Sanctions

WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Friday he’s considering granting Hungary an exemption from U.S. sanctions on Russian energy as he sat down with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at the White House. “We’re looking at it because its very difficult for him to get the oil and gas from other areas,” Trump said.

Orbán said it’s a “vital” issue for his landlocked country, and said he planned to discuss with Trump the “consequences for the Hungarian people” if the sanctions took effect.

In comments on Friday, Orbán said he would present Trump with several “suggestions” for implementing an exemption.

“I’m not asking for some kind of gift from the Americans or some kind of unusual thing. I am simply asking for the realization that the sanctions recently imposed on Russian energy puts certain countries like Hungary, which do not have access to the sea, in an impossible situation,” Orbán said on state radio. “I’m going to ask the president to acknowledge that.”

A large delegation of cabinet members, business leaders and numerous right-wing political influencers with close connections to Hungary’s government accompanied Orbán to Washington. The delegation rented a 220-passenger commercial jet from Hungarian carrier Wizz Air for the journey.

Prior to Orbán’s arrival on Thursday, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced a resolution calling on Hungary to end its dependence on Russian energy.

The resolution was co-signed by 10 senators including Republicans Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, as well as Democrats Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Chris Coons of Delaware. It “expresses concern that Hungary has shown no sign of reducing its dependence on Russian fossil fuels,” and urges Budapest to adhere to a European Union plan to cease all Russian energy imports into the bloc by the end of 2027.

“Europe has made extraordinary progress cutting its energy ties with Moscow, but Hungary’s actions continue to undermine collective security and embolden the Kremlin,” Shaheen wrote in a statement. The resolution, she continued, “sends a clear message that when it comes to buying Russian energy, all allies should be held to the same standard, and that includes Hungary.”

On Friday, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Washington that he will sign a bilateral nuclear energy cooperation agreement with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to Hungarian state news agency MTI.

The deal will involve Hungary’s first-ever purchases of American nuclear fuel, which it currently buys from Russia, and introduce U.S. technology for the on-site storage of spent fuel at Hungary’s Paks nuclear plant. The agreement will also include cooperation on small modular reactors.

After arriving in Washington, Orbán and some of his top officials met with Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who in September was sentenced to 27 years in prison for plotting a coup after an election loss. Orbán posted on social media: “We stand firmly with the Bolsonaros in these challenging times — friends and allies who never give up. Keep fighting: political witch-hunts have no place in democracy, truth and justice must prevail!”

Megerian and Spike write for the Associated Press. Spike reported from Budapest

Fourteen members of the UN Security Council voted in favour of the US-drafted resolution. China abstained.

The United Nations Security Council has voted to remove sanctions on Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and his Interior Minister Anas Khattab following a resolution championed by the United States.

In a largely symbolic move, the UNSC delisted the Syrian government officials from the ISIL (ISIS) and al-Qaeda sanctions list, in a resolution approved by 14 council members on Thursday. China abstained.

The formal lifting of sanctions on al-Sharaa is largely symbolic, as they were waived every time he needed to travel outside of Syria in his role as the country’s leader. An assets freeze and arms embargo will also be lifted.

Al-Sharaa led opposition fighters who overthrew President Bashar al-Assad’s government in December. His group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), began an offensive on November 27, 2024, reaching Damascus in only 12 days, resulting in the end of the al-Assad family’s 53-year reign.

The collapse of the al-Assad family’s rule has been described as a historic moment – nearly 14 years after Syrians rose in peaceful protests against a government that met them with violence that quickly spiralled into a bloody civil war.

HTS had been on the UNSC’s ISIL and al-Qaeda sanctions list since May 2014.

Since coming to power, al-Sharaa has called on the US to formally lift sanctions on his country, saying the sanctions imposed on the previous Syrian leadership were no longer justified.

US President Donald Trump met the Syrian president in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in May and ordered most sanctions lifted. However, the most stringent sanctions were imposed by Congress under the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act in 2019 and will require a congressional vote to remove them permanently.

In a bipartisan statement, the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee welcomed the UN action Thursday and said it was now Congress’s turn to act to “bring the Syrian economy into the 21st century”.

We “are actively working with the administration and our colleagues in Congress to repeal Caesar sanctions”, Senators Jim Risch and Jeanne Shaheen said in a statement ahead of the vote. “It’s time to prioritize reconstruction, stability, and a path forward rather than isolation that only deepens hardship for Syrians.”

Al-Sharaa plans to meet with Trump in Washington next week, the first visit by a Syrian president to Washington since the country gained independence in 1946.

While Israel and Syria remain formally in a state of war, with Israel still occupying Syria’s Golan Heights, Trump has expressed hope that the two countries can normalise relations.

US Treasury accuses Pyongyang of stealing $3bn in digital assets to finance its nuclear weapons programme over three years.

North Korea has denounced the latest United States sanctions targeting cybercrimes that the US says help finance its nuclear weapons programme, accusing Washington of harbouring “wicked” hostility towards Pyongyang and promising unspecified countermeasures.

The statement on Thursday by a North Korean vice foreign minister came two days after the US Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions on eight people and two firms, including North Korean bankers, for allegedly laundering money from cybercrime schemes.

The US Treasury accused North Korea of operating state-sponsored hacking schemes that have stolen more than $3bn in mostly digital assets over the past three years, an amount unmatched by any other foreign actor. The Treasury Department said the illicit funds helped finance the country’s nuclear weapons programme.

The department said North Korea relies on a network of banking representatives, financial institutions and shell companies in North Korea, China, Russia and elsewhere to launder funds obtained through IT worker fraud, cryptocurrency heists and sanctions evasion.

The sanctions were rolled out even as US President Donald Trump continues to express interest in reviving talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Their nuclear discussions during Trump’s first term collapsed in 2019 amid disagreements over trading relief from US-led sanctions on North Korea for steps to dismantle its nuclear programme.

“Now that the present US administration has clarified its stand to be hostile towards the DPRK to the last, we will also take proper measures to counter it with patience for any length of time,” the North Korean vice minister, Kim Un Chol, said in a statement.

He said US sanctions and pressure tactics will never change the “present strategic situation” between the countries or alter North Korea’s “thinking and viewpoint”.

Kim Jong Un has shunned any form of talks with Washington and Seoul since his fallout with Trump in 2019. He has since made Russia the focus of his foreign policy, sending thousands of soldiers, many of whom have died on the battlefield, and large amounts of military equipment for President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine while pursuing an increasingly assertive strategy aimed at securing a larger role for North Korea in a united front against the US-led West.

In a recent speech, Kim Jong Un urged Washington to drop its demand for the North to surrender its nuclear weapons as a condition for resuming diplomacy. He ignored Trump’s proposal to meet while the US president was in South Korea last week for meetings with world leaders attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

SEOUL, Nov. 6 (Yonhap) — North Korea on Thursday denounced the latest U.S. sanctions on Pyongyang as a demonstration of Washington’s hostile policy, vowing to take proper measures to counter it with patience.

The North’s reaction came as the U.S. announced Tuesday that it had imposed sanctions on eight North Korean individuals and two entities for their involvement in laundering money stolen through illicit cyber activities.

The sanctions came even as U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed his wish to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to resume stalled diplomacy with Pyongyang.

Kim Un-chol, North Korea’s vice foreign minister in charge of U.S. affairs, said in a statement that by imposing fresh sanctions, the U.S. has showed its “invariable hostile” intents toward North Korea in an “accustomed and traditional way,” according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

“Now that the present U.S. administration has clarified its stand to be hostile towards the DPRK to the last, we will also take proper measures to counter it with patience for any length of time,” the statement showed.

Denouncing the U.S. for revealing its “wicked nature,” the North’s official warned Washington should not expect its tactics of pressure, appeasement, threat and blackmail against North Korea will work.

“The U.S. sanctions will have no effect on the DPRK’s thinking and viewpoint on it in the future, too, as in the past,” Kim said, using the acronym of North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

In regard to North Korea’s statement, South Korea’s unification ministry assessed the North appears to have responded to the imposition of U.S. sanctions in a “restrained” manner.

The U.S. move came as North Korea has not responded to Trump’s proposal to meet with the North’s leader during his latest trip to South Korea on the occasion of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gathering.

Earlier this week the U.S. State Department also raised the need to seek U.N. sanctions on seven ships accused of illegally exporting North Korean coal and iron ore to China in violation of U.N. Security Council sanctions over the North’s nuclear and missile programs.

South Korea’s spy agency said this week there were signs that North Korea had been preparing for a possible meeting with the U.S. in time for last week’s APEC gathering.

The National Intelligence Service said there is a high possibility that the North and the U.S. would hold a summit some time after an annual joint military exercise between South Korea and the U.S. in March next year.

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Nov. 5 (UPI) — The French government said it would begin action against online retailer Shein on Wednesday, just hours after the company opened its first brick-and-mortar store in Paris.

An outcry erupted last weekend after it was discovered that Shein was selling sex dolls that look like children, but on Tuesday, the company announced it was banning all sex dolls from the site.

On Wednesday, the government issued a statement saying: “On the instructions of the Prime Minister [Sébastien Lecornu], the government is initiating the procedure to suspend Shein for the time necessary for the platform to demonstrate to the public authorities that all of its content is finally in compliance with our laws and regulations.”

The store, which is the first Shein store in the world, also opened to chaos, as shoppers lined up to get in and protesters shouted at them, “Shame!”

Andreia Chavent, a worker at BHV Marais, said many employees were upset by the opening of Shein in Paris.

“We are directly concerned by how people work, what the conditions are like and how the clothes are made, even if it’s not in France,” Chavent, a member of the CFDT, France’s largest union, told The New York Times.

Shein has seen criticism over the way workers are treated in the Chinese factories that sell on the site.

The sex dolls controversy made things worse, Chavent added.

But not everyone is against the store.

“When I saw that Shein was coming to France, I said, ‘Yay!’ Because it still takes 20 weeks” for clothing from the site to arrive, Philippe Hamard, 27, told The Times.

He said that he doesn’t buy from Shein often because of “environmental issues and all that.” But said “I still buy from time to time for fun.”

On the sex doll controversy, he said, “I think there are a lot of controversies at the moment. But people will forget about it.”

Shein has plans to open seven stores in other cities in France.

Shein and AliExpress are also facing investigation in France over the dissemination of pornographic content to children, the prosecutor’s office told the BBC.

The Paris Office des Mineurs will handle the cases. The office oversees the protection of minors.

AliExpress said the adult listings violated its policies and were removed once the company learned of them.

“Sellers found to violate or trying to circumvent these requirements will be penalized in accordance with our rules,” AliExpress said in a statement, the BBC reported.

Nov. 5 (UPI) — The U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions against eight individuals and two entities accused of laundering proceeds from North Korean cybercrime and information technology worker fraud schemes that help fund Pyongyang’s weapons programs.

The department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said Tuesday that North Korea has stolen more than $3 billion over the past three years, using sophisticated techniques such as advanced malware and social engineering to breach financial systems and cryptocurrency platforms.

“North Korean state-sponsored hackers steal and launder money to fund the regime’s nuclear weapons program,” Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence John K. Hurley said in a statement. “By generating revenue for Pyongyang’s weapons development, these actors directly threaten U.S. and global security.”

Hurley added that the Treasury is “identifying and disrupting the facilitators and enablers behind these schemes to cut off the DPRK’s illicit revenue streams.”

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the official name of North Korea.

Among those sanctioned are Jang Kuk Chol and Ho Jong Son, North Korean bankers who allegedly helped manage illicit funds, including $5.3 million in cryptocurrency — some of it linked to ransomware that has previously targeted U.S. victims.

Korea Mangyongdae Computer Technology Co. and its president U Yong Su were also added to the list. The company allegedly operates IT-worker delegations from the Chinese cities of Shenyang and Dandong.

Ryujong Credit Bank, another target, was accused of laundering foreign-currency earnings and moving funds for sanctioned North Korean entities. Six additional individuals were designated for facilitating money transfers.

Under the sanctions, all property and interests in property of the designated individuals and entities within U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally barred from engaging in transactions with them. Financial institutions dealing with the sanctioned parties may also face enforcement actions.

The move builds on earlier U.S. actions this year against North Korean cyber networks. In July, the State Department sanctioned Song Kum Hyok, a member of the Andariel hacking group, for operating remote IT-worker schemes that funneled wages back to Pyongyang.

The Justice Department also filed criminal charges in 16 states against participants in a campaign that placed North Korean IT workers in U.S. companies.

Tuesday’s OFAC statement cited an October report by the 11-country Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team, which described North Korea’s cybercrime apparatus as “a full-spectrum, national program operating at a sophistication approaching the cyber programs of China and Russia.”

The report added that “nearly all the DPRK’s malicious cyber activity, cybercrime, laundering and IT work is carried out under the supervision, direction and for the benefit of entities sanctioned by the United Nations for their role in the DPRK’s unlawful WMD and ballistic missile programs.”

The sanctions follow President Donald Trump‘s recent visit to South Korea, where a much-anticipated meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un failed to materialize.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service told lawmakers Tuesday that a summit could take place after joint U.S.-South Korean military drills scheduled for March, according to opposition lawmaker Lee Seong-kweun of the People Power Party.

Police in Australia broke up a protest against Israeli companies taking part in a defence show in Sydney. At least one pro-Palestinian protester was seen dragged along the ground by officers.

The United States has imposed multiple sanctions on Chinese companies for assisting the Russian military-industrial complex in its war against Ukraine. The US Department of Commerce and the Treasury alleged that several Chinese companies evaded US sanctions by selling sensitive technology needed by Russia to manufacture military weapons. One of these Chinese companies subject to US sanctions and its military dealings with Russia is “Sino Electronics Chinese Company,” which is considered as a part of a network of companies that has allegedly sent shipments worth approximately $200 million to Russia since the Chinese company was placed on the US sanctions list in September 2022. The shipments sent by the “Chinese Sino Network” to Russia included several microchips, cameras, and navigation equipment, technologies critical to Russian weapons used in its war with Ukraine, according to US accusations against Beijing.

 These measures include broad US sanctions in 2024 and 2025 targeting entities in China and several other countries that support Russia’s war efforts. In October 2024, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on two Chinese drone companies, accusing them of participating in the production and supply of long-range attack drones to the Russian Air Force. Immediately following, in May 2024, US sanctions targeted Chinese companies and companies in several other countries for allegedly supplying electronic components and chemicals used in the manufacture of Russian weapons and missiles. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also warned that “the United States will take action against any Chinese companies that assist Russia in its efforts to obtain military supplies.” As a result of these US sanctions, Chinese banks have become more cautious in dealing with Russia, leading to a slowdown in trade between the two countries during 2024.

  Since July 2025, the United States has threatened to impose secondary sanctions on any entity that continues to cooperate with Russia in an attempt to isolate Moscow by striking its cross-border trade networks, particularly with China. Secondary sanctions target third parties that deal with the directly sanctioned country, Russia in particular.  The sanctions are not imposed because of the actions of the third party, but rather because of its economic ties to the sanctioned entity. Washington uses these sanctions to deter any entity that might indirectly contribute to supporting the sanctioned regime or helping it circumvent sanctions. In 2018, the United States imposed sanctions on a Chinese bank for allegedly conducting financial transactions with North Korea, even though the bank itself had not previously been subject to any sanctions.

 A series of US sanctions on China have been imposed, alleging its military cooperation with Russia in its war against Ukraine. In July 2025, US intelligence reports alleged that Chinese companies were shipping engines to the Russian arms company IEMZ Kupol by mislabeling them to evade sanctions.

The US Department of Commerce expanded its blacklist of Chinese companies and state-owned entities, alleging their cooperation with Russia and supporting it in its war against Ukraine. The US Department of Commerce added several Chinese companies to the US blacklist, including Shanghai Fudan Microelectronics, which was added to the US list of banned Chinese companies for supplying technology to the Russian military sector. Washington also imposed controls on the Chinese export sector, expanding export control restrictions to include Chinese companies that are 50% or more state-owned, as well as entities on the US blacklist. 

 Here, China has rejected all US accusations regarding its dealings with Russian military companies in its war against Ukraine. Beijing has repeatedly denied US accusations of providing military support to Russia. China has also taken several countermeasures, such as imposing sanctions on US companies, in a move to escalate trade tensions between the two countries. Regarding China’s response to US sanctions, China has publicly rejected all these accusations. At the same time, these US sanctions have raised concerns among Chinese banks and companies about secondary sanctions, which may indicate that these US measures are having an impact on trade relations between China and Russia.

 As for China’s official response to the US sanctions imposed on it for its dealings with Russia, the Chinese Foreign Ministry confirmed in an official statement that the United States, by demanding that countries stop purchasing Russian oil, is participating in threatening and undermining international trade.  In response to Trump’s threats regarding the purchase of Russian oil, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement that “China will take decisive countermeasures if its legitimate rights and interests are harmed, and that China opposes the United States using Beijing as a pretext to impose illegal unilateral sanctions on the Russian side.” The Chinese Foreign Ministry also stressed that “China has lodged a protest with Britain regarding the inclusion of Chinese companies on the sanctions list against Russia. Cooperation between Russian and Chinese companies should not be subject to interference or influence.” The Chinese Foreign Ministry also commented on the British sanctions imposed on it for allegedly dealing with Russian companies and entities, saying that “Beijing will take necessary measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.”

 China has categorically rejected all unilateral US sanctions against it, and the punitive tariffs imposed by Trump have angered Beijing. However, unlike Europe or other countries, China has shown confidence, with official Chinese authorities declaring that “it will fight to the end.” An official statement issued by China on October 13, 2025, stated that “threatening to impose high tariffs is not the right way to negotiate with China. The United States must adjust its position.” Beijing has already responded by imposing counter-tariffs and restrictions on US exports, including rare earths.

 As for the nature of the sanctions directed against Russia in 2025, these new US sanctions focus on indirectly strangling the Russian economy by pressuring countries and companies that deal with Moscow in strategic sectors such as energy, metals, and technology. In July 2025, US President Donald Trump announced a 50-day deadline for reaching a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine; otherwise, tariffs of up to 100% would be imposed on countries importing Russian oil or gas. Meanwhile, the US Congress is discussing a bill that would impose tariffs of up to 500% on Russian exports, including secondary sanctions on financing or transporting entities.  Trump warned that all companies dealing with Russia, especially Chinese companies, entities, and institutions, particularly those operating in the technology and metals sectors, could be barred from entering the US market or using the international financial system.

  Finally, regarding the impact of these unilateral US sanctions on China and other countries for allegedly dealing with Russian companies, I believe these US threats will not go unchallenged, as they could undermine confidence in the global economic system and raise questions about who has the right to punish whom and under what international legitimacy? Applying this to Russia, we find that Moscow is linked to extensive trade networks with major economies in strategic sectors such as energy, minerals, and food. These Russian entanglements with global economies make attempts to isolate Moscow a test not only of Washington’s ability but also of the ability of the entire global system to bear the cost of confrontation.

Oct. 24 (UPI) — The Treasury Department announced sanctions against Colombian President Gustavo Petro Urrego over cocaine production and smuggling into the United States.

The sanctions include Petro’s wife, first lady Veronica del Socorro Alcocer Garcia, his son Nicolas Petro and “close associate” Armando Benedettie, the Treasury Department announced Friday in a news release.

“Since President Gustavo Petro came to power, cocaine production in Colombia has exploded to the highest rate in decades, flooding the United States and poisoning Americans,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.

“President Petro has allowed drug cartels to flourish and refused to stop this activity,” Bessent said.

“Today, President [Donald] Trump is taking strong action to protect our nation and make clear that we will not tolerate the trafficking of drugs into our nation.”

The sanctions are imposed in accordance with the president’s Executive Order 14059, which targets foreigners who are involved in the global trade of illicit drugs.

The sanctions freeze all property or interests in property owned by the Petro, his wife, son and associate that are located in the United States or territories controlled by the United States.

All such properties must be reported to the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

The Treasury Department said Colombia is the world’s leading producer and exporter of cocaine that often is bought by Mexican drug cartels and smuggled into the United States.

Petro on Oct. 8 said an alleged drug-smuggling vessel that was sunk by the U.S. military in the Caribbean was manned by Colombian citizens.

He has recalled the Colombian ambassador to the United States after the U.S. military sank a vessel that was near Colombian waters and Trump halted U.S. financial support for Colombia.

Petro also met with U.S. diplomat John McNamara on Monday to ease tensions between Colombia and the Trump administration.

Petro is a former guerrilla member who became Colombia’s president in 2022 and “has provided narco-terrorist organizations with benefits under the auspices of his ‘total peace’ plan,” according to the Treasury Department.

Such policies have led to record cultivation of coca and production of cocaine, which the Treasury Department said prompted Trump to declare Colombia a “major drug-transit or major drug-producing country” that has failed to uphold its responsibility to control such activities.

The Treasury also said Petro has allied with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro‘s “narco-terrorist regime” and the Cartel de Los Soles.

The Colombian president’s activities create a significant risk of the international proliferation of illicit drugs, according to the federal agency.

MEXICO CITY — The United States slapped sanctions on Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Friday and said it was sending a massive aircraft carrier to the waters off South America, a new escalation of what the White House has described as a war against drug traffickers in the region. Also Friday, the U.S. military conducted its 10th strike on a suspected drug-running boat, killing six people in the Caribbean Sea.

The Treasury Department said it was sanctioning Petro, his wife, his son and a political associate for failing to stop the flow of cocaine to the United States, noting that cocaine production in Colombia has risen in recent years. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused Petro of “poisoning Americans.”

Petro denied those claims in a statement on X, saying he has fought to combat drug trafficking for decades. He said it was “quite a paradox” to be sanctioned by a country with high rates of cocaine consumption.

The sanctions put Petro in the same category as the leaders of Russia and North Korea and limit his ability to travel to the United States. They mark a new low for relations between Colombia and the United States, which until recently were strong allies, sharing military intelligence, a robust trade relationship and a multibillion-dollar fight against drug trafficking.

Elizabeth Dickinson, a senior analyst for the Andes region at the International Crisis Group, a think tank, said that while Petro and the U.S. government have had disagreements over how to tackle trafficking — with the Americans more interested in eradicating coca fields and Colombians focused on cocaine seizures — the two countries have been working for decades toward the same goal.

“To suggest that Colombia is not trying is false and disingenuous,” Dickinson said. “If the U.S. has a partner in counternarcotics in Latin America, it’s Colombia. Colombian forces have been working hand in hand with the Americans for literally four decades. They are the best, most capable and frankly most willing partner the U.S. has in the region.

“If the U.S. were to cut this relationship, it would really be the U.S. shooting themselves in the foot.”

Many viewed the sanctions as punishment for Petro’s criticism of Trump. In recent days, Petro has accused the U.S. of murder, saying American strikes on alleged drug boats lack legal justification and have killed civilians. He has also accused the U.S. of building up its military in South America in an attempt to topple Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The quickened pace of U.S. airstrikes in the region and the unusually large buildup of military force in the Caribbean Sea have fueled those speculations.

On Friday, a Pentagon official said the U.S. ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike group to deploy to U.S. Southern Command to “bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States.”

The USS Ford is currently deployed to the Mediterranean Sea along with three destroyers. It would probably take several days for the ships to make the journey to South America.

The White House has increasingly drawn a direct comparison between the war on terrorism that the U.S. declared after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the Trump administration’s crackdown on drug traffickers.

Trump this month declared drug cartels to be unlawful combatants and said the U.S. was in an “armed conflict” with them, relying on the same legal authority used by the Bush administration after 9/11.

When reporters asked Trump on Thursday whether he would request that Congress issue a declaration of war against the cartels, he said that wasn’t the plan.

“I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK? We’re going to kill them, you know? They’re going to be like, dead,” Trump said during a roundtable at the White House with Homeland Security officials.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Last year, Reliance Industries Ltd signed a deal with Russian major Rosneft to import nearly 500,000 barrels per day.

India’s top importer of Russian oil, the conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd, says it will abide by Western sanctions, ending several days of speculation about how the company will manage new measures targeting Russia’s two largest oil companies.

Reliance “will be adapting the refinery operations to meet the compliance requirements”, a company spokesperson said in a statement on Friday, while maintaining its relationships with suppliers.

“Whenever there is any guidance from the Indian Government in this respect, as always, we will be complying fully,” the statement added.

On Wednesday, the United States Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Russian majors Rosneft and Lukoil for the first time as President Donald Trump becomes increasingly frustrated with Russia’s unremitting war on Ukraine.

US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said the move was the result of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “refusal to end this senseless war” and encouraged allies to adhere to the new sanctions.

The following day, the European Union adopted its 19th package of measures against Russia, which includes a full transaction ban on Rosneft. The EU has previously said that, starting January 21, it will not receive fuel imports from refineries that received or processed Russian oil 60 days prior to shipping.

Reliance, chaired by billionaire businessman Mukesh Ambani, operates the world’s biggest refining complex in western Gujarat. The company has purchased roughly half of the 1.7-1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) of discounted Russian crude shipped to India, the news agency Press Trust of India reported this week.

In 2024, Reliance signed a 10-year deal with Rosneft to buy nearly 500,000 bpd, Reuters reported at the time. It also buys Russian oil from intermediaries.

Reliance did not offer details on how, exactly, it planned to navigate the sanctions – nor the fate of the 2024 Rosneft agreement – but emphasised it would comply with European import requirements.

“Reliance is confident its time-tested, diversified crude sourcing strategy will continue to ensure stability and reliability in its refinery operations for meeting the domestic and export requirements, including to Europe,” the company spokesperson said.

The sanctions also arrive as India navigates the fallout from Trump’s tariffs on Indian exports, which rose to 50 percent starting in August as a penalty for importing Russian oil. China and India are the world’s largest importers of Russian crude.

Trump has claimed multiple times over the past month that India has agreed to stop buying Russian oil as part of a broader trade deal, an assertion the Indian government has not confirmed.

Neither India’s Ministry of External Affairs nor oil ministries have responded since the sanctions were announced on Wednesday.

Washington has announced new sanctions against Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, in an effort to pressure Moscow to agree to a peace deal in Ukraine. This marks the first time the current Trump administration has imposed direct sanctions on Russia.

Speaking alongside Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump said he hoped the sanctions would not need to be in place for long, but expressed growing frustration with stalled truce negotiations.

“Every time I speak to Vladimir [Putin], I have good conversations and then they don’t go anywhere. They just don’t go anywhere,” Trump said, shortly after a planned in-person meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Budapest was cancelled.

Trump’s move is designed to cut off vital oil revenues, which help fund Russia’s ongoing war efforts. Earlier on Wednesday, Russia unleashed a new bombardment on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, killing at least seven people, including children.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the new sanctions were necessary because of “Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war”. He said that Rosneft and Lukoil fund the Kremlin’s “war machine”.

How have Rosneft and Lukoil been sanctioned?

The new measures will freeze assets owned by Rosneft and Lukoil in the US, and bar US entities from engaging in business with them. Thirty subsidiaries owned by Rosneft and Lukoil have also been sanctioned.

Rosneft, which is controlled by the Kremlin, is Russia’s second-largest company in terms of revenue, behind natural gas giant Gazprom. Lukoil is Russia’s third-largest company and its biggest non-state enterprise.

Between them, the two groups export 3.1 million barrels of oil per day, or 70 percent of Russia’s overseas crude oil sales. Rosneft alone is responsible for nearly half of Russia’s oil production, which in all makes up 6 percent of global output.

In recent years, both companies have been hit by rolling European sanctions and reduced oil prices. In September, Rosneft reported a 68 percent year-on-year drop in net income for the first half of 2025. Lukoil posted an almost 27 percent fall in profits for 2024.

Meanwhile, last week, the United Kingdom unveiled sanctions on the two oil majors. Elsewhere, the European Union looks set to announce its 19th package of penalties on Moscow later today, including a ban on imports of Russian liquefied natural gas.

How much impact will these sanctions have?

In 2022, Russian oil groups (including Rosneft and Lukoil) were able to offset some of the effects of sanctions by pivoting exports from Europe to Asia, and also using a “shadow fleet” of hard-to-detect tankers with no ties to Western financial or insurance groups.

China and India quickly replaced the EU as Russia’s biggest oil consumers. Last year, China imported a record 109 million tonnes of Russian crude, representing almost 20 percent of its total energy imports. India imported 88 million tonnes of Russian oil in 2024.

In both cases, these are orders of magnitude higher than before 2022, when Western countries started to tighten their sanctions regime on Russia. At the end of 2021, China imported roughly 79.6 million tonnes of Russian crude. India imported just 0.42 million tonnes.

Trump has repeatedly urged Beijing and New Delhi to halt Russian energy purchases. In August, he levied an additional 25 percent trade tariff on India because of its continued purchase of discounted Russian oil. He has so far demurred from a similar move against China.

However, Trump’s new sanctions are likely to place pressure on foreign financial groups which do business with Rosneft and Lukoil, including the banking intermediaries which facilitate sales of Russian oil in China and India.

“Engaging in certain transactions involving the persons designated today may risk the imposition of secondary sanctions on participating foreign financial institutions,” the US Treasury Department’s press release on Wednesday’s sanctions says.

As a result, the new restrictions may force buyers to shift to alternative suppliers or pay higher prices. Though India and China may not be the direct targets of these latest restrictions, their oil supply chains and trading costs are likely to come under increased pressure.

“The big thing here is the secondary sanctions,” Felipe Pohlmann Gonzaga, a Switzerland-based commodity trader, told Al Jazeera. “Any bank that facilitates Russian oil sales and with exposure to the US financial system could be subject.”

However, he added, “I don’t think this will be the driver in ending the war, as Russia will continue selling oil. There are always people out there willing to take the risk to beat sanctions.

“These latest restrictions will make Chinese and Indian players more reluctant to buy Russian oil – many won’t want to lose access to the American financial system. [But] it won’t stop it completely.”

According to Bloomberg, several senior refinery executives in India – who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue – said the restrictions would make it impossible for oil purchases to continue.

On Wednesday, Trump said that he would raise concerns about China’s continued purchases of Russian oil during his talk with President Xi Jinping at the 2025 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea next week.

Have oil prices been affected?

Oil prices rallied after Trump announced US sanctions. Brent – the international crude oil benchmark – rose nearly 4 percent to $65 a barrel on Thursday. The US Benchmark, West Texas Intermediate, jumped more than 5 percent to nearly $60 per barrel.

Pohlmann Gonzaga, however, predicted that the “market will correct from this 5 percent over-jump. You have to recall that sentiment in energy markets is still negative due to the gloomy [global] economic backdrop.”

The United States Treasury has sanctioned two Haitians, one a former police officer and the other an alleged gang leader, for their affiliation with the Viv Ansanm criminal alliance.

On Friday, a Treasury news release accused Dimitri Herard and Kempes Sanon of colluding with Viv Ansanm, thereby contributing to the violence wracking Haiti.

The sanctions block either person from accessing assets or property in the US. They also prohibit US-based entities from engaging in transactions with the two men.

“Today’s action underscores the critical role of gang leaders and facilitators like Herard and Sanon, whose support enables Viv Ansanm’s campaign of violence, extortion, and terrorism in Haiti,” Bradley T Smith, the director of the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in a statement.

Since taking office for a second term, US President Donald Trump has sought to take a hardline stance against criminal organisations across Latin America, blaming the groups for unregulated immigration and drug-trafficking on US soil.

Trump has termed their actions a criminal “invasion”, using nativist rhetoric to justify military action in international waters.

Viv Ansanm has been part of Trump’s crackdown. On his first day in office, on January 20, Trump issued an executive order setting the stage for his administration to label Latin American criminal groups as “foreign terrorist organisations”.

That process began several weeks later. In May, Viv Ansanm and another Haitian criminal organisation, Gran Grif, were added to the growing list of criminal networks to receive the “foreign terrorist” designation.

Since the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise in 2021, a power vacuum has formed in Haiti. The last national elections were held in 2016, and its last democratically elected officials reached the end of their terms in 2023.

That has created a crisis of public confidence that criminal networks, including gangs, have exploited to expand their power. Viv Ansanm is one of the most powerful groups, as a coalition of gangs largely based in the capital, Port-au-Prince.

In July, Ghada Waly, the executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, warned that the gangs now have “near-total control of the capital”, with 90 percent of its territory under their control.

Nearly 1.4 million people have been displaced in the country as a result of the gang violence, a 36 percent increase over 2024. Last year, more than 5,600 people were killed, and a further 2,212 injured.

In Friday’s sanctions, the US Treasury accused Herard, the former police officer, of having “colluded with the Viv Ansanm alliance”, including through training and the provision of guns.

It also noted that Herard had been imprisoned by Haitian authorities for involvement in the Moise assassination. He later escaped in 2024.

Sanon, meanwhile, is identified as the leader of the Bel Air gang, part of the Viv Ansanm alliance. The Treasury said he “played a significant role” in building Viv Ansanm’s power, and it added that he has been implicated in killings, extortion and kidnappings.

The UN Security Council echoed the US’s sanctions against Sanon and Herard, designating both men on Friday. It also agreed to extend its arms embargo on Haiti, which began in 2022.

In September, the UNSC also approved the creation of a “gang suppression force”, with a 12-month mandate to work with Haitian police and military. That force is expected to replace a Kenyan-led mission to reinforce Haiti’s security forces, and it is slated to include 5,550 people.

But on Friday, the Trump administration said that the UN had not gone far enough in its efforts to combat Haiti’s gangs. It called for more designations against individual suspects.

“While we applaud the Council for designating these individuals, the list is not complete. There are more enablers of Haiti’s insecurity evading accountability,” an open letter from US Ambassador Jennifer Locetta read.

“Haiti deserves better. Colleagues, we will continue pressing for more designations through the Security Council and its subsidiary bodies to ensure the sanctions lists are fit for purpose.”

Oct. 10 (UPI) — The United States has sanctioned more than 50 people, entities and vessels accused of facilitating the sale of Iranian oil and liquefied petroleum gas, as the Trump administration continues to tighten its financial vise on Tehran.

The sanctions target nearly two dozen shipping vessels, a China-based crude oil terminal and a Chinese so-called teapot refinery that the Treasury accuses of moving hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of LPG for Iran.

The Treasury said that Shandong Jincheng Petrochemical Group, an independent teapot refinery in Shandong Province, has purchased millions of barrels of Iranian oil since 2023, receiving the shipments worth hundreds of millions of dollars via Iran’s shadow fleet of vessels.

The China-based Rizhao Shihua Crude Oil Terminal was also blacklisted for accepting more than a dozen of those shadow fleet ships.

“The Treasury Department is degrading Iran’s cash flow by dismantling key elements of Iran’s energy export machine,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.

“Under President [Donald] Trump, this administration is disrupting the regime’s ability to fund terrorist groups that threaten the United States.”

The sanctions are the fourth round of the second Trump administration to target China-based refiners accused of purchasing Iranian oil and follow the U.S. blacklisting of facilitators of Iran’s oil trade on Aug. 22 and a network of dozens of individuals, entities and vessels that make up Tehran’s shipping network on July 30.

The sanctions continue the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign that failed during his first term to bring Iran to the negotiating table on a new deal.

The punitive policy was initially launched in 2018, when Trump withdrew the United States from a landmark multinational Obama-era accord aimed at preventing Iran from securing a nuclear weapon as part of efforts to cobble together one of his own.

The maximum pressure campaign of sanctions and other measures was employed in an effort to compel Iran to resume negotiations on a new deal.

Instead, Iran continued to advance its nuclear program.

The previous Biden administration attempted to restart negotiations with Iran on reinstating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, but those prospects were dashed when Iran-backed Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The second iteration of the maximum pressure campaign was launched on Feb. 4 with Trump’s signing of National Security Presidential Memorandum 2, which seeks to “impose maximum pressure on the Iranian regime to end its nuclear threat, curtail its ballistic missile program and stop its support for terrorist groups.”

The policy’s second iteration is a broader focus on China’s aid to Iran, secondary sanctions and a targeting of Tehran’s shadow fleet

The sanctions announced Thursday coincided with the Treasury also sanctioning a network of individuals and companies assisting Iran with evading U.S. sanctions.

It also blacklisted 44 individuals and firms accused of being involved in Iran’s nuclear program and weapons procurement network earlier this month.

The US on Wednesday announced new sanctions on dozens of individuals and entities tied to Iran’s nuclear and weapons programs, in support of the recent “snapback” sanctions by the UN on Tehran, Anadolu reports.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement that 44 individuals and entities have been designated, including five people and one entity allegedly linked to Iran’s Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (SPND), which he described as the successor to Iran’s pre-2004 nuclear weapons program.

The US also imposed additional export restrictions on 26 entities and three procurement-linked addresses.

“These actions highlight the importance of the September 27 re-imposition of sanctions and other restrictions on Iran pursuant to multiple UN Security Council resolutions,” Rubio said. “We will not hesitate to hold accountable anyone who supports Tehran’s proliferation activities.”

The measures come after France, Germany and the UK invoked a “snapback” mechanism under UN Security Council Resolution 2231, restoring sanctions that had been suspended since the 2015 nuclear deal.

READ: Iran slams reimposition of UN sanctions, accuses Europeans of abusing nuclear deal

Iran is facing new pressure due to its nuclear programme.

European powers have re-imposed sanctions that were lifted as part of a landmark 2015 nuclear agreement.

They target Iran’s banking, oil, and other crucial sectors. There is also an embargo on arms imports.

Western allies say Iran has not been cooperating with the United Nations nuclear watchdog, and that its nuclear programme poses a threat to international security.

Tehran has always maintained that its nuclear programme is for civilian use, and says it is ready to weather the storm.

So, is there still room for diplomacy?

Presenter: Nick Clark

Guests:

Ellie Geranmayeh – senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, and a specialist in Europe-Iran relations

Mark Fitzpatrick – former US diplomat, and associate fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies

Marzie Khalilian – Iranian political analyst and researcher at Carleton University, focusing on US-Middle East relations.

Sept. 28 (UPI) — A decade after they were lifted, economic and military sanctions were reimposed on Iran Sunday over its nuclear program.

Britain, France and Germany have accused Iran of “continued nuclear escalation,” and reactivated what is known as a “snapback mechanism” over Iran’s lack of cooperation to de-escalate the country’s nuclear program.

Iran suspended inspections of its nuclear facilities under terms of a 2015 deal after Israel and the United States bombed several of the country’s nuclear sites in June.

Iranian President Masound Pezeshkian has continued to maintain that his country has no intentions of developing nuclear weapons, and made the claim again last week.

Pezeshkian has called the reimposition of sanctions “unfair, unjust and illegal,” and a setback to Iran’s fledgling relations with the West.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action limits Iran’s nuclear facilities, stockpiles of enriched uranium and the amount of research it is allowed to undertake. It allows Iran to develop nuclear infrastructure, but not weapons.

Iran escalated its nuclear program after President Donald Trump pulled out of the JCPOA during his first term in 2018.

European negotiators told the U.N. Security Council in August that Iran had violated “the near entirety of its JCPOA commitments,” and gave the country a month’s warning to scale back its nuclear program before Russia assumed control of the Security Council in October.

Several meetings with Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi have produced no progress in meeting key European demands, including evidence that Iran is working on a diplomatic solution, complying with inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency and disclosing the whereabouts of more than 400 kg of highly enriched uranium.

The European nations have also called for resumed talks between Iran and the United States.

The UK, France and Germany have called on Iran not to escalate tensions and to pursue negotiations after UN sanctions were reinstated on Saturday.

The three countries said they had “no choice” but to bring back the sweeping measures against Tehran “as a last resort” over its “continued nuclear escalation” and lack of cooperation.

“We urge Iran to refrain from any escalatory action,” they said in a joint statement, adding: “The reimposition of UN sanctions is not the end of diplomacy.”

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian insisted last week that the country had no intention of developing nuclear weapons, and condemned the re-imposition of international sanctions as “unfair, unjust, and illegal”.

The United Nations’ sweeping economic and military sanctions were reimposed on Iran at 00:00 GMT on Saturday – a decade after they were lifted in a landmark international deal over its nuclear programme.

Iran stepped up banned nuclear activity after the US quit the deal in 2016. Donald Trump pulled the US out in his first term as president, criticising the deal – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – negotiated under his predecessor Barack Obama, as flawed.

Talks between the three countries and Iran on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly earlier this week failed to produce a deal which would have delayed the sanctions being reimposed.

In a joint statement early on Sunday, the foreign ministers of the three European countries, known as the E3, said: “Given that Iran repeatedly breached these commitments, the E3 had no choice but to trigger the snapback procedure, at the end of which those resolutions were brought back into force.”

In the meantime, they said they would “continue to pursue diplomatic routes and negotiations”.

They cited Iran’s failure to “take the necessary actions to address our concerns, nor to meet our asks on extension, despite extensive dialogue”.

Specifically, they mentioned Tehran’s refusal to cooperate with the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA.

“Iran has not authorised IAEA inspectors to regain access to Iran’s nuclear sites, nor has it produced and transmitted to the IAEA a report accounting for its stockpile of high-enriched uranium,” the statement read.

Iran suspended IAEA inspection after Israel and the US bombed several of its nuclear sites and military bases in June.

Under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran is legally obliged to allow inspections of its nuclear sites, and on Friday, the IAEA confirmed that they had resumed.

But while Iran has been in talks with the IAEA to find a way forward, it has also warned that a return of sanctions will put that in jeopardy.

Pezeshkian has walked back from his earlier threats for Iran to quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

But, speaking to reporters on Friday, he added that Tehran would need reassurances that its nuclear facilities would not be attacked by Israel in order to normalise its nuclear enrichment programme.

He also rejected a US demand to hand over all of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium in return for a three-month exemption from sanctions, saying: “Why would we put ourselves in such a trap and have a noose around our neck each month?”

Iran said on Saturday it was recalling its ambassadors to Britain, France and Germany for consultations.