of Legal Counsel’s official reasoning for the boat strikes, considered the foundational legal document for the military actions.

A separate memorandum from that office addressed the US abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 3, which it framed as a drug enforcement action.

That memo touched on the boat strikes, but it only served to raise further questions about Trump’s rationale.

“This will be an opportunity for the United States to put its case before the commission,” Watt said.

“But of course, it depends on US cooperation,” he continued. “They’re going down there, but it’ll be interesting to see what they actually say”.

The US president repeats claims that Cuba is ready to negotiate as it faces a spiralling energy and economic crisis.

United States President Donald Trump has signalled that his administration is still pursuing a government overthrow in Cuba even as the US-Israeli war on Iran enters its second week.

Trump said on Monday that the US Department of State is still focused on Cuba, where plans by the White House may or may not include “a friendly takeover” of the island, according to the Reuters news agency.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is “dealing” with Cuba, the president told reporters in Florida.

“He’s dealing [with it], and it may be a friendly takeover, it may not be a friendly takeover. Wouldn’t really matter because they’re really down to … as they say, fumes. They have no energy, they have no money,” Trump said.

“They are going to make either a deal or we’ll do it just as easy, anyway,” he said.

Cuba has been grappling with an energy crisis since January, when US forces abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and halted fuel exports from Caracas to Havana, cutting the country off from one of its few allies and a key source of oil for the Cuban economy.

White House officials have suggested that Cuba is facing an economic collapse and that its government is ready to negotiate with Washington.

Trump has said on multiple occasions that Cuba’s government is ready to “fall” and that its leaders want to “make a deal” with Washington, according to NBC News.

Cuba has denied reports of high-level talks, according to Reuters, but it has not “outright” denied US media reports of “informal talks” between Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, the grandson of former Cuban President Raul Castro, and US officials.

Cuba has been in the crosshairs of the US for decades, but Trump is the first US president since the Cold War to openly discuss and pursue a government change in Havana.

Trump’s attacks on Venezuela and Cuba are in line with his revival of the “Monroe Doctrine”, a 19th-century policy that states the Western Hemisphere should be solely under the sway of the US and no other foreign power.

Trump first raised the notion of a “friendly takeover” of Cuba in February.

At the inaugural “Shield of the Americas” summit in South Florida, United States President Donald Trump announced the creation of what he calls the Americas Counter-Cartel Coalition: a group of a dozen politically aligned countries committed to fighting drug trafficking.

But as he signed a declaration to cement that commitment, Trump signalled that it came with the expectation that cartels would not be confronted with law enforcement action, but instead military might.

“ The only way to defeat these enemies is by unleashing the power of our military. So we have to use our military. You have to use your military,” Trump told the audience of Latin American leaders.

“You have some great police, but they threaten your police. They scare your police. You’re going to use your military.”

Saturday’s summit was the latest step in a larger foreign policy pivot under Trump.

Since taking office for a second term, Trump has distanced himself from some of the US’s traditional allies in Europe, instead forging tighter partnerships with right-wing governments around the world.

The attendance at the Shield of the Americas summit reflected that shift. Right-wing leaders, including Argentina’s Javier Milei, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele and Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa, were among the guest list.

But notably absent was top-level leadership from Mexico, the US’s biggest trading partner, and Brazil, the largest country in the region by economy and population.

Both Mexico and Brazil are led by left-wing presidents who have resisted some of Trump’s more hardline policies.

The growing rift between the US and some of its longtime partners was a feature in the brief remarks delivered by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who praised attendees for their cooperation.

“They’re more than allies. They’re friends,” Rubio said of the leaders present.

“At a time when we have learned that oftentimes an ally, when you need them, maybe may not be there for you, these are countries that have been there for us.”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, meanwhile, reiterated his view that criminal networks and cartels pose an existential crisis for the entire Western Hemisphere, which he described as sharing the same cultural and religious roots.

“ We share a hemisphere and geography. We share cultures, Western Christian civilisation. We share these things together. We have to have the courage to defend it,” Hegseth said.

A military-first approach

Latin America is one of several areas where Trump has launched military operations since returning to office in January 2025.

His rationale for authorising deadly operations in the region has centred primarily on the illicit drug trade.

Trump has repeatedly argued that Latin American criminal networks pose an imminent threat to national security, through the trafficking of people and drugs across US borders.

Experts in international law have pointed out that drug trafficking is considered a criminal offence — and it is not accepted as justification for acts of military aggression.

But the Trump administration has nevertheless launched lethal military strikes against alleged drug traffickers in Latin America.

Since September, for instance, the Trump administration has conducted at least 44 aerial strikes on maritime vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, killing nearly 150 people.

The victims’ identities have never been publicly confirmed, nor has evidence been publicly released to justify the deadly strikes.

Some families in Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago have stepped forward to claim the dead as their loved ones, out on a fishing expedition or travelling between islands for informal work.

In Saturday’s remarks, Trump justified the attacks by arguing that cartels and other criminal networks had grown more powerful than local militaries — and therefore necessitated a lethal response.

“Many of the cartels have developed sophisticated military operations. Highly sophisticated, in some cases. They say they’re more powerful than the military in the country,” Trump said.

“Can’t have that. These brutal criminal organisations pose an unacceptable threat to national security. And they provide a dangerous gateway for foreign adversaries in our region.”

He then compared cartels to a disease: “They’re cancer, and we don’t want it spreading.”

A ‘nasty’ operation in Venezuela

In late December and early January, Trump also initiated attacks on Venezuelan soil, again defending his actions as necessary to stop drug traffickers.

The first attack targeted a port Trump linked to the gang Tren de Aragua. The second, on January 3, was a broader offensive that culminated in the abduction and imprisonment of Venezuela’s then-leader, President Nicolas Maduro.

On Saturday, Trump reflected on that military operation, which he characterised as an unmitigated success.

Maduro is currently awaiting trial on drug-trafficking charges in New York, though a declassified intelligence report last May cast doubt on Trump’s allegations that the Venezuelan leader directed drug-trafficking operations through groups like Tren de Aragua.

“America’s armed forces also ended the reign of one of the biggest cartel kingpins of all, with Operation Absolute Resolve to bring outlaw dictator Nicolas Maduro to justice in a precision raid,” Trump told Saturday’s summit.

He then described the military operation as “nasty”, though he underscored that no US lives were lost.

The early-morning raid, however, killed at least 80 people in Venezuela, including 32 Cuban military officers, dozens of Venezuelan security forces, and several civilians.

“We went right into the heart. We took them out, and it was nasty. It was about 18 minutes of pure violence, and we took them out,” Trump said of the operation.

Trump has since held up Venezuela as a model for regime change around the world, particularly as it leads a war with Israel against Iran.

Maduro’s successor, interim President Delcy Rodriguez, has so far complied with many of Trump’s demands, including for reforms to the country’s nationalised oil and mining sectors.

Just this week, the two countries re-established diplomatic relations for the first time since 2019, under Trump’s first term as president.

In Saturday’s remarks, however, Trump reiterated that his positive relationship with Rodriguez hinged on her cooperation with his priorities.

“She’s doing a great job because she’s working with us. If she wasn’t working with us, I would not say she’s doing a great job,” he said.

“In fact, if she wasn’t working with us, I’d say she’s doing a very poor job. Unacceptable.”

‘We’ll use missiles’

Trump did, however, express consternation with other presidents in the Latin American region, accusing them of allowing cartels to run amok.

“Leaders in this region have allowed large swaths of territory, the Western Hemisphere, to come under the direct control” of the cartels, Trump said.

“Transnational gangs have taken over, and they’ve run areas of your country. We’re not going to let that happen.”

He even delivered an ominous warning to the summit’s attendees: “Some of you are in danger. I mean, you’re actually in danger. It’s hard to believe.”

Many of the leaders in attendance, including El Salvador’s Bukele, have launched their own harsh crackdowns on gangs in their countries, employing “mano dura” or “iron fist” tactics.

Those campaigns, however, have elicited concerns from human rights groups, who have noted that presidents like Bukele used emergency declarations to suspend civil liberties and imprison hundreds of people, often without a fair trial.

Still, Trump dismissed alternative approaches in Saturday’s speech. Though he did not mention Colombia by name, he was critical of efforts to negotiate for the disarmament of cartels and rebel groups, as Colombian President Gustavo Petro has sought to do.

Instead, he offered to deploy military might throughout the region.

“We’ll use missiles. If you want us to use a missile, they’re extremely accurate — pew! — right into the living room, and that’s the end of that cartel person,” Trump said.

“A lot of countries don’t want to do that. They say, ‘Oh, sure. I’d rather not have that. I’d rather not have it. I believe they could be spoken to.’ I don’t think so.”

A call to ‘eradicate’ Mexico’s cartels

One country he did single out, though, was Mexico. Trump suggested that it had fallen behind other countries in the region in its efforts to combat crime.

“We must recognise the epicentre of cartel violence is Mexico,” he said.

“The Mexican cartels are fueling and orchestrating much of the bloodshed and chaos in this hemisphere, and the United States government will do whatever’s necessary to defend our national security.”

Since the start of his second term, Trump has pressured Mexico to step up its security efforts, threatening tariffs and even the possibility of military action if it does not comply.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has responded by increasing military deployments throughout the country.

In February 2025, for instance, she announced 10,000 soldiers would be sent to the US-Mexico border. For the upcoming FIFA World Cup, her officials have said nearly 100,000 security personnel will be patrolling the streets.

Just last month, her government also launched a military operation in Jalisco to capture and kill the cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, nicknamed “El Mencho”. She has also facilitated the transfer of cartel suspects to the US for trial.

But Trump reemphasised on Saturday his belief that Sheinbaum had not gone far enough, though he called her a “very good person” and a “beautiful woman” with a “beautiful voice”.

“I said, ‘Let me eradicate the cartels,’” Trump said, relaying one of his conversations with Sheinbaum.

“We have to eradicate them. We have to knock the hell out of them because they’re getting worse. They’re taking over their country. The cartels are running Mexico. We can’t have that. Too close to us, too close to you.”

‘Last moments of life’ in Cuba

Trump also used his podium to continue his threats against Cuba’s communist government.

Since the January 3 attack on Venezuela, Trump has increased his “maximum pressure” campaign against the Caribbean island, which has been under a full US trade embargo since the 1960s.

His administration severed the flow of oil and funds from Venezuela to Cuba, and in late January, Trump announced he would impose steep economic penalties on any country that provides the island with oil, a critical resource for the country’s electrical grid.

Already, the country has been struck with widespread blackouts, and the United Nations has warned Cuba is inching closer to humanitarian “collapse”.

But Trump framed the circumstances as progress towards the ultimate goal of regime change in Cuba.

“As we achieve a historic transformation in Venezuela, we’re also looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba,” he told Saturday’s summit.

“Cuba’s at the end of the line. They’re very much at the end of the line. They have no money, they have no oil. They have a bad philosophy. They have a bad regime that’s been bad for a long time.”

He added that he thinks changing Cuba’s government will be “easy” and that a deal could be struck for the transition of power.

“Cuba’s in its last moments of life as it was. It’ll have a great new life, but it’s in its last moments of life the way it is,” Trump said.

But while Trump’s remarks largely focused on governments not represented at the summit, he warned that there could be consequences even for the right-wing leaders in attendance.

Trump’s “Shield of the Americas” coalition comes as he seeks to bring the whole of Latin America in line with US priorities. It’s a policy he has dubbed the “Donroe Doctrine”, a riff on the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, which claimed the Western Hemisphere as the US’s sphere of influence.

To Trump, that means ousting rival powers like China as they seek to forge relationships and economic ties with Latin America. Trump has even mused about retaking the Panama Canal, based on his allegation that the Chinese have too much control in the area.

“As these situations in Venezuela and Cuba should make clear, under our new doctrine — and this is a doctrine — we will not allow hostile foreign influence to gain a foothold in this hemisphere,” Trump said.

He then made a pointed remark to Panama’s president, Jose Raul Mulino, who was in the audience.

“That includes the Panama Canal, which we talked about. We’re not going to allow it.”

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Friends, delegates and fellow Americans: I humbly and gratefully accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! Who would’ve believed that when we started this journey on June 16, last year, we and I say we, because we are a team, would have received almost 14 million votes, the most in the history of the Republican Party, and that the Republican Party would get 60% more votes than it received eight years ago. Who would’ve believed this? Who would’ve believed this? The Democrats on the other hand, received 20% fewer votes than they got four years ago, not so good, not so good.

Full convention coverage »

Together, we will lead our party back to the White House, and we will lead our country back to safety, prosperity and peace. We will be a country of generosity and warmth. But we will also be a country of law and order.

Our convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life. Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country.

Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims.

I have a message for all of you: The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon, and I mean very soon, come to an end. Beginning on January 20^th, 2017, safety will be restored.

The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens. Any government that fails to do so is a government unworthy to lead.

It is finally time for a straightforward assessment of the state of our nation.

I will present the facts plainly and honestly. We cannot afford to be so politically correct anymore. So if you want to hear the corporate spin, the carefully crafted lies and the media myths, the Democrats are holding their convention next week. Go there.

But here, at our convention, there will be no lies. We will honor the American people with the truth, and nothing else.

These are the facts:

Decades of progress made in bringing down crime are now being reversed by this administration’s rollback of criminal enforcement.

Homicides last year increased by 17% in America’s 50 largest cities. That’s the largest increase in 25 years. In our nation’s capital, killings have risen by 50%. They’re up nearly 60% in nearby Baltimore.

In the president’s hometown of Chicago, more than 2,000 people have been the victim of shootings this year alone. And almost 4,000 have been killed in the Chicago area since he took office.

The number of police officers killed in the line of duty has risen by almost 50% compared to this point last year. Nearly 180,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records, ordered deported from our country, are tonight roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens.

The number of new illegal immigrant families who have crossed the border so far this year already exceeds the entire total from 2015. They are being released by the tens of thousands into our communities with no regard for the impact on public safety or resources.

One such border-crosser was released and made his way to Nebraska. There, he ended the life of an innocent young girl named Sarah Root. She was 21 years old and was killed the day after graduating from college with a 4.0 grade point average, No. 1 in her class. Her killer was then released a second time, and he is now a fugitive from the law.

I’ve met Sarah’s beautiful family. But to this administration, their amazing daughter was just one more American life that wasn’t worth protecting. No more. One more child to sacrifice on the altar of open borders.

What about our economy? Again, I will tell you the plain facts that have been edited out of your nightly news and your morning newspaper: Nearly 4 in 10 African American children are living in poverty, while 58% of African American youth are now not employed. Two million more Latinos are in poverty today than when President Obama took his oath of office less than eight years ago. Another 14 million people have left the workforce entirely.

Household incomes are down more than $4,000 since the year 2000. That’s 16 years ago. Our manufacturing trade deficit has reached an all-time high. Think of this, think of this: Our trade deficit is nearly $800 billion last year alone. We’re gonna fix that.

The budget is no better. President Obama has almost doubled our national debt to more than $19 trillion, and growing. And yet, what do we have to show for it? Our roads and bridges are falling apart, our airports are Third World condition, and 43 million Americans are on food stamps.

Now let us consider the state of affairs abroad.

Not only have our citizens endured domestic disaster, but they’ve lived through one international humiliation after another. One after another. We all remember the images of our sailors being forced to their knees by their Iranian captors at gunpoint.

This was just prior to the signing of the Iran deal, which gave back to Iran $150 billion and gave us absolutely nothing. It will go down in history as one of the worst deals ever negotiated. Another humiliation came when President Obama drew a red line in Syria – and the whole world knew it meant absolutely nothing.

In Libya, our consulate – the symbol of American prestige around the globe – was brought down in flames. America is far less safe – and the world is far less stable – than when Obama made the decision to put Hillary Clinton in charge of America’s foreign policy. Let’s defeat her in November.

I am certain it is a decision President Obama truly regrets. Her bad instincts and her bad judgment – something pointed out by Bernie Sanders – are what caused the disasters unfolding today. Let’s review the record. In 2009, pre-Hillary, ISIS was not even on the map.

Libya was stable. Egypt was peaceful. Iraq was seeing and really a big, big reduction in violence. Iran was being choked by sanctions. Syria was somewhat under control. After four years of Hillary Clinton, what do we have?

Trump paints a grim portrait of the U.S. and casts himself as its only savior in GOP acceptance speech »

ISIS has spread across the region, and the entire world. Libya is in ruins, and our ambassador and his staff were left helpless to die at the hands of savage killers. Egypt was turned over to the radical Muslim brotherhood, forcing the military to retake control. Iraq is in chaos.

Iran is on the path to nuclear weapons. Syria is engulfed in a civil war, and a refugee crisis now threatens the West. After 15 years of wars in the Middle East, after trillions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost, the situation is worse than it has ever been before.

This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: death, destruction, terrorism and weakness.

But Hillary Clinton’s legacy does not have to be America’s legacy. The problems we face now – poverty and violence at home, war and destruction abroad – will last only as long as we continue relying on the same politicians who created them in the first place. A change in leadership is required to produce a change in outcomes. Tonight, I will share with you my plan for action for America.

The most important difference between our plan and that of our opponent, is that our plan will put America first. Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo. As long as we are led by politicians who will not put America first, then we can be assured that other nations will not treat America with respect. The respect that we deserve.

The American people will come first once again. My plan will begin with safety at home – which means safe neighborhoods, secure borders and protection from terrorism. There can be no prosperity without law and order. On the economy, I will outline reforms to add millions of new jobs and trillions in new wealth that can be used to rebuild America.

A number of these reforms that I will outline tonight will be opposed by some of our nation’s most powerful special interests. That’s because these interests have rigged our political and economic system for their exclusive benefit. Believe me, it’s for their benefit.

Big business, elite media and major donors are lining up behind the campaign of my opponent because they know she will keep our rigged system in place. They are throwing money at her because they have total control over every single thing she does. She is their puppet, and they pull the strings.

That is why Hillary Clinton’s message is that things will never change. Never ever. My message is that things have to change – and they have to change right now. Every day I wake up determined to deliver a better life for the people all across this nation that have been neglected, ignored and abandoned.

(John Moore/Getty Images)

(John Moore / Getty Images)

I have visited the laid-off factory workers and the communities crushed by our horrible and unfair trade deals. These are the forgotten men and women of our country. And they are forgotten, but they’re not gonna be forgotten long.

These are people who work hard but no longer have a voice. I am your voice.

I have embraced crying mothers who have lost their children because our politicians put their personal agendas before the national good. I have no patience for injustice.

How great are our police, and how great is Cleveland? Thank you.

I have no patience for injustice, no tolerance for government incompetence, of which there is so much, no sympathy for leaders who fail their citizens.

When innocent people suffer, because our political system lacks the will or the courage or the basic decency to enforce our laws – or worse still, has sold out to some corporate lobbyist for cash – I am not able to look the other way.

And when a secretary of State illegally stores her emails on a private server, deletes 33,000 of them so the authorities can’t see her crime, puts our country at risk, lies about it in every different form and faces no consequence – I know that corruption has reached a level like never ever before in our country.

When the FBI director says that the secretary of State was “extremely careless” and “negligent” in handling our classified secrets, I also know that these terms are minor compared to what she actually did. They were just used to save her from facing justice for her terrible, terrible crimes.

In fact, her single greatest accomplishment may be committing such an egregious crime and getting away with it – especially when others who have done far less have paid so dearly. When that same secretary of State rakes in millions of dollars trading access and favors to special interests and foreign powers, I know the time for action has come.

I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people who cannot defend themselves. Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it. I have seen firsthand how the system is rigged against our citizens, just like it was rigged against Bernie Sanders – he never had a chance.

But his supporters will join our movement, because we will fix his biggest issue: trade deals that strip our country of its jobs and strip us of our wealth as a country. Millions of Democrats will join our movement too because we are going to fix the system so it works fairly and justly for each and every American. In this cause, I am proud to have at my side the next vice president of the United States: Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana. And a great guy.

We will bring the same economic success to America that Mike brought to Indiana. Which is amazing. He is a man of character and accomplishment. He is the man for the job. The first task for our new administration will be to liberate our citizens from the crime and terrorism and lawlessness that threatens our communities.

America was shocked to its core when our police officers in Dallas were so brutally executed. Immediately after Dallas, we have seen continued threats and violence against our law enforcement officials. Law officers have been shot or killed in recent days in Georgia, Missouri, Wisconsin, Kansas, Michigan and Tennessee.

On Sunday, more police were gunned down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Three were killed, and three were very, very badly injured. An attack on law enforcement is an attack on all Americans. I have a message to every last person threatening the peace on our streets and the safety of our police: When I take the oath of office next year, I will restore law and order to our country. Believe me, believe me.

I will work with, and appoint, the best and brightest prosecutors and law enforcement officials in the country to get the job properly done. In this race for the White House, I am the law-and-order candidate. The irresponsible rhetoric of our president, who has used the pulpit of the presidency to divide us by race and color, has made America a more dangerous environment than frankly I have ever seen and anybody in this room has ever watched or seen.

This administration has failed America’s inner cities. It’s failed them on education. It’s failed them on jobs. It’s failed them in crime. It’s failed them in every way and on every single level.

When I am president, I will work to ensure that all of our kids are treated equally and protected equally.

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Every action I take, I will ask myself: Does this make better for young Americans in Baltimore, in Chicago, in Detroit, in Ferguson who really in every way have as much of a right to live out their dreams as any other child in America? As any other child?

To make life safe for all of our citizens, we must also address the growing threats we face from outside America. We are going to defeat the barbarians of ISIS and we’re going to defeat them fast. Once again, France is the victim of brutal Islamic terrorism.

Men, women and children viciously mowed down. Lives ruined. Families ripped apart. A nation in mourning.

The damage and devastation that can be inflicted by Islamic radicals has been proven over and over – at the World Trade Center, at an office party in San Bernardino, at the Boston Marathon and a military recruiting center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and many, many other locations.

Only weeks ago, in Orlando, Florida, 49 wonderful Americans were savagely murdered by an Islamic terrorist. This time, the terrorist targeted LGBTQ community. No good, and we’re gonna stop it. As your president, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology. Believe me.

And I have to say, as a Republican, it is so nice to hear you cheering for what I just said. Thank you.

To protect us from terrorism, we need to focus on three things.

We must have the best, absolutely the best gathering of intelligence anywhere in the world. The best. We must abandon the failed policy of nation building and regime change that Hillary Clinton pushed in Iraq, Libya, Egypt and in Syria. Instead, we must work with all of our allies who share our goal of destroying ISIS and stamping out Islamic terrorism and doing it now, doing it quickly, we’re going to win, we’re going to win fast.

This includes working with our greatest ally in the region, the state of Israel.

Recently, I have said that NATO was obsolete. Because it did not properly cover terrorism. And also, that many of the member countries were not paying their fair share. As usual, the United States has been picking up the cost. Shortly thereafter, it was announced that NATO will be setting up a new program in order to combat terrorism. A true step in the right direction.

Lastly, and very importantly, we must immediately suspend immigration from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism until such time as proven vetting mechanisms have been put in place. We don’t want them in our country.

My opponent has called for a radical 550% increase in Syrian — think of this, think of this, this is not believable but this is what’s happening — a 550% increase in Syrian refugees on top of existing massive refugee flows coming into our country already under the leadership of President Obama. She proposes this despite the fact that there’s no way to screen these refugees in order to find out who they are or where they come from. I only want to admit individuals into our country who will support our values and love our people.

Anyone who endorses violence, hatred or oppression is not welcome in our country and never ever will be.

Decades of record immigration have produced lower wages and higher unemployment for our citizens, especially for African American and Latino workers. We are going to have an immigration system that works, but one that works for the American people.

On Monday, we heard from three parents whose children were killed by illegal immigrants. Mary Ann Mendoza, Sabine Durden and my friend Jamiel Shaw. They’re just three brave representatives of many thousands who have suffered so gravely. Of all my travels in this country, nothing has affected me more, nothing even close I have to tell you, than the time I have spent with the mothers and fathers who have lost their children to violence spilling across our borders. Which we can solve. We have to solve it.

These families have no special interests to represent them. There are no demonstrators to protect them and certainly none to protest on their behalf. My opponent will never meet with them, or share in their pain, believe me. Instead, my opponent wants sanctuary cities. But where was the sanctuary for Kate Steinle? Where was sanctuary for the children of Mary Ann and Sabine and Jamiel? Where was sanctuary for all of, aw, it’s so sad to even be talking about it, because we can solve it so quickly. Where was the sanctuary for the other Americans who have been so brutally murdered and who have suffered so horribly?

These wounded American families have been alone. But they are not alone any longer. Tonight, this candidate and the whole nation stand in their corner to support them, to send them our love and to pledge in their honor that we will save countless more families from suffering and the same awful fate.

We are going to build a great border wall to stop illegal immigration, to stop the gangs and the violence, and to stop the drugs from pouring into our communities. I have been honored to receive the endorsement of America’s border patrol agents, and will work directly with them to protect the integrity of our lawful, lawful, lawful immigration system. Lawful.

By ending catch-and-release on the border, we will end the cycle of human smuggling and violence. Illegal border crossings will go down. We will stop it. It won’t be happening very much any more, believe me. Peace will be restored. By enforcing the rules for millions who overstay their visas, our laws will finally receive the respect that they deserve.

All Things Trump »

Tonight, I want every American whose demands for immigration security have been denied – and every politician who has denied them – to listen very, very closely to the words I am about to say.

On January 20th of 2017, the day I take the oath of office, Americans will finally wake up in a country where the laws of the United States are enforced. We are going to be considerate and compassionate to everyone.

But my greatest compassion will be for our own struggling citizens. USA, USA, USA. My plan is the exact opposite of the radical and dangerous immigration policy of Hillary Clinton. Americans want relief from uncontrolled immigration. Which is what we have now. Communities want relief.

Yet Hillary Clinton is proposing mass amnesty, mass immigration and mass lawlessness. Her plan will overwhelm your schools and hospitals, further reduce your jobs and wages, and make it harder for recent immigrants to escape the tremendous cycle of from poverty that they’re going through right now, and make it almost impossible for them to join the middle class.

I have a different vision for our workers. It begins with a new, fair trade policy that protects our jobs and stands up to countries that cheat, of which there are many. It’s been a signature message of my campaign from Day One, and it will be a signature feature of my presidency from the moment I take the oath of office.

I have made billions of dollars in business making deals – now I’m going to make our country rich again. Using the greatest business people in the world, which our country has, I am going to turn our bad trade agreements into great trade agreements. America has lost nearly one-third of its manufacturing jobs since 1997, following the enactment of disastrous trade deals supported by Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Remember, it was Bill Clinton who signed NAFTA, one of the worst economic deals ever made by our country or frankly any other country.

Never ever again.

I am going to bring our jobs to Ohio and Pennsylvania and New York and Michigan and all of America – and I am not going to let companies move to other countries, firing their employees along the way, without consequence. Not gonna happen anymore.

My opponent, on the other hand, has supported virtually every trade agreement that has been destroying our middle class. She supported NAFTA, and she supported China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization – another one of her husband’s colossal mistakes and disasters.

She supported the job-killing trade deal with South Korea. She supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which will not only destroy our manufacturing, but it will make America subject to the rulings of foreign governments. And it’s not going to happen. I pledge to never sign any trade agreement that hurts our workers, or that diminishes our freedom or our independence. We will never, ever sign these trade deals. America first again. America first.

Instead, I will make individual deals with individual countries.

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

No longer will we enter into these massive transactions, with many countries, that are thousands of pages long – and which no one from our country even reads or understands. We are going to enforce all trade violations against any country that cheats.

This includes stopping China’s outrageous theft of intellectual property, along with their illegal product dumping, and their devastating currency manipulation. They are the greatest that ever came about, they are the greatest currency manipulators ever.

Our horrible trade agreements with China and many others will be totally renegotiated. That includes renegotiating NAFTA to get a much better deal for America – and we’ll walk away if we don’t get that kind of a deal. Our country is going to start building and making things again.

Next comes the reform of our tax laws, regulations and energy rules. While Hillary Clinton plans a massive, and I mean massive, tax increase, I have proposed the largest tax reduction of any candidate who has run for president this year – Democrat or Republican. Middle-income Americans and businesses will experience profound relief, and taxes will be greatly simplified for everyone. And I mean everyone.

America is one of the highest-taxed nations in the world. Reducing taxes will cause new companies and new jobs to come roaring back into our country. Believe me, it’ll happen and it’ll happen fast. Then we are going to deal with the issue of regulation, one of the greatest job-killers of them all. Excessive regulation is costing our country as much as $2 trillion a year, and we will end it very, very quickly. We are going to lift the restrictions on the production of American energy. This will produce more than $20 trillion in job creating economic activity over the next four decades.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

(TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP/Getty Images)

My opponent, on the other hand, wants to put the great miners and the great steelworkers of our country out of work and out of business. That will never happen when I am president. Our steelworkers and our miners are going back to work again. With these new economic policies, trillions of dollars will start flowing into our country.

This new wealth will improve the quality of life for all Americans. We will build the roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, airports and the railways of tomorrow. This, in turn, will create millions of more jobs. We will rescue kids from failing schools by helping their parents send them to a safe school of their choice.

My opponent would rather protect bureaucrats than serve American children. And that’s what she’s doing, and that’s what she’s done.

We will repeal and replace disastrous Obamacare. You will be able to choose your own doctor again.

And we will fix TSA at the airports! Which is a total disaster. Thank you, thank you.

We’re going to work with all of our students who are drowning in debt to take the pressure off these people just starting out in their adult lives. Tremendous problem.

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We will completely rebuild our depleted military. And the countries that we are protecting, at a massive cost to us, will be asked to pay their fair share.

We will take care of our great veterans like they have never been taken care of before. My just released 10-point plan has received tremendous veterans’ support. We will guarantee those who serve this country will be able to visit the doctor or hospital of their choice without waiting five days on a line and dying.

My opponent dismissed the VA scandal – one more sign of how out of touch she really is. We are going to ask every department head in government to provide a list of wasteful spending on projects that we can eliminate in my first 100 days. The politicians have talked about this for years, but I’m going to do it.

We are going to appoint justices of the United States Supreme Court who will uphold our laws and our Constitution.

The replacement of our beloved Justice Scalia will be a person of similar views, principles and judicial philosophies. Very important. This will be one of the most important issues decided by this election.

My opponent wants to essentially abolish the 2nd Amendment. I, on the other hand, received the early and strong endorsement of the National Rifle Assn. and will protect the right of all Americans to keep their families safe.

At this moment, I would like to thank the evangelical and religious community because I’ll tell you what, the support they’ve given me, and I’m not sure I totally deserve it, has been so awesome and has had such a big reason for me being here tonight. True, so true.

They have much to contribute to our politics, yet our laws prevent you from speaking your minds from your own pulpits.

An amendment which, by Lyndon Johnson, many years ago, threatens religious institutions with a loss of their tax-exempt status if they openly advocate their political views. I am going to work very hard to repeal that language and protect free speech for all Americans.

We can accomplish these great things, and so much more – all we need to do is start believing in ourselves and in our country again. It is time to show the whole world that America is back – bigger and better and stronger than ever before.

In this journey, I’m so lucky to have at my side my wife Melania and my wonderful children Don, Ivanka, Eric, Tiffany and Barron. You will always be my greatest source of pride and joy. And by the way, Melania and Ivanka, did they do a job. My dad, Fred Trump, was the smartest and hardest-working man I ever knew. I wonder sometimes what he’d say if he were here to see this and to see me tonight.

It’s because of him that I learned, from my youngest age, to respect the dignity of work and the dignity of working people. He was a guy most comfortable in the company of bricklayers and carpenters,and electricians. And I have a lot of that in me also. I love those people. Then there’s my mother, Mary. She was strong but also warm and fair-minded. She was a truly great mother. She was also one of the most honest and charitable people that I have ever known, and a great, great judge of character. She could pick ’em out from anywhere.

To my sisters Mary Anne and Elizabeth, my brother Robert and my late brother Fred, I will always give you my love. You are most special to me.

I have had a truly great life in business. But now, my sole and exclusive mission is to go to work for our country – to go to work for all of you. It’s time to deliver a victory for the American people. We don’t win anymore, but we’re going to start winning again! But to do that, we must break free from the petty politics of the past.

America is a nation of believers, dreamers and strivers that is being led by a group of censors, critics and cynics.

Remember: All of the people telling you you can’t have the country you want are the same people telling you that wouldn’t stand. I mean they said Trump doesn’t stand a chance of being here tonight, not a chance. The same people. Oh, we love defeating those people don’t we. We love defeating them. Love it, love it. No longer can we rely on those elites in media and politics who will say anything to keep our rigged system in place.

Instead, we must choose to believe In America. History is watching us now. We don’t have much time. But history is watching. It’s waiting to see if we will rise to the occasion, and if we will show the whole world that America is still free and independent and strong.

I am asking for you to support tonight so that I can be your champion in the White House. And I will be your champion. My opponent asks her supporters to recite a three-word loyalty pledge. It reads: “I’m With Her.” I choose to recite a different pledge.

My pledge reads: “I’m With You – The American People.”

I am your voice.

So to every parent who dreams for their child and every child who dreams for their future, I say these words to you tonight: I am with you. I will fight for you, and I will win for you.

To all Americans tonight, in all of our cities and all of our towns, I make this promise: We will make America strong again.

We will make America proud again.

We will make America safe again.

And we will make America great again.

God bless you and goodnight. I love you.

Twitter: @latimespolitics

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Over the past two decades, China has quietly eclipsed the United States as the dominant trading partner in parts of Latin America.

But since taking office for a second term, United States President Donald Trump has pushed to reverse Beijing’s advance.

That includes through aggressive manoeuvres directed at China’s allies in the region.

Already, the Trump administration has stripped officials in Costa Rica, Panama and Chile of their US visas, reportedly due to their ties to China.

It has also threatened to take back the Panama Canal over allegations that Chinese operatives are running the waterway. And after invading Venezuela and abducting President Nicolas Maduro, the US forced the country to halt oil exports to China.

But on Saturday, Trump is taking a different approach, welcoming Latin American leaders to his Mar-a-Lago estate for an event dubbed the “Shield of the Americas” summit.

How he plans to persuade leaders to distance themselves from one of the region’s largest economic partners remains unclear.

But experts say the high-level meeting could signal that Washington is prepared to put concrete offers on the table.

Securing meaningful commitments from Latin American leaders will take more than a photo op and vague promises, according to Francisco Urdinez, an expert on regional relations with China at Chile’s Pontifical Catholic University.

Even among Trump’s allies, Urdinez believes significant economic incentives are required.

“What they’re really hoping is that Washington backs up the political alignment with tangible economic benefits,” he said.

‘Reinforcing the Donroe Doctrine’

Already, the White House has confirmed that nearly a dozen countries will be represented at the weekend summit.

They include conservative leaders from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Mexico and Brazil, the region’s largest economies, have been notably left out. Both are currently led by left-leaning governments.

In a post on social media, the Trump administration framed the event as a “historic meeting reinforcing the Donroe Doctrine”, the president’s plan for establishing US dominance over the Western Hemisphere.

Part of that strategy involves assembling a coalition of ideological allies in the region.

But rolling back Chinese influence in a region increasingly reliant on its economy will not be an easy feat, according to Gimena Sanchez, the Andes director at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a US-based research and advocacy group.

The US “is trying to get countries to agree that they’re not going to have China be one of their primary trading partners, and they really can’t at this point”, Sanchez said.

“For most countries, China is either their top, second or third trading partner.”

China, after all, has the second-largest economy in the world, and it has invested heavily in Latin America, including through infrastructure projects and massive loans.

The Asian giant has emerged as the top trading partner in South America in particular, with bilateral trade reaching $518bn in 2024, a record high for Beijing.

The US, however, remains the biggest outside trade force in Latin America and the Caribbean overall, due in large part to close relations with its neighbour, Mexico.

As of 2024, US imports from Latin America jumped to $661bn, and its exports were valued at $517bn.

Rather than choosing sides, though, many countries in the region are trying to strike a balance between the two powers, Sanchez explained.

Still, she added that the US cannot come empty-handed to this weekend’s negotiations.

“If the US is very boldly telling countries to cut off strengthening ties with China”, Sanchez emphasised that “the US is going to have to offer them something.”

What’s on the table?

Trump has already extended economic lifelines to Latin American governments politically aligned with his own.

In the case of Argentina, for instance, Trump announced in October a $20bn currency swap, meant to increase the value of the country’s peso.

He also increased the volume of Argentinian beef permitted to be imported into the US, shoring up the country’s agricultural sector, despite pushback from US cattle farmers.

Trump has largely tied those economic incentives to the continued leadership of political movements favourable to his own.

The $20bn swap, for instance, came ahead of a key election for Argentinian President Javier Milei’s right-wing party, which Trump supports.

Isolating China from resources in Latin America could also play to Trump’s advantage as he angles for better trade terms with Beijing.

A show of hemispheric solidarity could give Trump extra leverage as he travels to Beijing in early April to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Urdinez pointed out.

Then there’s the regional security angle. The US has expressed particular concern about China’s control of strategic infrastructure in Latin America and the critical minerals it could exploit in the region to bolster its defence and technology capabilities.

Bolivia, Argentina and Chile, for instance, are believed to hold the world’s largest deposits of lithium, a metal necessary for energy storage and rechargeable batteries.

The Trump administration referenced such threats in its national security strategy, published in December.

“Some foreign influence will be hard to reverse,” the strategy document said, blaming the “political alignments between certain Latin American governments and certain foreign actors”.

But Trump’s security platform nevertheless asserted that Latin American leaders were actively seeking alternatives to China.

“Many governments are not ideologically aligned with foreign powers but are instead attracted to doing business with them for other reasons, including low costs and fewer regulatory hurdles,” the document said.

It argued that the US could combat Chinese influence by highlighting the “hidden costs” of close ties to Beijing, including “debt traps” and espionage.

‘More aspiration than reality’

Henrietta Levin, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, believes that many Latin American countries would prefer to deepen economic engagement with the US over China.

But in many cases, that hasn’t been an option.

She pointed to Ecuador’s decision to sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with China in 2023 after it failed to negotiate a similar agreement with the US under President Joe Biden.

Some US politicians had opposed the deal as a threat to domestic industries. Others had encouraged Biden to reject it due to alleged corruption in Ecuador’s government.

Critics, though, said the resistance pushed Ecuador into closer relations with China.

“ When Ecuador signed their free trade agreement with China a couple years ago, their leader actually made quite clear that they had wanted an FTA with the US and would’ve preferred that,” said Levin.

“But the US didn’t want to negotiate such an agreement, and China did.”

As a result, Ecuador became the fifth country in Latin America to ink a free trade pact with China, after Chile, Peru, Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

For Levin, the question looming over this weekend’s summit is whether the Trump administration will step up and provide alternatives to the economic engagement China has already delivered.

Options could include trade agreements, financing for new development and investments with attractive terms.

But without such offers, Urdinez, the Chilean professor, warns that Trump will face limits to his ambitions of checking China’s growth in Latin America.

“Until Washington is willing to fill the economic space it’s asking countries to vacate, the rollback strategy will remain more aspiration than reality,” said Urdinez.

The US House of Representatives has joined the Senate in killing a war powers resolution that would have forced Donald Trump to end his war on Iran. Although the vote was largely symbolic, Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhane says Democrats are using it to get Republicans on the record.

US president says he’d be ‘all for’ Kurdish ground assault on Iran amid reports that Washington is egging on rebellion.

Donald Trump has expressed public support for a possible Kurdish offensive against Iran as the United States pushes to destabilise the Iranian governing system internally.

“I think it’s wonderful that they want to do that, I’d be all for it,” the US president told the Reuters news agency on Thursday when asked about the prospects of a Kurdish rebellion in Iran.

Several US media outlets have reported that Trump called leaders in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq to enable Iranian Kurdish groups launch a ground offensive inside Iran.

In his comments on Thursday, Trump declined to say whether the US would provide air support for Kurdish rebels.

The White House had confirmed that the US president contacted Kurdish leaders in Iraq but denied that Trump agreed to a plan to push for an armed uprising by the Kurds in Iran.

“The president has held many calls with partners, allies and leaders in the region, in the Middle East,” Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday.

“He did speak to Kurdish leaders with respect to our base that we have in northern Iraq.”

US assets in Erbil in the Kurdish region of Iraq have come under repeated Iranian drone and missile attacks since the war started.

Iran is home to millions of Kurds, mostly living in the west of the country.

Kurds represent a sizable ethnic minority in Iraq, Syria and Turkiye, as well.

Earlier this week, Mustafa Hijri, head of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), a prominent Kurdish opposition group, called for desertion from the Iranian army and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

“I call upon all aware and freedom-seeking soldiers and personnel across Iran, and especially in Kurdistan, to abandon the barracks and military centres of the IRGC, the army, and other military forces of the regime, to refuse their assigned duties, and to return to the embrace of their families,” Hijri wrote on X.

“This action is important both for preserving their lives in the face of these attacks and as a sign of turning their backs on the regime’s military and repressive forces.”

On several occasions in recent decades, Washington has urged Kurdish groups seeking autonomy to rebel against governments it viewed as hostile in the region, only to cut off support to them or fail to come to their aid when the political situation changes.

Some critics have warned that stoking ethnic tensions in Iran could lead to a civil war that could further destabilise the entire region.

On Wednesday, Iran’s Press TV reported that the IRGC launched missiles and drones at the headquarters of “anti-Iran terrorist groups in the Iraqi Kurdistan region”.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq has condemned the Iranian attacks on the region while also “categorically denying reports of playing a role in an offensive against Iran.

“At the same time, the Kurdistan Regional Government and the political parties within it are not part of any campaign to expand the war and tensions in the region,” the KRG said in a statement. “On the contrary, we call for peace and stability in the region.”

But with government troops showing no signs of defection despite thousands of US and Israeli strikes, the Trump administration has struggled to find a prominent friendly force on the ground in Iran.

Despite the US president’s repeated calls for Iranians to rise up against their government, there have been no significant protests since the war began on Saturday.

United States President Donald Trump has announced that he will replace Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem with Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin.

In a social media post on Thursday, Trump explained that he had reassigned Noem to be a special envoy for a new security initiative focused on the Western Hemisphere, dubbed the “Shield of the Americas”.

The staffing change, he added, will take effect starting March 31. It marks the first major cabinet-level shake-up of Trump’s second term so far.

Trump praised Noem upon her departure from the cabinet-level post, writing that she “has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!)”

But Noem has played a prominent role in some of the administration’s most controversial immigration policies, and her tenure at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has spurred questions about government spending and conflicts of interest.

The announcement that she would be leaving her post comes a day after she faced a grilling from Democrats during congressional hearings this week, with several politicians called for her resignation.

“DHS is supposed to be protecting our residents and upholding constitutional protections. But you’ve turned that on the head. You have actually turned the United States government against its own residents,” Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat, said during Wednesday’s hearing.

“Yours is a case of failed leadership. Secretary, you need to resign, be fired or be impeached because you don’t have the right to lead this agency.”

The announcement of Noem’s removal also comes as DHS continues to weather a partial government shutdown.

Democrats have opposed approving new funding for the department in response to deadly shootings involving immigration agents under Noem’s leadership.

Those shootings were brought up again this week during Noem’s appearances before judiciary committees in the Senate and House of Representatives.

Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin, for instance, repeatedly accused Noem of launching a “smear campaign” against two US citizens shot dead during interactions with immigration agents: Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

“There have been three homicides in Minneapolis in 2026, and your agents committed two of them,” Raskin told Noem.

He also highlighted comments Noem made calling Good and Pretti “domestic terrorists“, despite evidence undercutting the administration’s depiction of the events leading to their deaths.

“Rather than work with state and local authorities to solve these homicides, you barred Minnesota’s investigators from the crime scenes,” Raskin said.

“It smells like a coverup, and it makes me wonder who the real domestic terrorists are.”

Noem, formerly the Republican governor of South Dakota, has also been scrutinised for a $220m advertising campaign promoting border security.

The advertising campaign shows Noem riding a horse near Mount Rushmore, a well-known national memorial in her home state.

The news outlet ProPublica previously reported that a government contract for the campaign went to a Republican consulting firm with ties to senior DHS officials.

Noem has denied any wrongdoing, stating that the bidding process was “competitive” and that the contract was “all done correctly, all done legally”.

On Thursday, before announcing the staffing change, Trump denied any connection to the advertising campaign, telling the news service Reuters that he “never knew anything about it”.

Noem played a key role in the administration’s mass deportation push, and she has frequently used rhetoric that vilified immigrants as dangerous and violent.

Though DHS’s mandate focuses on domestic security, Noem has made several international trips over the last year, including visits to Ecuador in July and November.

Trump has called a “Shield of the Americas” summit at his Mar-a-Lago estate this weekend, inviting world leaders from multiple countries to discuss regional security and combatting Chinese influence in Latin America.

Noem’s replacement as DHS head, Mullin, has served as a US senator since 2023. He was a representative in the House for a decade before that, representing Oklahoma.

Trump highlighted his membership in the Cherokee Nation, writing that Mullin would be a “fantastic advocate for our incredible Tribal Communities” as DHS leader.

“Markwayne will work tirelessly to Keep our Border Secure, Stop Migrant Crime, Murderers, and other Criminals from illegally entering our Country, End the Scourge of Illegal Drugs and, MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN,” Trump said on Thursday.

The United States-Israeli war with Iran continues to rage, as Washington pledges to send more troops and military assets to the Middle East and Tehran widens its retaliatory strikes across the region.

But on Thursday, top officials under US President Donald Trump shifted focus to another military front: Latin America.

Since taking office for a second term, Trump has indicated he plans to exert US dominance over the entire Western Hemisphere. His push for control has coincided with military operations against alleged criminal networks across the region.

At Thursday’s inaugural “Americas Counter Cartel Conference”, speakers such as White House security adviser Stephen Miller assured reporters that Latin America would remain a top military priority for the US, regardless of events in the Middle East.

“We are not going to cede an inch of territory in this hemisphere to our enemies or adversaries,” Miller said, adding the US was “using hard power, military power, lethal force, to protect and defend the American homeland”.

Miller further maintained there is no “criminal justice solution” to drug cartels, which he likened to armed groups like al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS).

Organised crime, he concluded, “can only be defeated with military power”.

Since Trump took office last year, his administration has applied what experts describe as a “global war on terror” approach to Latin America, including by labelling drug cartels “foreign terrorist organisations”.

Figures like Miller, a key architect behind Trump’s hardline immigration policies, have championed the president’s militaristic approach, even as critics warn it raises human rights and legal concerns.

Last September, for instance, the administration began striking alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, in what rights groups have decried as extrajudicial killings.

And in early January, the US launched an extraordinary operation to abduct Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. It has since pursued a pressure campaign against Cuba designed to weaken its communist government.

Just this week, on Wednesday, the Pentagon announced it had launched joint operations with Ecuador’s military “against Designated Terrorist Organizations” in the South American country.

The announcement indicated a new front for US military actions in the region, which officials have said could include land operations.

But the broadening scope of Trump’s military involvement in Latin America, combined with the nascent war with Iran, has raised questions about the US’s ability to sustain such intense military activity.

Prepared to ‘go on offence alone’

The “Americas Counter Cartel Conference” came as Latin American leaders arrived in South Florida to attend a regional summit hosted by Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Attendees included officials from the Trump-allied conservative governments in Argentina, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.

But despite support from several regional governments, Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth nevertheless told the audience that the US was “prepared to take on” Latin America’s cartels and “go on the offence alone, if necessary”.

“However, it is our preference — and it is the goal of this conference — that, in the interest of this neighbourhood, we all do it together,” Hegseth added.

The secretary also praised Trump’s take on the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, which sought to establish a US sphere of influence, separate from Europe, in the Western Hemisphere. Administration officials have dubbed Trump’s parallel approach the “Donroe doctrine”.

Hegseth framed the administration’s attacks on alleged drug-smuggling boats as a keystone of Trump’s effort to maintain regional influence.

The US military has carried out at least 44 aerial strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, resulting in an estimated 150 known deaths.

The identities of the victims have not been released, with several family members saying fishermen and informal workers were among those targeted.

The Pentagon chief said the approach was meant to “establish deterrence”.

“If the consequence was simply to be arrested and then released, well, that’s a consequence they’d already priced in a long time ago,” Hegseth said.

He then pointed to a “few weeks” in February in which there were no strikes on alleged drug boats.

The pause in attacks, he said, was evidence of the strategy’s success. But that break notably came as the US surged assets to the Middle East.

Emphasis on ‘heritage’

Neither Hegseth nor Miller specifically referred to the war with Iran, but the pair touched on themes that have been present in the administration’s messaging on the war.

Trump, for example, said Iran’s government “waged war against civilisation itself”. There have been reports, meanwhile, that US military officials have referenced the biblical “end times” as a religious underpinning for the war.

Those remarks have reflected what critics consider Trump’s embrace of Christian nationalism and his view of the Americas as a European-derived “civilisation” threatened by outside forces.

At Thursday’s conference, Miller himself referenced violence in European history as justification for the modern-day military actions in Latin America.

There were periods in European history throughout the 18th and 19th centuries during which “ruthless means were used to get rid of the people who were raping and murdering and defying established systems of order and justice,” Miller said.

He also echoed Trump’s allegation that Europe was facing “civilisational erasure” as a result of left-wing leadership and immigration.

“The reason why many Western countries are struggling today is they’ve forgotten the eternal truth and wisdoms they once followed,” Miller said.

Hegseth, meanwhile, described all the countries at Thursday’s meeting as “offsprings of Western civilisation”.

Representatives in attendance, he said, faced a test “whether our nations will be and remain Western nations with distinct characteristics, Christian nations under God, proud of our shared heritage with strong borders and prosperous people ruled not by violence and chaos but by law”.

He added that foreign “incursions” represent “existential questions” for the region, seemingly referencing the growing influence of China as an economic and political partner in the Americas.

Iran has launched operations targeting Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish groups in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in neighbouring Iraq as the regional war ignited by the United States and Israel entered its sixth day, with more than 1,000 people killed across the country.

State television, Press TV, reported early on Thursday that Tehran was striking “anti-Iran separatist forces”, referring to Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish groups believed to be based in mountainous, hard-to-reach areas near the Iran-Iraq border.

Iranian missiles hit Sulaimaniyah city in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, according to local reports.

“We targeted the headquarters of Kurdish groups opposed to the revolution in Iraqi Kurdistan with three missiles,” Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported on Thursday, quoting a military statement. The Iranian military said earlier on Tuesday it used “30 drones” on Kurdish positions.

The attack comes just days after multiple publications reported that US President Donald Trump was in active talks with Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish groups, and that Washington hopes to use them to spur a popular uprising.

Various Iranian Kurdish groups, which share close ties with Iraqi Kurds, have long opposed Tehran from their bases in northern Iraq and along the Iraq-Iran border. These groups reportedly have thousands of fighters between them.

Here’s what we know so far:

Why are Kurdish groups cooperating with the US?

US officials said the aim is to stretch Iranian forces and take out the remains of the military-dominated Iranian government, according to reporting by CNN.

There is also speculation that the groups could be supported to take control of northern Iran to create a ground buffer for Israeli forces, possibly streaming in from Iraq.

US-Israeli bombings have heavily targeted areas along the Iraq-Iran border since the start of the war on Saturday, possibly to degrade Iranian defences and allow Kurdish opposition groups to cross fully into Iran, according to a briefing by US-based think tank, the Soufan Center.

The US has not ruled out sending ground forces, although analysts told Al Jazeera Iran’s rugged territory would make that very difficult.

If the US does support these groups against Tehran, it would mean that Washington is treating them like armed “players on a board,” Winthrop Rodgers, associate fellow at the UK think tank, Chatham House, told Al Jazeera.

Which Kurdish groups are there?

Neither the US nor Kurdish groups had confirmed any agreements by Thursday.

However, it is known that Trump has spoken to the leaders of two Kurdish groups in Iraq: Masoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and Bafel Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), according to US publication, Axios. Talabani confirmed the call on Wednesday.

Trump also spoke to Mustafa Hijri, head of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI), on Tuesday, CNN reported, quoting a Kurdish official.

Meanwhile, Iranian Kurdish rebel groups, which have thousands of fighters along the Iraq-Iran border, formed the Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan (CPFIK) alliance one week before the war broke out.

The group issued statements at the start of the conflict, signalling imminent intervention and urging Iranian military members to defect. According to Israel’s I24News, thousands of its fighters were in Iran by Wednesday.

Here are the different groups:

Kurdistan Democratic Party: The ruling party in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). The party controls the capital city of Erbil as well as Duhok. It has historical ties with Iranian Kurdish groups.

However, the KRG is not eager to be seen as supporting attacks on Iran, even as Iranian drones have hit US assets in Erbil. On Wednesday, Kurdistan region President Nechirvan Barzani spoke with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and told him his region “will not be part of conflicts” targeting Tehran.

In 2023, the two countries signed a security deal that saw Iraq promise to disarm and relocate Iranian opposition groups on its territory, although it appears many groups are still based there, reflecting the limited influence the government wields over them.

Iraqi Kurds, who have close ties with both the US and Iran, are in a “difficult position”, said Rodgers.

“They are under tremendous pressure from a wide range of forces, including (pro-Iran) Iraqi militias. They will try to stay out of the conflict as much as they can, but that will likely prove impossible,” he said.

Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK): The PUK is the official opposition in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region and also nationally relevant as Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid is a member. In a statement on Sunday, Rashid urged dialogue and an end to the war. Iraq declared three days of mourning following the killing of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes on Tehran on Saturday.

Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan (CPFIK): Formed on February 22, 2026, the group includes six Iranian Kurdish opposition groups seeking an independent state.

Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) – Based in the Kurdistan region, the group has about 1,200 members and is proscribed as a “terror” group by Iran.

Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK) – Also based in Kurdistan, it has an estimated 1,000 members.

Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) – A close ally of the Turkish opposition armed group, Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), PJAK is proscribed as a “terror” group by Ankara. PJAK’s armed wing, the Eastern Kurdistan Units (YRK), is believed to have between 1,000 and 3,000 members, many of them women. It is based in the rugged Qandil Mountains near the Iran-Iraq border and in the semiautonomous Kurdistan region. It has launched numerous attacks on Iranian forces in the past decade. A recent Iranian strike reportedly killed one fighter.

Organisation of Iranian Kurdistan Struggle (Khabat) – It has an unknown number of fighters.

Komala of the Toilers of Kurdistan – Based in Iraq’s KRG, it has an unknown number of fighters.

Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KPIK) – Also headquartered in the Kurdistan region, it has an estimated 1,000 fighters in 2017.

What is the history of US involvement with Kurdish resistance groups in the Middle East?

Kurds are an ethnic minority spread across the Middle East with a shared language and culture. They do not have a state of their own and have historically been marginalised across countries – mainly Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkiye.

For decades, several armed Kurdish groups have sought self-governance in Turkiye, Syria and Iran.

In Iraq, Kurdish nationalist groups gained some success during the 1991 Gulf War by working with the US, which helped establish the self-governing Kurdistan region of Iraq. The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) also trained and armed its army, known as the Peshmerga, after the US invaded Iraq in 2003. In 2005, the semiautonomous region was officially recognised in Iraq’s constitution.

Since 2017, Washington has also armed and trained the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Syrian Kurdish militia that Turkiye lists as a “terror” group because of its links with the proscribed PKK. The group, which successfully resisted ISIL (ISIS), now forms the main component of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). It controlled Raqqa and other ISIL strongholds.

However, when it began military clashes with Syrian forces under the President Ahmed al-Sharaa-led government last August, Washington turned away from the group and backed Damascus instead. In January this year, the SDF signed an agreement with the Syrian government to integrate into the government forces. In return, the Syrian government recognised Kurdish rights.

In Turkiye, meanwhile, the PKK, whose presence in northern Iraq has long been a source of tension with Ankara, declared a ceasefire in March 2025, after a call from its imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, to disarm.

How does Kurdish resistance in Iran compare with others?

Iranian Kurds opposed the Iranian government even before the formation of the Islamic Republic in 1979, Rodgers said, and Tehran’s current weakness provides an opportunity for them to advance their political aims in the country.

However, the new coalition of multiple diverse groups is unprecedented, the analyst added, and their internal dynamics will be a key decisive factor in what role Kurdish groups will play in this war.

“Support from the US is helpful, especially in terms of targeting security forces’ infrastructure with air strikes, but they will likely be cautious about relying too much on Washington, especially from an administration as capricious and disorganised as Trump’s,” Rodgers said, noting how Washington abandoned the Kurds in Syria.

Unlike the split Iranian movements, Iraqi Kurds have long united to form a devolved government enshrined in the Iraqi constitution, built an advanced economy, and secured substantive relations with a wide range of foreign countries. That’s something Kurdish groups will also be hoping to establish in a democratic Iran, he said.

“I think it is unlikely that the Trump administration has made any commitments to the Iranian Kurds about supporting their political goals,” Rodgers said, adding that the US’s plan “does not look fully thought through at all”.

Donald’s reappointment always felt like a no-brainer – certainly from the perspective of the European Ryder Cup committee trying mastermind another home victory, the players who adore and admire the Englishman, and the thousands of European fans who jubilantly chanted “two more years” as they partied at Bethpage.

The only one who seemed to need convincing was Donald himself.

Donald has thrown everything into the role – arguably more than any other captain in the 99-year history of the iconic event. So it is no surprise he wanted to take his time over the decision whether to continue or not.

On the morning after Europe clung on to victory, Donald looked exhausted when he sat down for a BBC Sport interview.

It was not a hangover from the celebrations. It was a hangover from the mental and physical exertions spent over the whole Bethpage cycle.

What Donald had to weigh up was whether he had enough energy to go through another 18 months of meticulous research, preparation and implementation.

His leadership has been characterised by warm man-management and attention to detail.

How many captains regularly message a wide pool of playing candidates in an attempt to make each one of them feel integral to the team?

How many captains have asked for cracks in hotel doors to be covered because they let too much light into the rooms and could disrupt sleep?

Minor moves in a macro machine. That is what Donald has built his Ryder Cup dynasty on.

In the midst of the beer-swilling the Bethpage shindig, Shane Lowry remarked that whoever follows Donald – whenever that might be – will have to fill a void as big as the one left by Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United.

If Donald manages to complete a rare Treble, like Fergie did in 1999, his place in the pantheons of British sporting leaders will also be secured.

Washington, DC – On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio provided a looping justification for the US launching a war against Iran: Israel was planning to strike Iran, which would have prompted Tehran to strike the US assets in the region, requiring Washington to launch preemptive strikes on Iran.

Even as the administration of US President Donald Trump has sought to roll back claims made by several officials in recent days, they have continued to spark dismay across the political spectrum.

Rubio’s statement was particularly notable, given the assessment by many Iran analysts that the US-Israel war, which has led to regional retaliation from Iran, serves the interests not of Washington, but of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Washington is seen as having outsized leverage over Israel, to which it has provided more than $300bn in military aid since 1948, including $21bn during Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Trump, when asked about Rubio’s statement on Tuesday, appeared to offer a different characterisation, saying he launched the war because he “thought we were going to have a situation where we were going to be attacked”.

“They [Iran] were getting ready to attack Israel. They were gonna attack others,” he said.

The US president has spent the days since launching the initial strikes on Saturday arguing that the holistic threat posed by Iran justified the US-Israeli strikes, a position that experts say likely stands in contravention of both US and international law. The administration has provided scant evidence of a planned attack on US assets or that either Iran’s nuclear or ballistic programmes offered an immediate threat.

Rubio on Monday also sought to distance himself from his statements, claiming his words had been taken out of context.

Rubio had, in earlier comments, pointed to the broader threat posed by Iran, including its ballistic missile and drone capacity. But then he turned to what he called the question of “why now?”

“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action,” he told reporters. “We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

‘Stunning admission’

The shifting messaging on Tuesday was unlikely to allay the condemnation from Trump critics and supporters alike, including several influential figures within Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) base.

Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, told Al Jazeera that “what he’s basically publicly acknowledging would be that the United States was entrapped by the Israelis”.

“The notion that the Israelis were going to do it anyway, and so we had to do it as well – if that’s the case, then there’s a really serious conversation to be had here in the United States about US and Israeli interests, and where those are aligned and where they diverge,” Grieco said.

Kenneth Roth, a former executive director of Human Rights Watch, in a post on X, questioned: “Why is it in America’s interest to arm and fund Israel to draw America into an unnecessary war?”

In an earlier post, he said Rubio’s logic “isn’t even close to a legal rationale” for launching the war.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), meanwhile, called Rubio’s words on Monday a “stunning admission”.

In a statement, it said Rubio had revealed “what was clear from the start: the United States did not attack Iran because Iran posed an imminent threat to our nation. We attacked under pressure from Israel for Israel’s benefit”.

The organisation called on Congress to pass war powers resolutions to rein in Trump’s ability to wage war.

Looming war powers vote

Lawmakers have pledged to introduce the legislation in both the House of Representatives and Senate this week, although it is likely to face an uphill battle amid Republican opposition.

Trump’s party maintains razor-thin majorities in both chambers, and most Republican lawmakers have rallied behind the war and the reasons the administration has given for launching attacks.

War powers resolutions would require a two-thirds majority in both chambers to override a presidential veto, although advocates have long argued they offer an opportunity for lawmakers to put their stance on the record.

In a statement on Tuesday, progressive US Senator Bernie Sanders was among the lawmakers condemning the administration’s war.

“Netanyahu wanted war with Iran. Trump just gave it to him,” Sanders said.

The Israeli prime minister has, for more than two decades, called for the toppling of Iran’s government, and has been a leading opponent to diplomacy related to Iran’s nuclear programme.

During that time, Netanyahu has repeatedly pushed claims that Iran was on the immediate precipice of developing a nuclear weapon.

“American foreign and military policy must be determined by the American people,” Sanders wrote. “Not the right-wing extremist Netanyahu government.”

Thomas Massie, a Republican representative who has spearheaded the war powers push, connected Rubio’s statement to Trump’s “America First” pledges to prioritise domestic issues in the US.

“Before it’s over, the price of gas, groceries, and virtually everything else is going to go up,” Massie posted on X. “The only winners in [the US] are defence company shareholders.”

‘Worst possible thing he could have said’

Several influential figures in Trump’s MAGA base said Rubio’s statements were further inflaming the growing discontent over the war.

Daily Wire podcaster Matt Walsh said Rubio was “flat out telling us that we’re in a war with Iran because Israel forced our hand. This is basically the worst possible thing he could have said.”

Responding to Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s reiteration of Rubio’s claims, former congressman and Trump attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz said: “In making these statements, which are undeniably true, America looks like such a supplicant.”

Pro-Trump brothers Keith and Kevin Hodge, who run the influential pro-Trump X account HodgeTwins, with 3.5 million followers, also decried the administration’s actions.

“We did not vote for send[ing] Americans to die for Israel’s wars,” they posted on Tuesday. “We won’t stay silent about this.”

Ali Harb contributed reporting. 

US President Donald Trump has said he “does not care” if Iran take part in this summer’s 2026 World Cup.

Trump’s comments come amid US and Israeli strikes on Iran, which has responded by launching attacks on US-allied states in the Gulf in an escalating conflict.

The US is co-hosting the World Cup which takes place between 11 June and 19 July, along with Canada and Mexico.

“I really don’t care,” Trump told Politico, external about Iran playing in the tournament.

“I think Iran is a very badly defeated country. They’re running on fumes.”

BBC Sport has approached Fifa for comment.

“We’re going to cut off all trade with Spain.” Donald Trump targeted Spain in an Oval Office tirade, complaining about Madrid’s refusal to let its bases be used for attacks on Iran. He also joined the German chancellor in saying Spain doesn’t spend enough on its military.

A poll conducted in the hours after the United States and Israel launched a major military operation against Iran, sparking regional retaliation, shows dismal approval for the strikes from the US public.

The Reuters Ipsos poll was conducted beginning on Saturday and closing on Sunday, before the administration of President Donald Trump announced that the first US troops had been killed in the conflict. Only one in four respondents approved of the US-Israeli attacks.

The early findings could have a significant effect on how the Trump administration moves forward in the days ahead and on how lawmakers respond to the attacks, particularly as they look to a punishing midterm election season.

Trump on Sunday promised to continue what he described as a “righteous mission” until “all objectives are achieved”. Referencing the three US military members announced killed on Sunday, Trump said that “there will likely be more before it ends”.

After a US-Israeli strike killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Trump again framed Iran as an existential threat to the US, claiming that the country’s leaders “have waged war against civilization itself”.

The Reuters-Ipsos poll suggested that the US public does not share that view, with 43 percent of respondents saying they disapproved of the war and another 29 percent saying they were unsure.

Approval among Republicans was stronger, but not resounding, with 55 percent saying they approved of the strikes, 13 percent disapproving and 32 percent unsure.

Perhaps most significantly, about 42 percent of Republicans said they would be less likely to support the operation if it led to “US troops in the Middle East being killed or injured”.

About 74 percent of Democrats disapproved of the strike, with 7 percent approving and 19 percent unsure.

Midterms loom

The poll released on Sunday comes as Republican lawmakers have largely coalesced around Trump’s message on Iran, even as its contradiction to Trump’s campaign promises risks alienating his Make America Great Again (MAGA) base.

Trump had run on a pledge to cease “endless wars” and halt US interventionism abroad in an “America First” pivot.

While Trump has shown a unique ability to shape the views of his staunchest supporters in his likeness, some conservative commentators have warned that he is playing with fire.

“If this war is a swift, easy, and decisive victory, most of them will get over it,” Blake Neff, a former producer for late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, wrote on X on Saturday.

“But if the war is anything else, there will be a lot of anger.”

He added that “success can override bad explanations. So we must pray for success.”

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said the confirmation that US soldiers had been killed “brings home the cost of the war”.

“Americans, by a very large margin, don’t want to be tied up in an ongoing conflict in the Middle East,” he said during a television interview. “The fact that Americans have died suddenly shows this is not just a video game from the standpoint of America.”

Beyond the three US military personnel killed, at least 201 people have been killed in Iran, nine in Israel, two in Iraq, three in the United Arab Emirates and one in Kuwait.

Meanwhile, 45 percent of respondents to the Reuters-Ipsos poll, including 34 percent of Republicans and 44 percent of independents, said they would be less likely to support the campaign against Iran if gas or oil prices increased in the US.

The conflict has threatened arterial trade routes, with several companies suspending shipments in the area.

Democrats will also be keeping a close eye on public sentiment on the war, which will surely hang over the campaign season ahead of the midterm elections in November.

The party has made affordability a key issue, with incumbents and upstart challengers alike portraying Trump’s military adventurism, which has also included the US abduction of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, as out of touch with his messaging.

Elected Democrats, meanwhile, have given a range of responses to the US operation against Iran, with at least one Democratic senator praising Trump’s strikes. Others celebrated Khamenei’s killing, but remained more circumspect on Trump’s justification for the attacks, while several others were forthright in condemning the strikes.

Several Democrats on Sunday said the killing of US soldiers underscored the urgency of passing a war powers resolution, which would require approval from Congress before further military action is taken.

“I’m thinking of the brave American soldiers killed today,” Senator Chris Van Hollen, a proponent of the resolution, posted on X on Sunday. “They should still be with us.”

“Trump said he would keep us out of war. This is his war of choice.”

A vote on the resolution is expected early this week.

United States President Donald Trump has pledged to continue the “righteous mission” against Iran, until “all objectives are achieved”, adding there will likely be more US troop deaths in the process.

Speaking in a video posted to his Truth Social account on Sunday, Trump again framed the war against Iran as a response to an existential threat to the US, saying that “an Iranian regime armed with long-range missiles and nuclear weapons would be a dire threat to every American”.

Trump and his top officials had repeatedly made similar statements in the run-up to Saturday’s attacks, which killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several high-ranking members of the country’s leadership.

However, they have to date presented no evidence to support that Iran was developing a long-range missile capable of hitting the US or was anywhere close to developing a nuclear weapon.

Tehran has long denied seeking such a weapon, with experts assessing that if it did seek nuclear weapons, the development would still be several years off. The US launched its attacks alongside Israel in the middle of ongoing US-Iran talks on its nuclear programme.

Trump also referenced the three US military personnel confirmed killed on Sunday amid Iran’s regional retaliation.

“As one nation, we grieve for the true American patriots who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation, even as we continue the righteous mission for which they gave their lives,” Trump said.

“And sadly, there will likely be more before it ends,” he said. “That’s the way it is – likely be more, but we’ll do everything possible where that won’t be the case.”

He added: “But America will avenge their deaths, and deliver the most punishing blow to the terrorists who have waged war against, basically, civilisation”.

No mention of diplomacy

The speech marked a stark contrast to several interviews Trump had given throughout the day, in which he appeared to float diplomatic off-ramps.

“They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them,” Trump told the Atlantic magazine, referring to what the publication described as Iran’s “new leadership”.

“They should have given what was very practical and easy to do sooner. They waited too long,” he said.

A White House official confirmed to Al Jazeera that Trump was willing to engage with Iran’s new leaders.

Earlier on Sunday, Iran announced a three-member interim leadership council to run the government in the wake of Khamenei’s killing. It includes: President Masoud Pezeshkian; the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei; and a member of the Guardian Council, Ayatollah Alireza Arafi.

Trump acknowledged that some of the negotiators involved in the talks with the US had since been killed.

Some analysts have argued that Iran’s new leadership will likely be wary of engaging with the Trump administration, given its track record. The US also launched attacks alongside Israel during US-Iran negotiations in June last year.

The new leadership could instead pursue a protracted conflict that could be politically damaging for Trump, some experts have said.

“Most of those people are gone,” Trump told The Atlantic. “Some of the people we were dealing with are gone, because that was a big – that was a big hit.”

Attacks continue

In his speech on Sunday, Trump did not reference any diplomatic overtures, instead calling for regime change in Iran.

He again offered amnesty to Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members, the Iranian military and police who “lay down” their arms. If they do not, they will face “certain death”, he said.

He also again called on “Iranian patriots who yearn for freedom to seize this moment to be brave, be bold, be heroic, and take back your country”.

He appeared to reference his threats in January to strike Iran in response to the government’s crackdown on protesters.

“I made a promise to you, and I fulfilled that promise,” Trump said. “The rest will be up to you. We’ll be there to help”.

Trump spoke as fighting continued across the region.

The US command that oversees the Middle East (CENTCOM) announced the killing of the three members of the US military earlier on Sunday, but did not provide further details. It said five others were “seriously wounded” in the operation.

The US media has reported that those killed in Iranian strikes were based in Kuwait. Iran has also launched a barrage of attacks against Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, and Oman.

Meanwhile, at least 201 people have been killed in Iran, with 747 wounded, while at least nine have been killed and 121 wounded in Israel.

At least one person has been killed in Kuwait, three have been killed in the UAE, and two have been killed in Iraq since the escalation began.

Iran’s IRGC said earlier on Sunday that it had targeted the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier with four ballistic missiles, but a US official told Al Jazeera that no damage was caused.

Speaking in a separate Fox News interview on Sunday, Trump said that 48 “leaders” had been killed in Iran, although a full list of those killed has not been released. In a post on Truth Social, the US president said the US had “destroyed and sunk 9 Iranian Naval Ships, some of them relatively large and important”.

“In a different attack, we largely destroyed their Naval Headquarters,” he said.

In a post on X, CENTCOM said the IRGC “no longer has a headquarters”.

Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi, meanwhile, said Iran’s military command had been interrupted, with units acting in an “independent and somewhat isolated” way. He said they were operating “based on general instructions given to them in advance”.

Still, Araghchi told ABC News, “We see no limit for ourselves to defend our people, to protect our people.”

Figures from across the United States political spectrum have reacted to President Donald Trump’s joint attack with Israel on Iran, with Republicans largely expressing support and Democrats failing to offer a robust and unified response.

The attacks have reportedly killed at least 201 people, including more than 80 in a school in southern Iran, many of them children.

Iran has launched retaliatory strikes on Israel as well as US bases across the region, located in countries such as Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Kuwait, prompting fears that the conflict could spiral out of control and plunge the region into violence.

An initial YouGov poll conducted on February 28, after the strikes, suggested that 33 percent of US adults approved of the US attacking Iran, while 45 percent disapproved. Among Democrats and Independents, approval was just 10 percent and 21 percent, respectively, while 68 percent of Republicans expressed support.

Here’s how some of the US’s most prominent elected representatives and political figures have reacted.

President Donald Trump: “A short time ago, the United States military started major combat operations in Iran. Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people. Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world.”

Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson: “Today, Iran is facing the severe consequences of its evil actions. President Trump and the Administration have made every effort to pursue peaceful and diplomatic solutions in response to the Iranian regime’s sustained nuclear ambitions and development, terrorism, and the murder of Americans—and even their own people.”

Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune: “For years, Iran’s relentless nuclear ambitions, its expanded ballistic missile inventory, and its unwavering support for terror groups in the region have posed a clear and unacceptable threat to U.S. servicemembers, citizens in the region, and many of our allies. Despite the dogged efforts of the president and his administration, the Iranian regime has refused the diplomatic off-ramps that would peacefully resolve these national security concerns. I commend President Trump for taking action to thwart these threats.”

Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries: “Donald Trump failed to seek Congressional authorization prior to striking Iran. Instead, the president’s decision to abandon diplomacy and launch a massive military attack has left American troops vulnerable to Iran’s retaliatory actions. We pray for the safety of the men and women of the US military as they have been put into harm’s way in a dangerous theatre of war.”

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer: “The administration has not provided Congress and the American people with critical details about the scope and immediacy of the threat. Confronting Iran’s malign regional activities, nuclear ambitions, and harsh oppression of the Iranian people demands American strength, resolve, regional coordination, and strategic clarity. Unfortunately, President Trump’s fitful cycles of lashing out and risking wider conflict are not a viable strategy.”

Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib: “The American people do not want a war with Iran. Trump is acting on the violent fantasies of the American political elite and the Israeli apartheid government, ignoring the vast majority of Americans who say loud and clear: No More Wars.”

Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “The American people are once again dragged into a war they did not want by a president who does not care about the long-term consequences of his actions. This war is unlawful. It is unnecessary. And it will be catastrophic. Just this week, Iran and the United States were negotiating key measures that could have staved off war. The president walked away from these discussions and chose war instead.”

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani: “Today’s military strikes on Iran — carried out by the United States and Israel — mark a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression. Bombing cities. Killing civilians. Opening a new theatre of war.  Americans do not want this. They do not want another war in pursuit of regime change. They want relief from the affordability crisis. They want peace.”

Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders: “This Trump–Netanyahu war is unconstitutional and violates international law. It endangers the lives of U.S. troops and people across the region. We’ve lived through the lies of Vietnam and Iraq. No more endless wars. Congress must pass a War Powers Resolution immediately.”

Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen: “Trump is lying to the American people as he launches an illegal, regime-change war against Iran. This is endangering American lives and has already resulted in mass civilian casualties. This is not making us safer & only damages the US and our interests. The Senate must immediately vote on the War Powers Resolution to stop it.”

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham: “I fervently pray that the long-suffering people of Iran will have their oppression ended soon. I also fervently pray that we’re on the verge of a new dawn in the Middle East, with historic opportunity for lasting peace and prosperity. As to our allies in Israel, President Trump and all under his command, your bravery has set in motion the end of evil and darkness, and the beginning of the light. Well done.”

Democratic Representative Ro Khanna: “Trump has launched an illegal regime change war in Iran with American lives at risk. Congress must convene on Monday to vote on Representative Thomas Massie and my WPR [War Powers Resolution] to stop this. Every member of Congress should go on record this weekend on how they will vote.”

Republican Representative Thomas Massie: “I am opposed to this War. This is not “America First.” When Congress reconvenes, I will work with Representative Ro Khanna to force a Congressional vote on war with Iran. The Constitution requires a vote, and your Representative needs to be on record as opposing or supporting this war.”

Republican Senator Tom Cotton: “Iran’s missile program poses an imminent threat to the United States and our allies. I’m thankful President Trump is taking necessary action to protect our homeland.”

Democratic Senator Adam Schiff: “Trump is drawing our country into yet another foreign war that Americans don’t want and Congress has not authorised. The Iranian regime is a brutal and murderous dictatorship. But that does not give Trump the authority to unilaterally initiate a war of choice.”

Democratic Senator John Fetterman: “Operation Epic Fury. President Trump has been willing to do what’s right and necessary to produce real peace in the region. God bless the United States, our great military, and Israel.”

Former Democratic Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris: “Donald Trump is dragging the United States into a war the American people do not want. Let me be clear: I am opposed to a regime-change war in Iran, and our troops are being put in harm’s way for the sake of Trump’s war of choice.”

Former Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene: “We said “No More Foreign Wars, No More Regime Change!” We said it on rally stage after rally stage, speech after speech. Trump, Vance, basically the entire admin campaigned on it and promised to put America FIRST and Make America Great Again. My generation has been let down, abused, and used by our government our entire adult lives and our children’s generation is literally being abandoned.”