US & Canada

US military says the strikes are in response to an ISIL ambush that killed three American personnel in Palmyra last month.

The United States has carried out another round of “large-scale” attacks against the ISIL or ISIS group in Syria following an ambush that killed two American soldiers and a civilian interpreter in the city of Palmyra last month.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement on Saturday that the attacks occurred at about 17:30 GMT and hit “multiple ISIS targets across Syria”.

“Our message remains strong: if you harm our warfighters, we will find you and kill you anywhere in the world, no matter how hard you try to evade justice,” CENTCOM said.

The statement did not say whether anyone was killed in the strikes.

Grainy aerial video accompanying the statement, posted on X, showed several separate explosions, apparently in rural areas.

CENTCOM said the attacks were carried out alongside partner forces, without specifying which forces had taken part.

The US is calling the response to the Palmyra attacks Operation Hawkeye Strike. The ambush on December 13 involved a lone gunman, who Syria’s Ministry of Interior said was a member of the security forces and had been set to be fired for his hardline views.

The US military launched Operation Hawkeye Strike on December 19, with a large-scale strike that hit 70 targets across central Syria that had ISIL infrastructure and weapons.

It said on December 30 that its forces had killed or captured about 25 ISIL fighters following the launch of Operation Hawkeye Strike.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces has for years been the US’s main partner in the fight against ISIL in Syria, but since the ouster of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, Washington has increasingly been coordinating with the central government in Damascus.

Syria joined the global coalition against ISIL after reaching an agreement late last year, when Syrian President Ahmed ‍al-Sharaa visited the White House.

Syrian officials said last month that leading ISIL figure Taha al-Zoubi had been arrested in the Damascus countryside.

US President Donald Trump has long been sceptical of Washington’s presence in Syria, ordering the withdrawal of troops during his first term, but ultimately leaving American forces in the country.

About 1,000 US troops remain in Syria.

The US military has said it would further reduce the number of American personnel in Syria and eventually reduce its bases in the country to one.

Protesters demand justice for Renee Nicole Good, a mother of three shot dead by an ICE agent in Minneapolis this week.

Protests against US President Donald Trump’s militarised anti-immigration push are sweeping the United States, after the killing of a Minneapolis woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent sparked outrage this week.

Indivisible, a social movement group, said hundreds of demonstrations were scheduled in Texas, Kansas, New Mexico, Ohio, Florida and other US states on Saturday.

“ICE’s violence is not a statistic, it has names, families, and futures attached to it, and we refuse to look away or stay silent,” Leah Greenberg, Indivisible’s co-executive director, said in a statement.

Steven Eubanks, 51, said he felt compelled to attend a protest in Durham, North Carolina, because of what he called the “horrifying” killing of Renee Nicole Good by the ICE agent in Minneapolis on Wednesday.

“We can’t allow it,” Eubanks told The Associated Press news agency. “We have to stand up.”

Senior Trump administration officials have justified Good’s killing, saying she “weaponised” her vehicle and threatened the life of the ICE officer who shot and killed her.

But video footage from the scene showed Good attempting to drive away before being shot by ICE agent Jonathan Ross.

The incident has renewed scrutiny of Trump’s push to deploy heavily armed law enforcement officers to carry out an anti-immigrant crackdown across the US, with local authorities demanding that ICE agents leave their cities.

The killing of Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, came as the US Department of Homeland Security pushes ahead with what it has called its largest-ever immigration enforcement operation in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

‘ICE Out For Good’

Many of Saturday’s protests were dubbed “ICE Out for Good”, with organiser Indivisible saying the rallies aimed to “mourn the lives taken and shattered by ICE and to demand justice and accountability”.

In Minneapolis, a coalition of migrant rights groups called for a demonstration at Powderhorn Park, a large green space near the residential neighbourhood where the deadly shooting occurred on Wednesday.

They said the rally would call for an “end to deadly terror on our streets”.

Reporting from a rally in Minneapolis on Saturday afternoon, Al Jazeera’s Manuel Rapalo said the protesters have been expressing outrage “but overwhelmingly, we hear people say they’re here to demonstrate peacefully.”

“We’re also hearing a lot of calls for justice. What I’m not hearing is too much optimism that there will be justice in this case,” Rapalo said, referring to Good’s killing.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who demanded that ICE leave the city after the deadly incident, said on Saturday that 29 people had been arrested overnight as police responded to continued protests.

Frey stressed that while most protests have been peaceful, those who damage property or endanger others will be arrested.

Minneapolis ​Police ‌Chief Brian O’Hara said one police officer ‌was injured ‌during the ⁠protest response.

Meanwhile, three US lawmakers representing Minnesota attempted to tour an ICE facility in the Minneapolis federal building on Saturday morning but were told to leave after initially being allowed to enter.

US Congresswomen Ilhan Omar, Kelly Morrison and Angie Craig accused ICE agents of obstructing members of Congress from fulfilling their duty to oversee operations there.

“They do not care that they are violating federal law,” Craig said after being turned away.

Cloudlflare CEO threatens withdrawal of Milano-Cortina Olympics funding following fine by Italian communications watchdog.

United States internet company Cloudflare has threatened to pull its services in Italy, including for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, after being fined 14 million euros ($16m) for failing to tackle online piracy.

Italy’s independent communications watchdog, Agcom, announced the fine on Thursday for “ongoing violation of the anti-piracy law”, notably failing to disable content flagged under its “Piracy Shield” system.

The system allows rightsholders of livestreamed events to report pirated content through an automated platform, with providers required to block the content within 30 minutes.

In a lengthy post on X late Friday, Cloudflare chief executive Matthew Prince condemned what he said was a “scheme to censor the internet”.

He said the system had “no judicial oversight”, no appeal process and no transparency, and required services to block content not just in Italy, but globally.

Cloudflare had already launched legal challenges against the scheme and would now fight the fine, which he called “unjust”.

He also said his company was considering “discontinuing the millions of dollars in pro bono cyber-security services we are providing the upcoming Milano-Cortina Olympics”.

Prince said he would be discussing the issue with US officials in Washington, DC, next week and would then head to Lausanne for talks with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which is organising the February 6-22 Winter Games in northern Italy.

He also warned his company could discontinue its free cybersecurity services for Italy-based users, remove all servers from Italian cities and scrap plans to invest in the country.

Cloudflare is a platform that provides services including security, traffic management and optimisation for websites and applications.

It claims to manage about 20 percent of global internet traffic.

Agcom says that since its adoption in February 2024, Piracy Shield has led to the disabling of at least 65,000 fully-qualified domain names (FQDN) and approximately 14,000 IP addresses.

Since taking the White House in January last year, President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that he wants to annex Greenland “very badly,” with a range of options on the table, including a military attack.

Amid opposition from Greenlandic lawmakers, Trump doubled down on Friday, threatening that the United States is “going to do something [there] whether they like it or not”.

“If we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland. And we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbour,” Trump said at a meeting with oil and gas executives at the White House.

“I would like to make a deal, you know, the easy way. But if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way,” he added.

Since the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro last week from Caracas in a military operation, Trump and his officials have upped the ante against the Greenlandic capital, Nuuk.

So, what are the ways that US President Trump could take control of Greenland, a territory of Denmark?

Is Trump considering paying out Greenlanders?

Paying out to Greenland’s nearly 56,000-strong population is an option that White House officials have been reportedly discussing.

Located mostly within the Arctic Circle, Greenland is the world’s largest island, with 80 percent of its land covered by glaciers. Nuuk, the capital, is the most populated area, home to about one-third of the population.

Trump’s officials have discussed sending payments to Greenlanders – ranging from $10,000 to $100,000 per person – according to a Reuters report, in a bid to convince them to secede from Denmark and potentially join Washington.

Greenland is formally a part of Denmark, with its own elected government and rules over most of its internal affairs, including control over natural resources and governance. Copenhagen still handles foreign policy, defence and Greenland’s finances.

But since 2009, Greenland has the right to secede if its population votes for independence in a referendum. In theory, payouts to Greenland residents could be an attempt to influence their vote.

Trump shared his ambitions of annexing Greenland during his first term as well, terming it “essentially a large real estate deal.”

If the US government were to pay $100,000 to each Greenland resident, the total bill for this effort would amount to about $5.6bn.

Can the US ‘buy’ Greenland?

Earlier this week, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt confirmed to reporters on Wednesday that Trump’s officials are “actively” discussing a potential offer to buy the Danish territory.

During a briefing on Monday with lawmakers from both chambers of Congress, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told them that Trump would prefer to buy Greenland rather than invade it. Rubio is scheduled to hold talks with Danish leaders next week.

Both Nuuk and Copenhagen have repeatedly insisted that the island “is not for sale”.

There are few modern historical precedents to compare Trump’s threats with Greenland, much like the abduction of Maduro on his orders.

The US purchased Louisiana from France in 1803 for $15m and Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7.2m. However, both France and Russia were willing sellers — unlike Denmark and Greenland today.

Washington has also purchased territory from Denmark in the past. In 1917, the US, under President Woodrow Wilson, bought the Danish West Indies for $25m during World War I, later renaming them the United States Virgin Islands.

Can Trump really just pay off his way?

While Greenlanders have been open to departing from Denmark, the population has repeatedly refused to be a part of the US. Nearly 85 percent of the population rejects the idea, according to a 2025 poll commissioned by the Danish paper Berlingske.

Meanwhile, another poll, by YouGov, shows that only 7 percent of Americans support the idea of a US military invasion of the territory.

Jeffrey Sachs, an American economist and a professor at Columbia University, told Al Jazeera, “The White House wants to buy out Greenlanders, not to pay for what Greenland is worth, which is way beyond what the US would ever pay.”

“Trump thinks he can buy Greenland on the cheap, not for what it’s worth to Denmark or Europe,” he said. “This attempt to negotiate directly with the Greenlanders is an affront and threat to Danish and European sovereignty.”

Denmark and the European Union “should make clear that Trump should stop this abuse of European sovereignty,” said Sachs. “Greenland should not be for sale or capture by the US.”

Sachs added that the EU needs to assess “[Greenland’s] enormous value as a geostrategic region in the Arctic, filled with resources, vital for Europe’s military security.” And, he added, “certainly not a plaything of the United States and its new emperor”.

Denmark and the US were among the 12 founding members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949 to provide collective security against Soviet expansion.

“Europe should tell the US imperialists to go away,” Sachs said. “[Today] Europe is far more likely to be invaded from the West (US) than from the East,” the economist told Al Jazeera.

Has the US tried to buy Greenland earlier?

Yes, on more than one occasion.

The first such proposal surfaced in 1867 under Secretary of State William Seward, during discussions to successfully purchase Alaska. By 1868, he was reportedly prepared to offer $5.5m in gold to acquire both Greenland and Iceland.

In 1910, a three-way land swap was discussed that would involve the US acquiring Greenland in exchange for giving Denmark parts of the US-held Philippines, and the return of Northern Schleswig from Germany back to Denmark was proposed.

A more formal attempt was made in 1946, immediately following World War II. Recognising Greenland’s critical role in monitoring Soviet movements, President Harry Truman’s administration offered Denmark $100m in gold for the island.

But Denmark flatly rejected the idea.

Can the US attack Greenland?

While political analysts say that a US attack to annex Greenland would be a direct violation of the NATO treaty, the White House has said that using military force to acquire Greenland is among the options.

Denmark, a NATO ally, has also said that any such attack would end the military alliance.

“We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark isn’t going to be able to do it,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday. “It’s so strategic.”

Greenland is one of the world’s most sparsely populated, geographically vast regions.

But through a 1951 agreement with Denmark, the US military already has a significant presence on the island.

The US military is stationed at the Pituffik Space Base, formerly known as Thule Air Base, in the northwestern corner of Greenland, and the 1951 pact allows Washington to set up additional “defence areas” on the island.

The Thule base supports missile warning, missile defence, space surveillance missions, and satellite command and control.

Nearly 650 personnel are stationed at the base, including US Air Force and Space Force members, with Canadian, Danish and Greenlandic civilian contractors. Under the 1951 deal, Danish laws and taxation don’t apply to American personnel on the base.

Denmark also has a military presence in Greenland, headquartered in Nuuk, where its main tasks are surveillance and search and rescue operations, and the “assertion of sovereignty and military defense of Greenland and the Faroe Islands”, according to Danish Defence.

But the US forces at Thule are comfortably stronger than the Danish military presence on the island. Many analysts believe that if the US were to use these troops to try to occupy Greenland, they could do so without much military resistance or bloodshed.

Trump told reporters on Sunday that “Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place”. Both global powers have a presence in the Arctic Circle; however, there is no evidence of their ships anywhere near Greenland.

Is there another option for the US?

As Trump’s officials mull plans to annex Greenland, there have reportedly been discussions in the White House on entering into a type of agreement that defines a unique structure of sovereignty-sharing.

Reuters reported that officials have discussed putting together a Compact of Free Association, an international agreement between the US and three independent, sovereign Pacific island nations: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Republic of Palau.

The political arrangement grants the US responsibility for defence and security in exchange for economic assistance. The precise details of COFA agreements vary depending on the signatory.

For a COFA agreement, in theory, Greenland would need to separate from Denmark.

Asked why the Trump administration had previously said it was not ruling out using military force to acquire Greenland, Leavitt replied that all options were always on the table, but Trump’s “first option always has been diplomacy”.

Why does Trump want Greenland badly?

Trump has cited national security as his motivation for wanting to take Greenland.

For the US, Greenland offers the shortest route from North America to Europe. The US has expressed interest in expanding its military presence in Greenland by placing radars in the waters connecting Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom. These waters are a gateway for Russian and Chinese vessels, which Washington aims to track.

But Greenland is also home to mineral riches, including rare earths. According to a 2023 survey, 25 of 34 minerals deemed “critical raw materials” by the European Commission were found in Greenland. Scientists believe the island could also have significant oil and gas reserves.

However, Greenland does not carry out the extraction of oil and gas, and its mining sector is opposed by its Indigenous population. The island’s economy is largely reliant on its fishing industry at the moment.

After years of public criticism directed at Europe, US President Donald Trump put together a National Security Strategy (NSS) that reflected his twisted perceptions. Still, it is one thing to hear his stage rhetoric and another to see his worldview codified in official doctrine. Its core claim: Europe will be “unrecognisable in 20 years” due to “civilisational erasure” unless the United States, “sentimentally attached” to the continent, steps in to restore its “former greatness”.

Trump is right, Europe has problems. But they are not what he claims.

Decades of underinvestment in people, persistent political incentives to ignore excluded communities and a reluctance to confront how demographic and economic decline interact, go unaddressed. Political leaders largely avoid this conversation. Some deny these problems, others concede them privately while publicly debating symptoms but not addressing the root causes.

A clearer perspective can be found among those who live with these failures. Across Europe, millions in the working class struggle to survive amid shuttered factories, underfunded schools, unaffordable housing and broken public services. Among them, the Roma sharpen the picture. As Europe’s largest and most dispossessed minority, their experience exposes the continent’s choice to treat entire populations as collateral damage. When Trump presses on Europe’s wounds, these communities confirm where it hurts.

What Trump gets right about Europe

The NSS argues that Europe’s “lack of self-confidence” is most visible in its relationship with Russia. Yes, Europe’s paralysis towards Moscow contrasts with its aggression towards weaker groups at home. This reflects the lack of confidence in European values.

Trump is right. We’re weak. If we were strong, we would stand up for European values of democracy and pluralism. We would not demonise our minorities.

But we do. Across the continent, Roma communities face racist policies. In Slovenia, following a bar fight that spiralled into public hysteria, the national legislature passed a law in November to securitise Roma neighbourhoods.

In Portugal, Andre Ventura of the far-right Chega party put up posters saying “G****es have to obey the law” as part of his presidential campaign. In Italy, far-right politician Matteo Salvini built an entire political brand on anti-Roma paranoia. In Greece, the police shoot at Roma youth for minor crimes.

Leaders over-securitise the Roma while overcompensating for their caution towards Russia.

The NSS also highlights Europe’s declining share of global gross domestic product, from 25 percent in 1990 to 14 percent today. Regulations play a part, so does demographic decline, but the deeper problem is Europe’s failure to invest in all its people.

Twelve million Roma, the youngest population in Europe, remain locked out of education, employment and entrepreneurship through structural barriers and discrimination, even though surveys show their overwhelming willingness to contribute to the societies they live in and their high success rates when they run businesses that receive support.

If Roma employment in Romania, Slovakia and Bulgaria – where their unemployment rates are currently 25 percentage points above those of the majority population – matched national averages, the combined GDP gain could be as much as 10 billion euros ($11.6bn). In a continent losing two million workers a year, letting this labour potential go unused is self-sabotage.

Trump is right about Europe’s declining share of GDP. If Europe were serious, it would not believe it can leave Roma people on the scrap heap.

The NSS further warns of “subversion of democratic processes”, and while he is not talking about minorities, it is true that Europe does fall short.  Proportionally, according to our estimates at the Roma Foundation, they should hold over 400 seats.

The European Parliament includes seats for Malta and Luxembourg, states with populations of 570,000 and 680,000, respectively; yet, it does not include any seats for the Roma community.

Trump is right that we have a democratic deficit. But it’s not because of laws against hate speech and constitutional barriers to the far right. The most pressing deficit is that 12 million Roma are not represented.

A continent that wastes its population cannot be competitive, and one that suppresses parts of its electorate cannot claim to be representative. Political exclusion reduces voter turnout and registration rates, leading to systematically underrepresentative institutions, while economic exclusion makes communities easier targets for vote-buying, coercion and political capture.

What Europe really needs

Trump’s proposed solution for Europe’s crisis would not resolve anything. He seems to assume that far-right pseudo-sovereigntists, opposed to immigration and minorities alike, can reverse Europe’s decline.

The evidence suggests otherwise. Countries where xenophobia influences policy have not performed well. In the United Kingdom, where the far right drove a campaign to leave the European Union over fears of migration, experts have calculated that GDP is 6-8 percent lower than it would have been without Brexit. In Hungary, where the government of Viktor Orban has enacted various anti-migrant and discriminatory policies, there is stagnant economic growth, a high budget deficit and frozen EU funds. Exclusion weakens economies and makes democracies vulnerable.

Empowering the ideological heirs of forces that the United States once helped Europe defeat would not aid the continent’s recovery. In fact, this “restoration” to power of extremist right-wing ideology would deepen Europe’s dependence on Washington, then Moscow.

It is also true that Europe cannot survive global realpolitik, leaning on liberal nostalgia, multilateral summits or rhetorical commitments, either.

What Europe needs is inclusive realism: the recognition that investing in all people is not charity but a strategic necessity. China’s rise illustrates this. Decades of investment in health, education and employment have expanded human capital, increased productivity and reshaped global power balances.

Europe cannot afford to waste its own population potential while expecting to remain a relevant player. The real choice is not between liberals and the far right, but between deepening its wounds by sidelining millions or beginning to heal by investing in the people it has long treated as expendable.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

A new video has emerged showing the final moments of a Minnesota woman’s encounter with an immigration officer before she was killed, as public uproar grows in the United States over the shooting and exclusion of local agencies from the investigation.

A Minnesota prosecutor on Friday called on the public to share with investigators any recordings and evidence connected to the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, 37, who was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent.

A new, 47-second video published online by a Minnesota-based conservative news site, Alpha News, on Friday, and later reposted on social media by the Department of Homeland Security, shows the shooting from the perspective of ICE officer Jonathan Ross, who fired the shots on Wednesday.

With sirens blaring in the background, Ross, 43, approaches and circles Good’s vehicle in the middle of the road while apparently filming on his cellphone. At the same time, Good’s wife was also recording the encounter and can be seen walking around the vehicle and approaching the officer.

A series of exchanges occurred.

“That’s fine, I’m not mad at you,” Good says as the officer passes by her door. She has one hand on the steering wheel and the other outside the open driver’s side window.

“US citizen, former f—ing veteran,” says her wife, standing outside the passenger side of the SUV holding up her phone. “You wanna come at us, you wanna come at us, I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy.”

Other officers approach the driver’s side of the car at about the same time, and one says, “Get out of the car, get out of the f—ing car.”

Ross is now at the front driver’s side of the vehicle. Good reverses briefly, then turns the steering wheel towards the passenger side as she drives ahead, and Ross opens fire. The camera becomes unsteady and points towards the sky, then returns to the street view showing Good’s SUV careening away.

“F—ing b—-,” someone at the scene says.

A crashing sound is heard as Good’s vehicle smashes into others parked on the street.

Minnesota officials slam federal agencies

President Donald Trump’s administration has defended the ICE agent who shot Good in her car, painting her as a “domestic terrorist” and claiming Ross – an Iraq War veteran – was protecting himself and the fellow agents. The White House insisted the video gave weight to the officer’s claim of self-defence – even though the clip does not show the moment the car moved away, or him opening fire.

Local officials in Minnesota have condemned federal agencies for excluding them from the probe, and a local prosecutor said on Friday that federal investigators had taken Good’s car and shell casings from the scene.

“This is not the time to bend the rules. This is a time to follow the law… The fact that Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice and this presidential administration has already come to a conclusion about those facts is deeply concerning,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, told a news briefing on Friday.

“We know that they’ve already determined much of the investigation,” he said, adding that the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, within its department of public safety, has consistently run such investigations.

“Why not include them in the process?” Frey said.

Good was the fourth person to be killed by ICE agencts since Trump launched his immigration crackdown last year.

Good’s wife, Becca Good, told local media that they had gone to the scene of immigration enforcement activity to “support our neighbours”. “We had whistles. They had guns,” she said.

The Minneapolis killing and a separate shooting in Portland, Oregon, on Thursday by the Border Patrol have set off protests in multiple US cities and denunciations of immigration enforcement tactics by the US government.

Protests in Minneapolis continued on Friday, with hundreds gathered at a federal facility that has become a focal point of anti-ICE demonstrations. Hundreds of weekend protests have been planned across the US over the killing, according to organisers.

President Donald Trump said his administration will decide which oil companies are allowed to operate in Venezuela, as he met oil executives at the White House less than a week after the US abduction of Venezuela’s president.

United States President Donald Trump has called on oil executives to rush back into Venezuela as the White House looks to quickly secure $100bn in investments to revive the country’s ability to fully tap into its expansive reserves of petroleum.

Trump, as he opened the meeting with oil industry executives on Friday, sought to assure them that they need not be sceptical of quickly investing in and, in some cases, returning to the South American country with a history of state asset seizures as well as ongoing US sanctions and the current political uncertainty.

“You have total safety,” Trump told the executives. “You’re dealing with us directly and not dealing with Venezuela at all. We don’t want you to deal with Venezuela.”

Trump added: “Our giant oil companies will be spending at least $100bn of their money, not the government’s money. They don’t need government money. But they need government protection.”

Trump welcomed the oil executives to the White House after US forces earlier on Friday seized their fifth tanker over the past month that has been linked to Venezuelan oil. The action reflected the determination of the US to fully control the exporting, refining and production of Venezuelan petroleum, a sign of the Trump administration’s plans for ongoing involvement in the sector as it seeks commitments from private companies.

“At least 100 Billion Dollars will be invested by BIG OIL, all of whom I will be meeting with today at The White House,” Trump said on Friday in a predawn social media post.

The White House said it invited oil executives from 17 companies, including Chevron, which still operates in Venezuela, as well as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, which both had oil projects in the country that were lost as part of a 2007 nationalisation of private businesses under former President Nicolas Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez.

“If we look at the commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it’s un-investable,” said Darren Woods, ExxonMobil CEO. “And so significant changes have to be made to those commercial frameworks, the legal system, there has to be durable investment protections and there has to be change to the hydrocarbon laws in the country.”

Benjamin Radd, a senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations, told Al Jazeera that he had “noted the hesitation and less-than-full-throated enthusiasm for re-entering the Venezuelan market”, citing Woods, who told the gathering that the company had its assets there seized twice already.

“The bottom line is that until Trump can outline and provide assurances of a plan towards political stability, it will continue to be a risky endeavour for these oil companies to re-engage Venezuela. And what is there is a regime change in Iran in the days or weeks or months to come, and all of a sudden that re-emerges as a place where Western oil companies can do business? Even though the reserves don’t equal what Venezuela has, the risk is far less, and the infrastructure is more sound,” Radd said.

Other companies invited included Halliburton, Valero, Marathon, Shell, Singapore-based Trafigura, Italy-based Eni and Spain-based Repsol, as well as a vast swath of domestic and international companies with interests ranging from construction to the commodity markets.

Wait and see

Large US oil companies have so far largely refrained from affirming investments in Venezuela, as contracts and guarantees need to be in place. Trump has suggested that the US would help to backstop any investments.

Venezuela’s oil production has slumped below one million barrels per day (bpd). Part of Trump’s challenge to turn that around will be to convince oil companies that his administration has a stable relationship with Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez, as well as protections for companies entering the market.

While Rodriguez has publicly denounced Trump and the abduction and ouster of Maduro, the US president has said that to date, Venezuela’s interim leader has been cooperating behind the scenes with his administration.

Most companies are in a wait-and-see mode as they await terms from the Venezuelans, stability and wait to find out how much the US government will actually help, said Rachel Ziemba, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

Those like Chevron that are already in there are in a better position to increase investments as they “already have sunk costs”, Ziemba pointed out.

Ziemba said she expects a partial ramp-up in the first half of this year as the volumes that were going to China – Venezuelan oil’s largest buyer – are redirected and sold via the US. “But long-term investments will be slow,” she said as companies wait to find out about US commitments and Venezuelan terms.

Tyson Slocum, director of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen’s energy programme, criticised the gathering and called the US military’s removal of Maduro “violent imperialism”. Slocum added that Trump’s goal appears to be to “hand billionaires control over Venezuela’s oil”.

So far, the US government has not said how the revenue from the sale of Venezuelan oil will be shared and what percentage of the sales would be given to Caracas.

Ziemba said she was worried that “if funds do not go to Venezuela for basic goods, among other local needs, there will be instability that will deepen the country’s economic crisis“.

In the news conference on Friday, Trump said the US had a formula for distributing payments. UCLA’s Radd said that “if the US can or will guarantee security and stability, it makes sense for it to expect a return on investment in that sense. But then this makes it sound more like a mafia-style ‘racket’ than a government-led operation”, he told Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, the US and Venezuelan governments said on Friday they were exploring the possibility of restoring diplomatic relations between the two countries, and a delegation from the Trump administration arrived in the South American nation on Friday.

There are more signs that the United States is disengaging from the global order established after World War II.

President Donald Trump has ordered his administration to pull out of more than 60 agencies, half of them part of the United Nations.

Trump argues that being a member of these organisations is contrary to his country’s interests.

The secretary of state went as far as saying they’re useless or wasteful.

This move has prompted global outrage, with the UN saying its ‘responsibility to deliver’ will not waver.

So, where does this all leave the multilateral global order?

Presenter: James Bays

Guests:

Adolfo Franco – Republican strategist and former adviser to US Senator John McCain

Andrew Gilmour – Former UN assistant secretary-general for human rights

Matthew Duss – Executive VP of the Center for International Policy and a former foreign policy adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders

UK PM Keir Starmer’s office says move to limit access to paying subscribers ‘insulting’ to victims and ‘not a solution’.

Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok has limited image generation on the social media platform X amid growing backlash over its use to create sexualised deepfakes of women and children.

Grok told X users on Friday that image generation and editing features were now available only to paying subscribers.

The standalone Grok app, which operates separately from X, still allows users to generate images without a subscription.

The move comes after Musk was threatened with fines and several countries pushed back publicly against the tool that allowed users to alter online images to remove the subjects’ clothes.

The European Commission said on Monday that such images circulating on X were unlawful and appalling.

The United Kingdom’s data regulator also said it had asked the platform to explain how it was complying with data protection laws following concerns that Grok was generating sexually abusive images of women.

On Friday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office called the move to limit access to paying subscribers “insulting” to victims and “not a solution”.

“That simply turns an AI feature that allows the creation of unlawful images into a premium service,” a Downing Street spokesperson said. “It’s insulting the victims of misogyny and sexual violence.”

The EU executive, for its part, said it had “taken note of the recent changes”.

But EU digital affairs spokesperson Thomas Regnier told reporters, “This doesn’t change our fundamental issue, paid subscription or non-paid subscription.”

“We don’t want to see such images. It’s as simple as that,” he said, adding, “What we’re asking platforms to do is to make sure that their design, that their systems do not allow the generation of such illegal content.”

The European Commission has ordered X to retain all internal documents and data related to Grok until the end of 2026 in response to the uproar about the sexualised images.

France, Malaysia and India have also criticised Musk’s platform over the issue.

Musk said last week that anyone using Grok to create illegal content would face the same consequences as uploading such material directly.

This is not the first time that Grok has been criticised, after the chatbot last year was slammed for providing anti-Semitic responses to questions from X users.

In July, Musk’s artificial intelligence firm xAI disabled Grok’s text replies and deleted posts after the chatbot praised Adolf Hitler and made anti-Semitic remarks.

US president also says he will meet oil executives at White House on Friday to discuss Venezuela’s oil industry.

United States President Donald Trump has said he cancelled a second ⁠wave of attacks on Venezuela following “cooperation” from the South American nation.

The ​president said on Friday that Venezuela was releasing a large ‍number of political prisoners as a sign of “seeking peace”, following last week’s US military operation to abduct President Nicolas Maduro.

“This is a very ‍important and ⁠smart gesture. The USA and Venezuela are working well together, especially as it pertains to rebuilding, in a much bigger, better, and more modern form, their oil and gas infrastructure,” Trump said on Truth Social.

“Because of this cooperation, I have cancelled the previously expected second Wave of Attacks, which looks like it will ​not be needed, however, all ships will stay ‌in place for safety and security purpose,” his post added.

Trump’s comments come hours after he indicated in an interview on Fox News’s Hannity programme that Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was ‌coming to Washington next week, after previously dismissing the idea of working with her, saying that “she doesn’t ‌have the support within or the respect within ⁠the country”.

The Republican president, however, had told The New York Times on Wednesday that the US was “getting along very well” with the Venezuelan government, led by acting interim President Delcy ‌Rodriguez.

During the Fox interview, Trump also said he would meet oil executives at the White House on Friday and that the oil companies would spend ‍at least $100bn in Venezuela, which he repeated in his Truth Social post.

“At least 100 Billion Dollars will be invested by BIG OIL, all of whom I will be meeting with today at The White House,” Trump wrote on his social media platform ahead of the gathering, where he was expected to convince the oil heads to support his plans in Venezuela.

The Trump administration has repeatedly said that it is running Venezuela, with Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Wednesday asserting that Washington will control the country’s oil industry “indefinitely”.

Rodriguez, who was Maduro’s deputy, has said that her government remains in charge, with the state-run oil firm saying only that it was in negotiations with the United States on oil sales.

US outlet NBC News reported that the heads of Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips are expected at the White House meeting.

“It’s just a meeting to discuss, obviously, the immense opportunity that is before these oil companies right now,” Trump’s spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday.

Chevron is the only US company that currently has a licence to operate in Venezuela. Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips left the country in 2007, after refusing then-President Hugo Chavez’s demand that they give up a majority stake in local operations to the government.

Sanctioned by Washington since 2019, Venezuela sits on about a fifth of the world’s oil reserves and was once a major crude supplier to the United States.

But it produced only about 1 percent of the world’s total crude output in 2024, according to OPEC, having been hampered by years of underinvestment, sanctions and embargoes.

Trump sees the country’s massive oil reserves as a windfall in his fight to further lower US domestic fuel prices, a major political issue.

But he could face an uphill task convincing the major US oil companies to invest in Venezuela due to uncertainty about governance post-Maduro, security and the enormous expense of restoring production facilities.

On Saturday, United States military forces carried out a dramatic strike in Venezuela that resulted in the capture and forcible removal of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. They were flown to New York and are now in federal custody. Maduro appeared in federal court on drug and weapons charges and pleaded not guilty. Several governments, international legal experts and United Nations officials have described the military operation as an illegal “kidnapping” and a breach of international law. The UN secretary-general warned that it sets a “dangerous precedent”, undermining foundational norms of sovereignty under the UN Charter.

Yet, as Washington justifies its operation primarily with rhetoric about oil and narcotics, a deeper inspection reveals another dynamic: This was first and foremost an ideological battle, shaped by domestic political incentives in the US – in particular the strategic influence of Florida’s electorate and its political elite.

Oil is not the prime motive

The mainstream narrative frames Venezuela’s enormous oil reserves – officially among the largest proven in the world at roughly 298 billion to 303 billion barrels – as the core strategic prize. But a closer, evidence-based analysis shows the immediate economic rationale to be weak.

US crude imports from Venezuela, once significant, have dwindled to about 220,000 barrels per day (bpd) as of 2024, representing less than 4 percent of US crude imports. By contrast, imports from Canada dominate, accounting for roughly 60 to 63 percent of US crude import needs, and US production of light crude has risen sharply, reducing dependence on foreign sources. This shift undermines claims that Venezuelan oil alone is a strategic imperative.

Why does Venezuelan crude matter at all? The answer lies in its composition. Venezuelan oil is heavy and sour, the type that many US Gulf Coast refineries were designed to process. This, however, reflects refinery configuration rather than any compelling immediate strategic case. Furthermore, Venezuelan oil infrastructure has deteriorated over years of underinvestment with output falling from about 3.5 million bpd to roughly 1 million bpd by 2025, and a meaningful revival would require many years of sustained and consistent investment. Markets reacted only modestly to the capture of Maduro with global oil prices remaining relatively stable, suggesting that oil was not the main driver of the operation.

Not drugs either: Pretext vs reality

US officials have cited drug trafficking and “narcoterrorism” as part of the justification for the intervention. Maduro and other senior Venezuelan officials are indicted in the US on charges linked to alleged cocaine trafficking, and these accusations have been reiterated in court. However, research by international agencies and independent analysts suggests that, while Venezuelan territory is used as a transit route, it is not a major source of the drugs entering the US, which are overwhelmingly produced and trafficked through Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. This gap between the scale of the drug trade and the rationale invoked has led many analysts to view the narcotics argument as a pretext rather than a primary driver of the operation.

Florida, ideology and domestic political incentives

A more persuasive rationale emerges when the domestic political incentives shaping US foreign policy are examined, particularly the role of Florida’s electorate and elite networks. With 31 electoral votes, Florida remains a pivotal state in presidential elections, where narrow margins mean even modest shifts among key constituencies can determine national outcomes.

This political reality is reinforced by Florida’s large and politically mobilised Latino communities. Cuban American voters have long prioritised anti-communist foreign policy positions while Venezuelan American communities, many of whom settled in the state over the past decade, have expressed strong opposition to authoritarian leftist governance in Caracas. Political scientists note that these constituencies constitute a significant voting bloc in closely contested elections, giving political elites strong incentives to adopt hardline positions against leftist regimes that resonate with these voters.

At the centre of this dynamic stands Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state and a Florida native whose political biography is deeply rooted in opposition to leftist governments in Latin America. Rubio’s family fled communist Cuba, and he has consistently championed confrontational policies towards socialist and authoritarian regimes in the region. Reports suggest that, during negotiations, Maduro offered concessions on oil and economic matters that could have been commercially beneficial, but advisers aligned with Florida’s political interests reportedly pushed for a harder line, prioritising ideological confrontation over economic pragmatism.

Florida’s political ecosystem also includes influential donor networks that have historically supported hawkish foreign policy positions, including well-organised pro-Israel constituencies with leverage at state and national levels. In recent months, high-profile visits by Israeli leaders to Florida and sustained engagement with US political figures have reinforced ideological alignments that frame regimes perceived as hostile to Israel or aligned with its adversaries as challenges requiring decisive responses. The convergence of electoral incentives, ideological commitments and elite networks helps explain why US policy towards Venezuela has been shaped as much by domestic political drivers as by external strategic interests.

Lessons for the Middle East

The implications for Middle Eastern actors are profound.

First, international law appears weakened. The US capture of a sitting head of state without multilateral authorisation underscores a willingness to sidestep international legal norms when domestic political imperatives are prioritised. The ineffectiveness UN Charter’s prohibition on the use of force absent Security Council approval or clear self-defence appears to have been discounted, eliciting global concern.

Second, the Middle East’s strategic relevance persists, albeit in an evolving context. While global energy markets are less dependent on Middle Eastern oil than in prior decades, other factors – capital flows, counterterrorism cooperation, strategic geography and enduring security partnerships – maintain the region’s importance. Intensifying US-China competition and Washington’s concern over closer China-Middle East ties will likely continue to anchor US engagement in the region. Israel, for its part, is expected to sustain robust lobbying efforts in Washington and European capitals to preserve its strategic relationships.

Yet the Venezuela episode illustrates that alliances predicated chiefly on energy security can be fragile and ideological and domestic political drivers can abruptly reshape foreign policy priorities. Middle Eastern states must, therefore, pursue a calibrated diplomatic strategy: engaging the US where interests converge while hedging against abrupt shifts driven by internal political calculations.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

US president signals he is not ready to back the Israel-aligned opposition figure to lead Iran in case of regime change.

United States President Donald Trump has ruled out meeting with Iran’s self-proclaimed Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, suggesting that Washington is not ready to back a successor to the Iranian government, should it collapse.

On Thursday, Trump called Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah who was toppled by the Islamic revolution of 1979, a “nice person”. But Trump added that, as president, it would not be appropriate to meet with him.

“I think that we should let everybody go out there and see who emerges,” Trump told The Hugh Hewitt Show podcast. “I’m not sure necessarily that it would be an appropriate thing to do.”

The US-based Pahlavi, who has close ties to Israel, leads the monarchist faction of the fragmented Iranian opposition.

Trump’s comments signal that the US has not backed Pahlavi’s offer to “lead [a] transition” in governance in Iran, should the current system collapse.

The Iranian government is grappling with protests across several parts of the country.

Iranian authorities cut off access to the internet on Thursday in an apparent move to suppress the protest movement as Pahlavi called for more demonstrations.

The US president had previously warned that he would intervene if the Iranian government targets protesters. He renewed that threat on Thursday.

“They’re doing very poorly. And I have let them know that if they start killing people – which they tend to do during their riots, they have lots of riots – if they do it, we’re going to hit them very hard,” Trump said.

Iranian protests started last month in response to a deepening economic crisis as the value of the local currency, the rial, plunged amid suffocating US sanctions.

The economy-focused demonstrations started sporadically across the country, but they quickly morphed into broader antigovernment protests and appear to be gaining momentum, leading to the internet blackout.

Pahlavi expressed gratitude to Trump and claimed that “millions of Iranians” protested on Thursday night.

“I want to thank the leader of the free world, President Trump, for reiterating his promise to hold the regime to account,” he wrote in a social media post.

“It is time for others, including European leaders, to follow his lead, break their silence, and act more decisively in support of the people of Iran.”

Last month, Trump also threatened to attack Iran again if it rebuilds its nuclear or missile programmes.

The US bombed Iran’s three main nuclear facilities in June as part of a war that Israel launched against the country without provocation.

On top of its economic and political crises, Iran has faced environmental hurdles, including severe water shortages, deepening its domestic unrest.

Iran has also been dealt major blows to its foreign policy as its network of allies has shrunk over the past two years.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was toppled by armed opposition forces in December 2024; Hezbollah was weakened by Israeli attacks; and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has been abducted by the US.

But Iran’s leaders have continued to dismiss US threats. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei doubled down on his defiant rhetoric after the US raid in Caracas on Saturday.

“We will not give in to the enemy,” Khamenei wrote in a social media post. “We will bring the enemy to its knees.”

Federal agents in the United States have shot and injured two people in the city of Portland, Oregon, a city where the administration of President Donald Trump has led an immigration enforcement crackdown.

The shooting was the second time in less than a day that federal immigration authorities claimed to have fired upon a vehicle in self-defence, following a deadly shooting in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

On Thursday, the Portland Police Department announced they had responded to reports of gunfire on southeast Main Street at about 2:18pm local time (22:18 GMT).

“Officers confirmed that federal agents had been involved in a shooting,” the city said in a statement.

Emergency responders then received a call for assistance from one of the shooting victims, a man, at about 2:24pm (22:24 GMT) near Northeast 146th Avenue and East Burnside in Portland’s Hazelwood neighbourhood.

“Officers responded and found a male and female with apparent gunshot wounds,” the statement said. “Officers applied a tourniquet and summoned emergency medical personnel.”

The two shooting victims were transported to hospital. Their conditions remain unknown, according to the police, who were not involved in the shooting.

The local bureau of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed the shooting in a now-deleted post on social media, saying that the incident involved Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents.

“This remains an active and ongoing investigation led by the FBI,” Portland’s FBI bureau said in the post.

Later, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) offered its own account of what happened, describing the shooting as self-defence during a “targeted vehicle stop”.

In a social media post, DHS said its target was a passenger travelling inside a vehicle, who was affiliated with a “transnational Tren de Aragua prostitution ring and involved in a recent shooting”. The driver, DHS claimed, was a member of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang.

“When agents identified themselves to the vehicle occupants, the driver weaponized his vehicle and attempted to run over the law enforcement agents,” DHS said in the post.

“Fearing for his life and safety, an agent fired a defensive shot. The driver drove off with the passenger, fleeing the scene.”

Second agent-involved shooting

Details about Thursday’s shooting remain unknown. But the administration of President Donald Trump has faced criticism for misrepresenting incidents where federal agents deployed violence as part of its nationwide immigration crackdown.

The Portland shooting comes one day after an agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, in her car in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

“Just one day after the horrific violence in Minnesota at the hands of federal agents, our community here in Portland is now grappling with another deeply troubling incident,” Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said in a statement.

“We cannot sit by while constitutional protections erode and bloodshed mounts.”

Good’s death has triggered widespread outrage, as well as criticism that the Trump administration rushed to disseminate a misleading narrative about the Minneapolis shooting.

Video of Good’s shooting showed the 37-year-old stopped in her SUV on a snowy Minneapolis road, appearing to wave other drivers by.

A vehicle carrying ICE officers stopped next to her vehicle, and agents approached her, reaching for the handle of her car door. One approached the front of her vehicle. As her car appeared to turn and manoeuvre away, that agent fired multiple times into the vehicle, killing Good.

In that case, too, Trump administration officials claim the ICE agent acted in self-defence, despite the fact that the vehicle did not seem to make contact with his body.

Trump asserted – without evidence – that Good was a “professional agitator” who “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer”. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also accused Good of a “domestic act of terrorism”, despite there being no evidence Good sought to harm the ICE agent.

Democratic officials have accused the Trump administration of spreading false narratives to distract from its own abuses during the immigration crackdown.

Still, officials in Portland repeatedly called for calm in the aftermath of Thursday’s shooting, while acknowledging the parallels between the incidents.

“We are still in the early stages of this incident,” Portland Police Chief Bob Day said in a statement.

“We understand the heightened emotion and tension many are feeling in the wake of the shooting in Minneapolis, but I am asking the community to remain calm as we work to learn more.”

Mayor Wilson, meanwhile, called for federal immigration agents to leave the city, arguing that they had endangered local citizens with their heavy-handed actions.

“Portland is not a ‘training ground’ for militarized agents, and the ‘full force’ threatened by the administration has deadly consequences,” Wilson said.

“As Mayor, I call on ICE to end all operations in Portland until a full investigation can be completed. Federal militarization undermines effective, community‑based public safety, and it runs counter to the values that define our region.”

Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, meanwhile, expressed “huge concern” over the incident and suggested that responding with anger would only fuel the Trump administration’s fixation with Portland.

“Trump wants to generate riots,” he wrote. “Don’t take the bait.”

Portland under a microscope

Portland has long been a focal point of Trump’s immigration enforcement actions, and the increased federal presence has ignited largely nonviolent protests in response.

Long seen as a Democratic stronghold, Portland was identified in May as one of the “sanctuary jurisdictions” that the Trump administration identified as resisting its immigration crackdown.

The Republican president hinted he could surge federal agents to the area in response.

In September, those threats appeared to materialise when Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that he would be sending the US military to support immigration operations in the city.

The announcement came five days after Trump declared antifa – the loose-knit antifascist movement – a “domestic terrorist organisation”.

“I am directing Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists,” Trump wrote. “I am also authorizing Full Force, if necessary.”

It was the latest in the string of instances where Trump attempted to send federal troops to largely Democratic urban areas, including Los Angeles and Chicago, Illinois.

Local officials denounced the deployment as a violation of the law and a misuse of executive authority. But the Trump administration doubled down, describing Portland as overrun by criminal behaviour.

“ In Portland, Oregon, antifa thugs have repeatedly attacked our officers and laid siege to federal property in an attempt to violently stop the execution of federal law,” Trump said at an October roundtable.

In response, some protesters in Portland began arriving in inflatable frog costumes, in an effort to cast Trump’s warnings about violent extremists as absurd. The Portland Frog Brigade, as the protesters were called, inspired similar demonstrations nationwide.

State and local leaders fought Trump’s troop deployment in court, and on November 7, US District Judge Karin Immergut permanently blocked the deployment.

The US Supreme Court in December declined the Trump administration’s appeal to allow National Guard troops in areas where lower courts had barred them.

On Thursday, Mayor Wilson called for accountability in the recent shootings, saying he would protect local residents’ civil liberties.

“ICE agents and their Homeland Security leadership must be fully investigated and held responsible for their violence against the American people, in Minnesota, in Portland, and across the nation,” he said.

He repeated the message that Portland residents should not seek retribution in the aftermath of the gunfire.

“Portland does not respond to violence with violence. We respond with clarity, unity, and a commitment to justice. We must stand together to protect Portland,” he said.

United States President Donald Trump has dismissed international law, saying only his “own morality” can curb the aggressive policies he is pursuing across the world after the abduction of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro.

“I don’t need international law. I’m not looking to hurt people,” Trump told The New York Times on Thursday.

Asked whether he needs to abide by international law, Trump said he does, but it “depends what your definition of international law is”.

Trump has shown a willingness to use the brute force of the US military to achieve his foreign policy goals.

On Saturday, the US launched an early-morning attack on Venezuela, with explosions reported across the capital Caracas and at Venezuelan military bases.

US troops ultimately abducted Venezuelan President Maduro from Caracas in what critics say was a clear violation of the United Nations Charter, which prohibits “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state”.

The attack on Venezuela appears to have supercharged the belligerence of the US president, who received the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize Award last month.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Trump said the US would “run” Venezuela and exploit the country’s vast oil reserves, though his administration has said it would cooperate with interim President Delcy Rodriguez.

Still, the Trump administration said it would “dictate” policy to the interim government and repeatedly threatened a “second wave” of military actions if US demands were disobeyed.

“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump said of Rodriguez in a Sunday interview with The Atlantic.

Earlier this week, Trump also suggested that the US may carry out a strike against Colombia’s left-wing President Gustavo Petro, and he has escalated his campaign to acquire the Danish territory of Greenland.

In June, Trump joined Israel’s unprovoked war against Iran, ordering the bombing of the country’s three main nuclear sites.

Trump aide Stephen Miller has criticised the post-World War II international order, saying that, from here forward, the US would “unapologetically” use its military force to secure its interests in the Western Hemisphere.

“We’re a superpower, and under President Trump, we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower,” Miller told CNN on Monday.

But experts warn that disregard for international law could have catastrophic consequences for the entire global community, including the US.

International law is the set of rules and norms that govern ties between states. It includes UN conventions and multilateral treaties.

Margaret Satterthwaite, the UN special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, told Al Jazeera earlier this week that US statements dismissing international law are “extremely dangerous”.

Satterthwaite said she is concerned the world may be returning to an “age of imperialism”, stressing that degrading international laws may embolden Washington’s adversaries to launch their own acts of aggression.

“International law cannot stop states from doing terrible things if they’re committed to doing them,” Satterthwaite told Al Jazeera.

“And I think that the world is aware of all of the atrocities that have happened in Gaza recently, and despite efforts by many states and certainly by the UN to stop those atrocities, they continued. But I think we’re worse off if we don’t insist on the international law that does exist. We’ll simply be going down a much worse kind of slippery slope.”

Yusra Suedi, an assistant professor of international law at the University of Manchester, warned against the belief that “might is right” and the trend towards disregarding international law.

“It signals something very dangerous, in that it gives permission to other states to essentially follow suit – states such as China, who might be eyeing Taiwan, or Russia with respect to Ukraine,” Suedi told Al Jazeera.

Ian Hurd, a professor of political science at Northwestern University, said history illustrates the perils of US policies in Latin America.

The region has witnessed more than a century of US invasions and US-supported military coups, leading to instability, repression and human rights abuses.

“There are innumerable examples historically of this, from Panama to Haiti to Nicaragua to Chile in the ’70s and on and on,” Hurd told Al Jazeera.

He added that Trump’s policies in Venezuela are “in line” with how the US has previously attempted to decide how other parts of the Americas are governed.

“You can see that in every one of those cases, the US came to regret its choice to intervene. These never work well.”

As manhunt is under way, police do not believe attack was random but neither was it likely to be attack on religion.

Two people have been killed and several injured in a shooting in the car park of a Mormon church in the Utah capital of Salt Lake City in the United States.

Police said the shooting occurred on Wednesday in the car park of a meetinghouse of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where dozens of people were attending a funeral.

Three of the six injured victims are in critical condition.

Police confirmed that no suspect was in custody and have launched a manhunt, with the FBI reportedly offering assistance.

While police said they did not believe the shooting was random, Salt Lake City Police Chief Brian Redd told The Associated Press news agency it did not appear to be a targeted attack against a religion.

Church spokesman Glen Mills told reporters there had been signs of a fracas outside the church, where the funeral was taking place.

“Out in the parking lot, there was some sort of altercation took [place] and that’s when shots were fired,” he said.

About 100 law enforcement vehicles were at the scene in the aftermath, with helicopters flying overhead.

“As soon as I came over, I see someone on the ground… People are attending to him and crying and arguing,” said Brennan McIntire, a local man who spoke to AP.

Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall said, “This should never have happened outside a place of worship. This should never have happened outside a celebration of life.”

The church, which has headquarters in Salt Lake City, is cooperating with law enforcement.

About half of Utah’s 3.5 million residents are members of the faith. Churches like the one where the shooting occurred can be found in towns throughout the city and state.

The faith has been on heightened alert since four people were killed when a former Marine opened fire in a Michigan church last month and set it ablaze.

The FBI found that he was motivated by “anti-religious beliefs” against the church.

About 82 percent of mass killings in the US in 2025 involved a firearm, according to a database maintained by AP alongside USA Today and Northeastern University.

The shooting in Salt Lake City occurred amid growing unrest in the US, after a federal officer with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) fatally shot a woman in Minneapolis amid ongoing protests against an immigration crackdown.

The sweeping changes will see the US quit major forums for cooperation on climate change, peace and democracy.

United States President Donald Trump has announced that he plans to withdraw the US from 66 United Nations and international organisations, including major forums for cooperation on climate change, peace and democracy.

In a presidential memorandum shared by the White House on Wednesday evening, Trump said that the decision came after a review of which “organizations, conventions, and treaties are contrary to the interests of the United States”.

The changes would see the US cease participation and also cut all funding to the affected entities, Trump added.

The list shared by the White House included 35 non-UN organisations, including notably the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance and the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Although the IPCC was included in the list of non-UN bodies by the White House, it is a UN organisation that brings together top scientists to assess the evidence related to climate change and provide periodic scientific assessments to help inform political leaders.

In addition, the White House said it was withdrawing from 31 UN entities, including the UN’s top climate change treaty body, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the UN Democracy Fund and the top UN entity working on maternal and child health, the UNFPA.

Several of the UN entities targeted also focused on protecting at-risk groups from violence during wars, including the UN Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children in Armed Conflict.

In a note to correspondents on Wednesday evening, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said that the UN expected to respond to the announcement by Thursday morning.

Despite publicly claiming he wants the US to have less involvement in UN forums, Trump has not held back from influencing decision-making at the international level.

In October last year, Trump threatened to impose sanctions on diplomats who formally adopted a levy on polluting shipping fuels that had already been agreed to at an earlier meeting, effectively sinking the deal for 12 months.

The Trump administration also imposed sanctions on UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, after she published a report documenting the role of international and US companies in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

In 2017, Trump also threatened to cut aid from countries that voted in support of a draft UN resolution condemning the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the US also holds considerable power at the United Nations, as one of only five countries able to veto measures it doesn’t like, a power the US repeatedly used to block efforts to end Israel’s war on Gaza before mediating a ceasefire late last year.

Since beginning his second term in January last year, Trump has already withdrawn the US from the World Health Organization (WHO), the Paris climate agreement and the UN human rights council.

Trump also quit these three organisations during his first administration, but the withdrawals were all later reversed by the administration of former US President Joe Biden.

The US withdrawal from the WHO is set to come into effect on January 22, 2026, one year after it was ordered by the White House.

Between 2024 and 2025, the US contributed $261m in funding to the WHO, amounting to about 18 percent of the funding the organisation receives for its work encouraging global cooperation on a wide range of pressing health issues, including tuberculosis and pandemics, like COVID-19.

The Trump administration has also continued a US funding ban on the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, that began under Biden.

Trump has ‘greenlit’ bipartisan push to sanction countries that buy Russian energy exports, Lindsey Graham says.

United States President Donald Trump has backed a bill to impose sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil, including China and India, an influential Republican senator has said.

Lindsey Graham, a senator for the US state of South Carolina, said on Wednesday that Trump had “greenlit” the bipartisan bill following a “very productive” meeting.

Graham’s Sanctioning Russia Act, drafted with Democrat Richard Blumenthal, would give Trump the authority to impose a tariff of up to 500 percent on imports from countries doing business with Russia’s energy sector.

“This bill will allow President Trump to punish those countries who buy cheap Russian oil fueling Putin’s war machine,” Graham said in a statement, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

““This bill would give President Trump tremendous leverage against countries like China, India and Brazil to incentivize them to stop buying the cheap Russian oil that provides the financing for Putin’s bloodbath against Ukraine.”

China and Russia continue to be major buyers of Russia’s oil despite US and European sanctions imposed on the Russian energy sector in response to Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

China bought nearly half of Russia’s crude oil exports in November, while India took about 38 percent of exports, according to an analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. Brazil dramatically ramped up its purchase of subsidised Russian oil after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but those imports have fallen substantially in recent months.

The latest US push to increase pressure on Russia comes as Moscow and Kyiv are engaged in Washington-brokered negotiations to bring an end to the nearly four-year war.

On Tuesday, the Trump administration for the first time gave its backing to European proposals for binding security guarantees for Ukraine, including post-war truce monitoring and a European-led multinational force.

Russia, which has repeatedly said that it will not accept any deployment of NATO member countries’ soldiers in Ukraine, has yet to indicate that it would support such security measures.

In his statement on his bill, Graham said the legislation was timely in light of the current situation in Ukraine.

“This will be well-timed, as Ukraine is making concessions for peace and Putin is all talk, continuing to kill the innocent,” he said.

United States President Donald Trump has issued a stern warning to defence contractors that supply the US military, accusing them of profiteering.

In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, he threatened to take action if the companies failed to take specific actions, including capping executive pay, investing in the construction of factories and producing more military equipment at a faster clip.

“MILITARY EQUIPMENT IS NOT BEING MADE FAST ENOUGH,” Trump wrote at one point in his lengthy, 322-word post.

“It must be built now with the Dividends, Stock Buybacks, and Over Compensation of Executives, rather than borrowing from Financial Institutions, or getting the money from your Government.”

Trump singled out the technology company Raytheon as the worst offender, in his eyes.

“I have been informed by the Department of War that Defense Contractor, Raytheon, has been the least responsive to the needs of the Department of War, the slowest in increasing their volume, and the most aggressive spending on their Shareholders rather than the needs and demands of the United States Military,” Trump wrote in a follow-up post.

The president threatened to sever government ties with Raytheon, now known as RTX, which earns billions from its defence contract work.

Just last August, the Department of Defence awarded the firm $50bn – the maximum possible – for a 20-year contract to supply the military with equipment, services and repairs.

“Our Country comes FIRST, and they’re going to have to learn that, the hard way,” Trump warned.

Defence spending fuels a significant portion of the US economy: As of 2024, Defence Department spending represented approximately 2.7 percent of the US gross domestic product (GDP).

Normally, the total defence budget hovers around $1 trillion. But in a Wednesday evening post on Truth Social, Trump announced that he would petition congressional Republicans to boost that amount to a record $1.5 trillion for fiscal year 2027.

“This will allow us to build the ‘Dream Military’ that we have long been entitled to and, more importantly, that will keep us SAFE and SECURE, regardless of foe,” Trump wrote.

Still, Trump’s threats sent stocks for defence contractors plummeting, amid uncertainty over the future of the high-stakes industry.

Since taking office for a second term, Trump has taken an aggressive, hands-on approach to private companies that have ties to national security concerns.

In June, for instance, the Trump administration was awarded a “golden share” in the metal company US Steel, in exchange for giving a green light to its merger with Japan’s Nippon Steel. That share allows the Trump administration to essentially have a veto over any major action US Steel may take to reorganise or dissolve.

Then, in August, the technology firm Intel struck a deal to sell the US government a 10-percent stake in its company, amid pressure from Trump.

The Trump administration has continued to snap up stakes in other private firms, most notably mining companies involved in the production of rare earth minerals and other raw materials used in technology.

It is not yet clear how Trump plans to enforce his demands for the defence contractors he blasted in Wednesday’s social media messages. Nor is it certain that Trump could legally enforce his orders.

But Trump aired a list of grievances against the companies, including that their executives’ pay was simply too large.

“Executive Pay Packages in the Defense Industry are exorbitant and unjustifiable given how slowly these Companies are delivering vital Equipment to our Military, and our Allies,” he wrote at one point.

At another, he called on the private firms to invest in new construction projects, a request he has made across industries, from the pharmaceutical sector to automakers.

“From this moment forward, these Executives must build NEW and MODERN Production Plants, both for delivering and maintaining this important Equipment, and for building the latest Models of future Military Equipment,” Trump said.

“Until they do so, no Executive should be allowed to make in excess of $5 Million Dollars which, as high as it sounds, is a mere fraction of what they are making now.”

He also complained that the defence companies were “far too slow” in offering repairs for their equipment.

Defence contractors are responsible for a range of services and products, from software to training to missiles and tanks. RTX, for example, designed the Patriot Missile, the US’s flagship surface-to-air missile system, and it keeps the US military supplied with spare parts and other updates.

Based in Virginia, the company boasted sales exceeding $80bn in 2024. Just this week, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) awarded RTX a $438m contract to update its radar system.

Still, Trump maintained that too much of that income was going to shareholders, executive pay and stock buybacks, wherein a company purchases its own shares in order to limit their supply and increase their value.

“Defense Contractors are currently issuing massive Dividends to their Shareholders and massive Stock Buybacks, at the expense and detriment of investing in Plants and Equipment,” Trump wrote.

“This situation will no longer be allowed or tolerated!”

The Trump administration has accused Somali officials of destroying a World Food Programme warehouse that contained US-funded food aid.

The United States says that it has suspended all assistance to the government of Somalia, alleging that officials destroyed a World Food Programme warehouse filled with food aid it funded.

In a social media post on Wednesday, the administration of US President Donald Trump alleged that Somali officials had seized 76 metric tonnes of donor-funded food aid that had been intended for Somalis in need.

“The US is deeply concerned by reports that Federal Government of Somalia officials have destroyed a US-funded World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse and illegally seized 76 metric tons of donor-funded food aid for vulnerable Somalis,” the post said.

“The Trump Administration has a zero-tolerance policy for waste, theft, and diversion of life-saving assistance.”

The announcement was made on the social media platform representing the US State Department’s Under Secretary for Foreign Assistance, Humanitarian Affairs and Religious Freedom.

Somali officials have not yet responded to the allegations of aid theft.

Still, the stark measure continues a recent trend under the Trump administration. In recent months, President Trump has leaned into criticism of Somalis living in the United States and placed restrictions on Somalis seeking to enter the US.

His administration has also stepped up air strikes targeting armed groups in Somalia itself.

Notably, in a December cabinet meeting, Trump personally levelled racist attacks against the Somali community in the US, saying they are “destroying America”. He also attacked Ilhan Omar, a Democratic representative from Somalia who arrived in the US as a child refugee.

“We’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” Trump said at the December 2 meeting.

“Ilhan Omar is garbage, just garbage. Her friends are garbage. These aren’t people that work. These aren’t people that say, ‘Let’s go, come on, let’s make this place great.’ These are people that do nothing but complain.”

As part of his tirade, Trump cited a fraud scandal in the midwestern state of Minnesota, which has seen some members of the large Somali community there charged with wrongdoing.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has since indicated that Trump could use denaturalisation – the revocation of US citizenship – as “a tool” to penalise Somali Americans involved in the fraud scheme.

The Trump administration has also ramped up immigration enforcement raids in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a city with the largest Somali community in the US.

The Trump administration has dramatically scaled back US humanitarian assistance since returning to the White House in 2025, and it is not clear how much aid will be affected by the suspension of assistance.

Trump’s Democratic predecessor Joe Biden had provided about $770m in assistance for projects in Somalia, but only a small portion went towards the Somali government.

In announcing Wednesday’s aid freeze, the US State Department signalled that assistance could resume – but only with an acknowledgement of responsibility from the Somali government.

“Any resumption of assistance will be dependent upon the Somali Federal Government, taking accountability for its unacceptable actions and taking appropriate remedial steps.”