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Tag: Venezuela

  • Democrats Want to Run on Affordability. Trump Has Other Plans.

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    Congressional Democrats have their issue for 2026.
    Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

    One of the big political stories of 2025 was the Democrats’ search for a message that could bring their party back from its calamitous 2024 losses. They began with a lot of confusion and divisions. Some progressives wanted, as they have for many years, a “populist” economic message that bashed “oligarchs,” heartless corporations, and global elites. Some centrists wanted to begin the comeback by jettisoning “woke” cultural stances and paying much more attention to moderate-minded median voters. Everyone acknowledged that Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris had failed to fully comprehend the damage that persistent inflation was doing to voter perceptions of their competence and compassion. And there was a potential common ground between centrist advocates of an “abundance” agenda that would help Democrats get big things done that benefited regular folks in tangible ways, and progressive billionaire-bashers who also focused on helping people make ends meet, albeit through different measures.

    It’s hard to identify the precise moment when these varying strands came together into a message and agenda on “affordability.” But a big breakthrough occurred on November 5, 2025, when centrist gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey and Virginia and one notable progressive mayoral candidate in New York all won smashing victories by focusing on the rising living costs that belied Trump’s 2024 promises that he would bring back pre-pandemic prices on virtually everything. It wasn’t working just in blue states and cities, either. In Georgia on that same day Democrats beat two incumbent Republican state public-service commissioners by holding them accountable for rising power bills. And the next month a lefty Democratic candidate in a special congressional election in deep-red Tennessee over-performed expectations with an “affordability” message, despite all kinds of problems with her record and issue positions.

    With polls showing Trump’s job-approval numbers on handling inflation and managing the economy diving and his tariff initiatives getting much of the blame, it looked like Democrats had found their lightning in a bottle in a way that unified the party’s factions and also showed they had learned from the Biden-Harris-Walz debacle. Perhaps the best indication they were on to something special was the urgent concerns Republicans were starting to express about persistently high living costs. Even Trump seemed to be trying to get with the program, though he kept stepping on his own message by complaining that the economy was doing great, that restive voters were offensively ungrateful, and that the entire affordability issue was a “hoax.” It was beginning to look like Democrats were getting their mojo back, particularly after they triggered a government shutdown that proved they were willing to “fight Trump” on favorable ground (in this case, the “affordability” problem with health-care costs generally and Obamacare premium subsidies expiring in particular).

    While Trump was experiencing the downside of being the party in power in a period when voters were unhappy with government’s performance, he also retained the ability to control public discourse by audacious actions that surprised the opposition and literally changed the subject of partisan debate. In fact, he’s done that twice in the past week, first with his military strike on Venezuela and then with his robust defense of an ICE agent who killed an unarmed civilian in Minneapolis, apparently for no good reason.

    Neither development came out of nowhere, of course. The Venezuela action followed a long buildup of military forces in the waters near that country along with lethal attacks on alleged “drug boats” and wild threats against Nicolás Maduro for supposed “narco-terrorism.” And it also reflected a new national-defense strategy involving near-imperial U.S. hegemony over the Western Hemisphere. The killing in Minnesota was the inevitable product of Trump’s mass-deportation initiative with its reliance on terrorizing immigrant communities into “self-deportation” with thuggish tactics from armed and masked federal agents. It also stemmed from Trump’s decision to target Minnesota immigrants to exploit a child-care scandal linked to Somalis that happened on the watch of Democratic state and local officials.

    But predictable as they might have been, both incidents unsettled Democratic hopes of spending 2026 talking about “affordability,” and spurred fears that Trump would drag them “off-message” onto potentially treacherous and even divisive ground. As Politico reported, some Democrats sought to quickly “pivot” from criticism of Trump’s adventure to their now-favorite preoccupation:

    Across the country, candidates and lawmakers are slamming Trump’s decision to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and are using the moment to hammer their domestic affordability message.

    “Ohioans are facing higher costs across the board and are desperate for leadership that will help deliver relief,” former Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is running to reclaim his seat, said on X. “We should be more focused on improving the lives of Ohioans – not Caracas.”

    The frame from Democrats shows how potent the party views affordability as an issue in the midterms, one that Trump and his team have grown increasingly preoccupied by after across-the-board losses in 2025.

    Trump’s seizure of multiple news cycles to lord it over the hemisphere and endorse lethal law-enforcement policies also made it hard for Democrats to follow consultants’ advice to ignore his provocations as much as possible, noted The Hill:

    Political strategists say Democrats running in competitive races in this year’s midterm elections for the House and Senate should steer clear of making President Trump the centerpiece of their campaigns.

    While Trump’s approval ratings are low and Americans have been frustrated by his job performance in the first year of his second term, the strategists say the key to winning is to home in on economic issues — particularly affordability. …

    It’s not as though Trump won’t be mentioned, people familiar with the strategy of the House Democrats’ campaign arm say. It’s that the president will be secondary to the primary focus of how Democrats can make the economy better. 

    Many rank-and-file Democrats reject this Trump-o-phobic approach. Some think Venezuela and ICE are big issues that must be confronted even if they’re “off-message” or believe Trump’s larger threat to democracy and traditional American values goes deeper than the wallet, and would exist even if life was “affordable” for most Americans. It’s a tension between cold calculations and red-hot emotional reactions to this president’s regular outrages that will likely continue in the opposition party so long as he is in office.


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    Ed Kilgore

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  • Venezuela slow-walks prisoner releases with 11 freed while over 800 remain locked up, including son-in-law of opposition presidential candidate | Fortune

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    As Venezuelan detainee Diógenes Angulo left a prison in San Francisco de Yare after a year and five months behind bars, his family appeared to be in shock.

    He was detained two days before the 2024 presidential election after he posted a video of an opposition demonstration in Barinas, the home state of the late President Hugo Chávez.

    As he emerged from the jail in San Francisco de Yare, approximately an hour’s drive south of the capital Caracas, he learned that former President Nicolás Maduro had been captured by U.S. forces Jan. 3 in a nighttime raid in the capital.

    Angulo told The Associated Press that his faith gave him the strength to keep going during his detention.

    “Thank God, I’m going to enjoy my family again,” he said, adding that others still detained “are well” and have high hopes of being released soon.

    Families with loved ones in prison gathered for a third consecutive day Saturday outside prisons in Caracas and other communities, hoping to learn of a possible release.

    On Thursday, Venezuela’s government pledged to free what it described as a significant number of prisoners.

    But as of Saturday, only 11 people had been released, up from nine a day prior, according to Foro Penal, an advocacy group for prisoners based in Caracas. Eight hundred and nine remained imprisoned, the group said. It was not immediately clear if Ángulo’s release was among the 11.

    A relative of activist Rocío San Miguel, one of the first to be released and who relocated to Spain, said in a statement that her release “is not full freedom, but rather a precautionary measure substituting deprivation of liberty.”

    Among the prominent members of the country’s political opposition who were detained after the 2024 presidential elections and remain in prison are former lawmaker Freddy Superlano, former governor Juan Pablo Guanipa, and Perkins Rocha, lawyer for opposition leader María Corina Machado. The son-in-law of opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González also remains imprisoned.

    One week after the U.S. military intervention in Caracas, Venezuelans aligned with the government marched in several cities across the country demanding the return of Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. The pair were captured and transferred to the United States, where they face charges including conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism.

    Hundreds demonstrated in cities including Caracas, Trujillo, Nueva Esparta and Miranda, many waving Venezuelan flags. In Caracas, crowds chanted: “Maduro, keep on going, the people are rising.”

    Acting president Delcy Rodríguez, speaking at a public social-sector event in Caracas, again condemned the U.S. military action on Saturday.

    “There is a government, that of President Nicolás Maduro, and I have the responsibility to take charge while his kidnapping lasts … . We will not stop condemning the criminal aggression,” she said, referring to Maduro’s ousting.

    On Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump said on social media: “I love the Venezuelan people and I am already making Venezuela prosperous and safe again.”

    After the shocking military action that overthrew Maduro, Trump stated that the United States would govern the South American country and requested access to oil resources, which he promised to use “to benefit the people” of both countries.

    Venezuela and the United States announced Friday that they are evaluating the restoration of diplomatic relations, broken since 2019, and the reopening of their respective diplomatic missions. A mission from Donald Trump’s administration arrived in the South American country on Friday, the State Department said.

    Amid global anticipation over the fate of the South American country, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil responded to Pope Leo XIV, who on Friday called for maintaining peace and “respecting the will of the Venezuelan people.”

    “With respect for the Holy Father and his spiritual authority, Venezuela reaffirms that it is a country that builds, works, and defends its sovereignty with peace and dignity,” Gil said on his Telegram account, inviting the pontiff “to get to know this reality more closely.”

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    Regina Garcia Cano, The Associated Press

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  • South Bay protesters gather against Venezuela actions, ICE killing in Minneapolis

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    Hundreds of South Bay protesters took to the streets Saturday to show their disdain toward President Donald Trump’s military actions in Venezuela and the killing of a Minnesota woman by a federal agent earlier this week.

    Rallies began Saturday morning in Los Gatos and Mountain View, with more planned later into the day in Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, San Jose, Richmond and San Francisco. Many were organized by a coalition of groups including May Day Strong, Indivisible and others.

    Robin Dosskey, of Mountain View, waves at motorist while protesting in Mountain View, Calif., on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026. About 25 people gathered at the corner of West El Camino Real and Grant Road to protest the recent immigration enforcements and President Donald Trump’s military actions in Venezuela. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group) 

    In a statement, May Day Strong called for unity against U.S. occupation of Venezuela and the removal of “reckless untrained ICE agents from our communities.” They argued overseas wars and increased immigration enforcement enriched billionaires at a human cost, and that tax money should be used for “good jobs, better schools, access to health care and (getting) our basic needs met.”

    At Los Gatos, David Bowie’s “Under Pressure” blared to over 100 people as passing cars honked in support of the demonstration.

    George Hoffman, a 49-year-old Los Gatos resident, said he’s been protesting regularly at the town’s Tesla dealership since April 2025, in an effort to push back against Elon Musk’s support of Trump.

    Hoffman said he started attending protests because he was tired of keeping quiet on the Trump administration’s actions and “feeling like everything was broken.”

    “It was killing me,” he said. “I was in a hole of despair and loneliness.”

    One week ago, a U.S. strike in Venezuela killed about 80 people and ended with the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, who are now in New York City awaiting trial on federal drug charges. Trump and others in his administration have said the U.S. would “run” the country, taking millions of barrels of oil with the blessing of the South American nation’s acting leadership.

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Lynda Turkus, of Mountain View, shakes a cowbell while protesting in Mountain View, Calif., on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026. About 25 people gathered at the corner of West El Camino Real and Grant Road to protest the recent immigration enforcements and President Donald Trump’s military actions in Venezuela. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)

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Many within the U.S. and internationally criticized the attack as a flagrant violation of international law that ignores Venezuela’s sovereignty. However, Venezuelan expatriates in Florida and elsewhere were supportive of Maduro’s removal after years of reported human rights violations and economic troubles in the country.

In Mountain View, a couple dozen people went to a Chevron gas station to protest. Cindy Ferguson, a 73-year-old Mountain View resident, has been going to several demonstrations, including the No Kings protests in June. She specifically wanted everyone to rally around Chevron due to the president’s actions in Venezuela to gain control of their oil reserves. Ferguson was formerly in the Army between 1973 and 1976. She criticized the similarities she saw between the U.S.’s intervention in Iraq and Iran and the attacks in Venezuela, saying “none of it worked, then or now.”

“They stand to profit really big, so he’s just paying off his billionaire buddies, and all the money and spending is for that,” Ferguson said. “Why aren’t we feeding kids? Why aren’t we giving health care? We could do a lot with that money, too. Let’s care for everyone.”

On Wednesday, a Minnesota woman named Renee Good was fatally shot by a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis, a killing caught on video that quickly sparked outrage and, from the Trump administration, unsupported claims that Good was a “domestic terrorist.” A day later, two people were wounded in Portland, Oregon, when federal immigration officers shot them in their car outside of a hospital. Both of the shootings inspired vigils and demonstrations against crackdowns authorized by Trump.

Many people that were protesting in the South Bay were enraged over the Good’s death. John Elliott, a 77-year-old Los Gatos resident, said that he had seen the video footage of Good’s shooting and thought it was “striking” that there were people who could justify it. Similarly, 20-year-old Campbell resident Michael Zambon felt that Good’s death was an extrajudicial killing.

“This is really not just about the murder of Renee Nicole Good. It’s also about the rule of law,” Zambon said. “This is a regime of lawlessness. And I believe we need to push back as best we can in order to ensure that the rule of law can endure in the consciousness of the country.”

Lisa Guevara, a 58-year-old resident of Menlo Park, is affiliated with Showing Up for Racial Justice, an organization to help white people organize against racial discrimination. Guevara connected the ICE-involved shootings with the attack on Venezuela as examples of Trump’s government trying to convince Americans that they have a right to enter Venezuela or American cities to strong-arm them.

“I think all of it is connected; It’s all this fascist, patriarchal, white supremacy situation,” Guevara said. “It’s this idea of being able to to determine other people’s lives for them, whether it’s in foreign countries or whether it’s in our own neighborhoods.”

Hoffman said Good’s death was another example of the Trump administration lying to people about what has been happening in the nation.

“We need to stop seeing this as a single issue,” Hoffman said. “It’s all the same fight.”

This is a developing report. Check back for updates.

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Nollyanne Delacruz

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  • Four Tankers That Had Left Venezuela in ‘Dark Mode’ Are Back in Its Waters

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    Jan 10 (Reuters) – At least four ‌tankers, ​most of them loaded, ‌that had departed from Venezuela in early January in ‘dark mode’ – ​or with their transponders off amid a strict U.S. blockade – are now back ‍in the South American country’s ​waters, according to state company PDVSA and monitoring service TankerTrackers.com. 

    A flotilla ​of about ⁠a dozen loaded vessels and at least three other empty ships left Venezuelan waters last month in apparent defiance of an embargo imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump since mid-December, which has dragged down the country’s oil exports ‌to minimum.

    One of the ships, the Panama-flagged supertanker M Sophia, was intercepted ​and ‌seized by the U.S. ‍this week ⁠when returning to the country; while another, the Aframax tanker Olina with a flag from Sao Tome And Principe, was intercepted but released to Venezuela on Friday, state company PDVSA said.

    Three more of the vessels that had departed in that flotilla, Panama-flagged Merope, Cook Islands-flagged Min Hang and Panama-flagged Thalia III, were spotted by ​Tankertrackers.com in Venezuelan waters late on Friday through satellite images.

    U.S. authorities had said on Friday that Olina -previously known as Minerva M – would be freed. The next step for the country, which remains under strict U.S. supervision after it captured and extracted President Nicolas Maduro last week, would be the beginning of organized crude exports as part of a $2 billion oil supply deal Caracas and Washington are negotiating, they said.

    In a meeting with top oil company executives on Friday, ​U.S. President Donald Trump said arrangements for the supply had progressed. Global trading houses Vitol and Trafigura received this week the first U.S. licenses to negotiate and carry Venezuela’s exports, and naphtha supplies to ​the OPEC country also are expected, sources said.

    (Reporting by Marianna Parraga; Editing by Julia Symmes Cobb)

    Copyright 2026 Thomson Reuters.

    Photos You Should See – January 2026

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    Reuters

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  • ‘Nobody Can Stop Us’

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    In the months before the U.S. military snatched Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, from their home, President Trump justified his buildup of forces in the Caribbean as an extension of his “America First” domestic agenda. He was ordering deadly missile strikes against boats in the region because they were smuggling drugs at Maduro’s behest and those drugs were killing Americans, he claimed. A similar, if not necessarily coordinated, attack on Americans’ safety was being perpetrated at home by undocumented immigrants, whom Trump accused, without evidence, of all being violent criminals.

    But as soon as the raid was over, leaving at least 60 people dead and Venezuela’s economic resources in U.S. hands, Trump and his top aides pivoted to bald-faced imperialism, musing openly about other countries they could soon put under American control.

    “Cuba is ready to fall,” the president said dryly as anti-Trump protesters flooded Havana. “Colombia is very sick, too, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and sending it to the United States, and he’s not going to be doing it very long” — an unambiguous threat against President Gustavo Petro. “Something’s going to have to be done with Mexico,” he later said. Stephen Miller used the occasion to rattle officials in Denmark as well as the putative NATO allies of the U.S. by declaring Greenland as good as ours. “Nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper. The administration is so eager to assert what it sees as its natural imperialist mandate that Trump has dubbed it the “Donroe Doctrine,” a winking play on President James Monroe’s 1823 declaration that foreign powers who tried to colonize the Western Hemisphere were effectively picking a fight with the U.S., the region’s sole and rightful plunderer.

    The American looting of Venezuela already seems to be underway. “We are in the midst right now and in fact about to execute on a deal to take all the oil,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on January 7. “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies … go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, and start making money” by “taking a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground,” Trump said. They were vague about logistics, and while at least some of the profits will purportedly “flow back into Venezuela to benefit the Venezuelan people,” the U.S. plans to keep some as “reimbursement,” a legal-sounding rebrand of what is essentially rich goons seizing a country’s resources at gunpoint.

    Oil is not the only thing being stolen here. The U.S. government has also robbed the Venezuelan people of any semblance of self-determination. In spite of the compelling pro-democracy case for ousting Maduro, a brutal dictator who held onto power after losing his 2024 reelection bid in a landslide, Trump has blithely dismissed Maduro’s main political opponent, Nobel Peace Prize winner Carmen María Machado, as “a very nice woman” who lacks “support or respect within the country.” Instead, Trump and Rubio have propped up Maduro’s vice-president, Delcy Rodriguez, seemingly because they think she will be easier to bully than her predecessor. (“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price,” Trump told The Atlantic.) Whether or not that holds true, she has ensured some autocratic continuity — police in Caracas have reportedly been interrogating residents at checkpoints and boarding buses to search people’s phones, trying to suss out anyone who celebrated Maduro’s removal.

    The rest of the world has taken note. French president Emmanuel Macron used an annual foreign-policy address to accuse the U.S. of turning away from the “international rules that it used to promote” and abandoning allies. “Every day, people are wondering if Greenland will be invaded, or whether Canada will face the threat of becoming the 51st state,” he said. When Trump suggested that Mexico could be his next target, President Claudia Sheinbaum replied, “The history of Latin America is clear and compelling: intervention has never brought democracy, never generated well-being, nor lasting stability.”

    Yet amid the international uproar, the pretense that Trump’s foreign policy reflects an “America First” posture was undercut most profoundly by a tragedy at home. On January 7, an ICE agent fired his gun multiple times into an SUV driven by Renee Nicole Good, killing the 37-year-old mother of three on a snow-lined street in residential Minneapolis. Trump had recently ordered a surge of federal agents to Minnesota, apparently to intimidate the local Somali American population, which he had disparaged as “garbage” the month before; faced instead with rationalizing the shooting death of a white woman, the administration rushed to smear Good as a “domestic terrorist,” arguing, again without evidence, that she had put the agent’s life in danger. Homeland Security director Kristi Noem was in New York the next day announcing the arrests of “illegal criminal aliens,” her rhetoric about keeping Americans safe rendered especially hollow after what amounted to a deadly mugging in broad daylight in Minneapolis, captured from multiple camera angles by bystanders.

    This, on a grand scale, has become the defining feature of the current phase of American preeminence: robbery. It is happening overseas, as Trump seeks to remake Venezuela into a U.S. vassal state, and at home, where he is stripping state governors of their authority and residents of their basic civil liberties and, as of January 7, their lives. Asked by the New York Times if there were any limits on his global powers, Trump replied, “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” As Miller put it in his conversation with Jake Tapper, “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning.”

    It’s true that, in spite of the shocking developments of the past few weeks, there’s a creeping sense that we are witnessing a tale as old as time. But there’s something going here on that supersedes any assertion of brute force or regional influence put forth when the U.S. was finding its footing as a global player. This isn’t the 19th century anymore; America is the world’s leading economic and military power. That its government is as disdainful of international sovereignty as it is of its own increasingly heavily policed residents makes it the world’s most powerful thief.

    The scorn that Trump’s allies continue to heap on Good can be seen as an expression of the timeless authoritarian character of American policing. (George Floyd was choked to death less than a mile from where Good was shot.) But Venezuela feels like a turning point. State violence at home is justified at all costs, as are Trump’s decisions about which foreign nations to menace, and how. It’s not clear what the end result will be, but the effect is the firm establishment of a governing principle rooted in Trump’s declaration on Fox News soon after the raid: “Nobody can stop us.”

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    Zak Cheney-Rice

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  • Trump says Venezuela stole American oil. Here’s what really happened.

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    When President Trump announced the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife on Saturday, he justified the military operation in part by framing it as a move to recover assets that he claims had been stolen from U.S. companies. 

    “Venezuela unilaterally seized and sold American oil, American assets and American platforms, costing us billions and billions of dollars,” Mr. Trump said. “This constituted one of the largest thefts of American property in the history of our country.”

    Who owns Venezuela’s oil?

    The president’s focus on Venezuela’s oil is now raising questions about American energy companies’ activities in the country, as well as whether U.S. oil giants might now work to revive its floundering petroleum industry. Venezuela’s constitution states that the nation owns all mineral and hydrocarbon deposits — its oil and natural gas reserves — within its own territory, including those that lie beneath the country’s seabed. 

    Mr. Trump “talks about them taking our oil — the oil itself was never ‘our oil’,” Samantha Gross, director of the energy security and climate initiative at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution, told CBS News, adding that the nation’s vast crude reserves “belong to the government of Venezuela.”

    What’s also true, however, is that U.S. oil companies had contractual agreements with Venezuela to extract, process and transport its oil, as well as to share in the revenue from oil sales.

    Mr. Trump’s claims of theft reflect actions by then-Venezuela leader Hugo Chávez to nationalize the nation’s energy sector in 2007 and to confiscate the production assets of Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips after they left the country, Gross said. 

    Those seizures have led to years of lawsuits and efforts by the companies to recoup their losses. While a World Bank arbitration panel has ruled in favor of the oil companies, the money has yet to be recovered. 

    “It is beyond question that there are a number of U.S. companies and others out there who have claims against Venezuela that have been trying to get those claims satisfied for many years,” Ted Posner, a partner at law firm Baker Botts and a former assistant general counsel for international affairs at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, told CBS News.

    The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.  

    Oil industry executives met on Friday afternoon at the White House with Mr. Trump, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright to discuss Venezuela. Representatives from Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips attended, including ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance. 

    “ConocoPhillips continues to monitor developments in Venezuela and their potential implications for global energy supply and stability,” the company said in a statement prior to the meeting.

    Said a Chevron spokesperson after the meeting on Friday: “For more than a century, Chevron has been a part of Venezuela’s past. We remain committed to its present. And we stand ready to help it build a better future while strengthening U.S. energy and regional security.”

    Exxon didn’t respond to requests for comment.

    Chávez’s power play — and corruption

    Venezuela’s government has a long history of nationalizing its oil sector, with state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., or PDVSA, taking over the industry in the 1970s. Exxon and other foreign oil companies continued to operate in the country by signing contracts to provide technical assistance and other expertise to PDVSA. 

    In the 1990s, Exxon and other large petroleum companies were invited by then-Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez to return in an effort to develop the oil reserves in the Orinoco River Basin, according to “Energy in the Americas,” a book published by the University of Calgary Press.

    But in 2003, Chávez fired thousands of PDVSA workers after they went on strike. Four years later, he expanded the nationalization push by requiring foreign companies to give majority ownership of their ventures to PDVSA. Exxon and ConocoPhillips failed to strike a deal with Venezuela, while BP, Houston-based Chevron, Norway’s Statoil and France’s Total signed pacts giving majority stakes to PDVSA, allowing them to remain, Reuters reported in 2007. 

    “Some agreed, and some did not, and assets were expropriated,” Gross said.

    Amid widespread corruption under Chávez, as journalist Anne Appelbaum noted in a 2024 book, hundreds of billions of dollars were siphoned off from PDVSA and other Venezuelan companies and subsequently disappeared into private bank accounts around the world. 

    A 2017 investigation by U.S. and Portuguese authorities found that PDVSA executives had funneled millions of dollars into Portugal’s Banco Espirito Santo. 

    Venezuela owes billions to Big Oil

    Chávez’s strong-arm tactics led to efforts by Exxon and ConocoPhillips to seek compensation for their assets, with Exxon claiming it had lost $16.6 billion due to the nationalization campaign. A World Bank arbitration panel in 2014 awarded the company one-tenth of what it had sought, but that same body later annulled most of that award.

    In a separate case, an international tribunal ruled that Venezuela owed $8.7 billion to ConocoPhillips in compensation for the 2007 seizure of its assets. 

    Other industries also had their assets taken away under Chávez’s 14-year reign, and companies have filed at least 60 arbitration claims against Venezuela since the 2000s, according to Luisa Palacios, an adjunct senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.

    “The value of these liabilities is estimated at $20 to $30 billion or about 10% to 15% of the almost $200 billion in international debt obligations Venezuela owes,” she said in an article this week published by Columbia.  

    “Venezuela could pay off these claims by inviting investors back to the country,” she noted. “That could be done through debt-for-equity swaps or by linking future oil production to repayment of current debts. However, restructuring the country’s foreign obligations will likely be needed for Venezuela to fully realize its oil potential.”

    U.S. wasting no time

    Venezuela’s oil reserves are estimated to be the world’s largest, with more than 303 billion barrels. That represents about 17% of the world’s total oil supply, according to OPEC data.

    But Venezuela’s crude oil production has plunged, with the industry today pumping 800,000 to 1 million barrels per day, down from more than 3 million per day in the early 2000s. That output has nosedived due to chronic underinvestment, government mismanagement, and the impact of U.S. and international sanctions.

    On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the U.S. will export between 30 million and 50 million barrels of oil from Venezuela, which will be sold at “market rates,” with revenue used “in a way that benefits the Venezuelan people.”

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Venezuela’s interim government had agreed to release the oil.

    Although Mr. Trump is pushing U.S. oil companies to invest in Venezuela following Maduro’s capture, they may need assurances before committing to new ventures, Gross said.

    “The political situation in Venezuela is really uncertain right now. Before a company is going to realistically invest a lot of money, they will want a stable political situation,” she added.

    Edited by

    Alain Sherter

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  • Trump’s Latest Outrages Could Ramp Up Pressure for Another Government Shutdown

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    The lights could yet go off on January 30.
    Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images

    There’s a lot of conflict in Congress to begin 2026, but the odds of another government shutdown — which could happen when stopgap spending authority runs out on January 30 — have been dropping. The trigger point for the long shutdown that began in October, the deadline for extending Obamacare premium subsidies, has come and gone, and while all Democrats and some Republicans still want to resurrect them, the issue isn’t time sensitive in quite the way it was. Plus, Congress is actually making progress on regular spending bills covering agencies till the end of the year, which could make the scope of government operations vulnerable to a shutdown significantly smaller. Beyond that, midterm elections are now less than a year away, and they will provide Democrats with the most important opportunity to check Donald Trump without interrupting vital government services.

    And so, as NOTUS reports, Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have been putting out the word that January 30 will pass without too much drama:

    Days into the new year, congressional Democrats are livid over a litany of issues, including President Donald Trump’s unilateral invasion of Venezuela, stalled action on health care and, most recently, an immigration agent fatally shooting a woman in Minneapolis. But they are split on how to fight back.

    With another critical government funding deadline on Jan. 30, Democratic leaders don’t appear willing to leverage their votes for spending bills in exchange for action. In fact, they appear to be openly forecasting there won’t be a shutdown at all.

    But this mind-set was developed before Trump decapitated the Venezuelan government and asserted “control” over that country while repeating threats to attack Mexico and Colombia and acquire Greenland. And it’s also before an ICE agent shot and killed a motorist in Minneapolis and the entire Trump administration doubled down on aggressive law-enforcement deployments and treated protesters as “domestic terrorists.” Now the rage of Democratic activists at Trump is bubbling up from its steady boiling state into geysers of fury, and the last thing Democrats in Congress want is to again let them down and provoke their wrath. And a few leading Democrats are wondering if an end-of-January interruption of funding might be in order after all, suggests NOTUS:

    “We’re about to have the DHS budget before Congress,” Sen. Chris Murphy, a Senate Appropriations Committee member, said Wednesday. “And it’s clearer than ever that Democrats can’t support this budget if there aren’t constraints on the growing illegality of DHS, and it appears the lethal illegality of DHS.”

    Sen. Chris Van Hollen, another Appropriations Committee member, said that “nobody wants the government shut down,” but “it’s going to be important that Trump and his administration work on a bipartisan basis to address a lot of the issues.” He also cited the DHS budget as a point of concern.

    It’s worth remembering that funding for DHS, which supervises ICE, and for the Department of Defense (or as Trump and Pete Hegseth call it, “War”), which executes Trump’s bellicose global designs, will almost surely be included in the next stopgap spending bill that has to be passed by January 30 to keep the government humming. So it could very well be the target on multiple grounds for Democratic protests and demands both within and beyond Congress.

    As that potential choke point approaches, the mood among congressional Democrats may become a lot darker, particularly if the most recent administration outrages at home and abroad are just the beginning of many reminders that the 47th president is a dangerous would-be tyrant. Will they and “the base” remain patiently focused on the midterms? Or will Democrats feel the need to put sand in the gears of the machinery of government in the confident expectation that the party controlling Washington will get the blame for the ensuring disruptions of programs and services?

    Right now, you’d have to bet both parties will find a way to avoid another shutdown even as they gird their loins for a vicious and competitive midterm election. But if Trump continues to run wild, and his allies in Congress continue to enable him, all bets could be off until the government is refunded for the rest of the year and the campaign trail takes over.

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    Ed Kilgore

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  • Is the War Powers Act unconstitutional, as Trump says?

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    After President Donald Trump’s unilateral decision to use the U.S. military to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, some lawmakers criticized Trump for ordering it without any authorization from Congress. 

    Trump, in a Jan. 8 Truth Social post, said he has the power to do that, and questioned the constitutionality of a related law.

    “The War Powers Act is Unconstitutional, totally violating Article II of the Constitution, as all Presidents, and their Departments of Justice, have determined before me,” Trump wrote.

    But Trump went too far by calling the 1973 War Powers Resolution unconstitutional. Courts have repeatedly declined to rule on its constitutionality.

    Within days of the Venezuela operation, the Senate advanced a resolution to limit further military operations in Venezuela without congressional backing, with five Republicans joining Democrats in supporting it. But this measure has little chance of being enacted, since it would need Trump’s signature if the Republican-controlled House passes it, which is uncertain.

    For decades, presidents and Congress have battled over who has the institutional power to declare war.

    The U.S. Constitution assigns Congress the right to declare war. The last time Congress did that was at the beginning of World War II.

    Since then, presidents have generally initiated military action using their constitutionally granted powers as commander in chief without an official declaration of war.

    In August 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Congress to back his effort to widen the United States’ role in Vietnam. He received approval with enactment of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which easily passed both chambers of Congress.

    As public sentiment turned against the Vietnam War, lawmakers became increasingly frustrated about their secondary role in sending U.S. troops abroad. So in 1973, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution, which was enacted over President Richard Nixon’s veto. 

    The resolution required the president to report to Congress within 48 hours of introducing armed forces into hostilities and to terminate the use of U.S. armed forces within 60 days unless Congress approves. If approval is not granted and the president deems it an emergency, an additional 30 days are allowed to end operations.

    Presidents have often, but not always, followed the act’s requirements, usually framing any entreaties to Congress as a voluntary bid to secure “support” for military action rather than “permission.” This has sometimes taken the form of an “authorization for the use of military force” — legislation that amounts to a modern version of a declaration of war.

    Trump has a point that presidents from both political parties have sought to assert power and limit lawmakers’ interference, including in court. But these arguments were never backed by court rulings.

    Between 1973 and 2012, Congress’ nonpartisan Congressional Research Service found eight judicial decisions involving the War Powers Resolution, and “in each and every case” the ruling declined to offer a binding opinion, always finding a reason, such as a lack of standing to sue, to avoid taking a side.

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  • U.S. Senate moves to limit Trump’s war powers

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    BOSTON — Massachusetts’ two U.S. senators have joined other Democrats and a handful of Republicans in passing a war powers resolution to limit President Donald Trump’s military action in Venezuela, as the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to vote on a similar measure.

    The Senate voted 52-47 Thursday to approve a resolution that prohibits further U.S. military action in Venezuela, unless Congress authorizes it. The move comes after Trump ordered the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, who were brought to New York to face drug trafficking and weapons charges.

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    By Christian M. Wade | Statehouse Reporter

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  • Why Donald Trump Wants Greenland (and Everything Else)

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    What some of Trump’s own senior officials once viewed as the delusional musings of a dilettante have now become a genuine international crisis, one that could lead—or maybe it already has led—to the effective end of NATO. After this week, is there anyone who can credibly claim to be sure that the United States, under Trump, would honor the commitment to mutual defense that is the foundation of the alliance?

    Greenland, it turns out, is not a punch line but a template that explains much about Trump’s foreign policy: it’s about a power-grabbing President who looks at territory on a map and says he wants to own it. Trump could not articulate a rationale for acquiring Greenland—“from a strategic standpoint, from a locational standpoint, from a geography standpoint, it’s something that we should have,” he told us—any more than he can elaborate on what his plan is for Venezuela now that he’s toppled the country’s leader and seized some of its oil. Asked by reporters from the Times, on Wednesday, why he couldn’t just settle for the terms of the existing 1951 treaty with Denmark, which grants the U.S. military nearly unlimited use of Greenland’s territory, Trump replied, “Ownership is very important.” He added, “because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success.” There are no limits to his global powers, Trump said, except one thing: “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

    Trump’s approach to the world is not the isolationism that many of his supporters celebrated when he returned to the White House, vowing an “America First” shift away from the liberal internationalism of his predecessors, but a narcissistic form of unilateralism that says, loudly, I can do whatever I want, whenever and however I want to do it. Unrestrained power wielded for its own sake is the theme, and, along with Trump himself, his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, is its muse. Miller’s snarling enunciation of this doctrine, in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Monday, during which he asserted America’s right to do as it wished with Greenland, has justifiably been taken as an important statement of the world view underpinning this Administration. “We live in a world, the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” Miller said. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

    Counting last weekend’s daring commando raid on Maduro’s compound, Trump has now ordered U.S. military attacks on seven different nations since returning to the White House: Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen. “Trump is tough with the weak but weak with the tough,” as Raphaël Glucksmann, a French member of the European Parliament, put it to the Wall Street Journal. Does it make it better or worse that, in most cases, Trump’s attention has come and gone as quickly as the missiles he has unleashed? That he has lingered on his military triumphs only long enough to make sweeping claims about the transformative, brilliant, incredible results he has achieved before quickly moving on to some other preoccupation? In the days since the Venezuela attack, Trump has explicitly threatened not only Greenland but also Colombia, Iran, and Mexico. Why? Because he can. A decade into Trump’s political career and nearly a year into his second term, we can now say definitively that the President’s signature geopolitical move is not withdrawing the United States from the world but performative displays of force to impose his will on it.

    For a man who’s also spent the past year proclaiming himself the “President of PEACE,” this seems like an almost inconceivable twist. It’s not—Trump views these dramatic military actions as stand-alone accomplishments in their own right. The use of force is, for this President, not so much a means of achieving American national-security goals as an end in itself. Trump’s reaction to observing the Venezuela attack unfold in real time is worth remembering in the context of an operation that, according to the latest U.S. estimates, killed some seventy-five people, including both Maduro’s security detail and local residents. “I mean, I watched it, literally, like, I was watching a television show,” he marvelled in an interview with Fox News, on Saturday. “And if you would have seen the speed, the violence.”

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    Susan B. Glasser

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  • Trump says he plans to meet with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado

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    President Donald Trump indicated Thursday that Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado is coming to the United States next week and that he plans to meet with the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

    “Well, I understand she’s coming in next week sometime, and I look forward to saying hello to her,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity in a taped interview that aired Thursday night.

    A representative for Machado did not immediately confirm the meeting Thursday night, and the White House did not immediately provide details.

    A meeting between Trump and Machado would come on the heels of the U.S. arrest and extraction of Venezuela’s deposed president, Nicolás Maduro. Delcy Rodríguez is now interim president. Several Republicans in Congress have pushed for Machado to lead the country.

    Trump last week told reporters that it would “be very tough for [Machado] to be the leader, because she doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country.”

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio described Machado on Sunday as “fantastic” but said the speed of the situation required other leadership.

    “Unfortunately, the vast majority of the opposition is no longer present inside of Venezuela. We have short-term things that have to be addressed right away,” Rubio said.

    Machado, who won the Nobel prize last year, has said Trump “deserved it.”

    Trump said Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, thanked him after receiving the award.

    Asked on Fox News whether he would accept Machado’s Nobel prize if she gave it to him, Trump said: “I’ve heard that she wants to do that. That’d be a great honor.”

    Trump has not been subtle in his Nobel Peace Prize ambitions and has campaigned for the award. In an interview with NBC News recently, he denied reporting from The Washington Post that said he did not appoint Machado to lead Venezuela after Maduro’s capture because she won the Nobel.

    “She should not have won it,” Trump previously said. “But no, that has nothing to do with my decision.”

    Kristen Welker and Jonathan Allen contributed.

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    Rob McLean | NBC News

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  • Trump already has open door to grow U.S. military presence in Greenland thanks to a little-known Cold War-era agreement between the U.S. and Denmark | Fortune

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    President Donald Trump’s yearslong threats to take over Greenland have crescendoed this week. On Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump is considering a range of options in pursuit of the country, and that “utilising the U.S. military is always an option at the commander-in-chief’s disposal.”

    But according to foreign policy experts, Danish officials have been baffled by Trump’s threats to resort to military intervention to gain control of Greenland because there’s already a long-standing agreement in place for the U.S. to increase its military presence there. In 1951, the U.S. and Denmark signed a little-known defense agreement allowing the U.S. “to improve and generally to fit the area for military use” in Greenland and “construct, install, maintain, and operate facilities and equipment” there. 

    “This agreement is very generous, it’s very open,” Mikkel Runge Olesen, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen, told Fortune. “The U.S. would be able to achieve almost any security goal that you can imagine under that agreement.”

    Given the wide-reaching terms of the contract, “there is very little understanding as to why the U.S. would need to take over Greenland at this time,” Olesen added.

    Though Trump’s desire for Greenland has punctuated both of his administrations (in 2019, his intentions to buy the self-governing Danish territory were immediately rebuffed by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen), world leaders have taken the president’s most recent interest in the island more seriously. Following the U.S. forces’ capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, Trump has invoked greater imperial authority through what he has endorsed as the “Donroe Doctrine,” alluding to the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, a foreign policy warning European powers against intervention in the western hemisphere. 

    Greenland—covered in ice and home to 56,000, mostly Inuit people—has become crucial to the defense of North America thanks to its positioning above the Arctic Circle giving it access to naval and shipping routes. Combined with its abundance of rare earths, the country has become coveted by Trump, who wants to secure it not only for its wealth of natural resources, but also against the Chinese and Russian ships he claims have anchored themselves in the Arctic region.

    Long-standing U.S.-Danish ties

    For more than 80 years, the U.S. has had a presence on Greenland, which became a foundational part of its deepening relationship with Denmark—and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). During WWII, Danish ambassador to the U.S. Henrik Kauffmann, defied the Nazi-controlled Danish government and essentially brokered a deal with the U.S. to give America access to Greenland. A U.S. military holding there would prevent Nazi forces from using the island as a bridge between Europe and North America.

    The deal that was supposed to dissolve after the war was instead bolstered by the creation of NATO in 1949, which obligated the U.S. to provide defense for Europe against Soviet forces. A new agreement in 1951 confirmed the U.S.’ rights to establish defense areas in Greenland, and is contingent upon the continued existence of NATO to be valid. In 2004, the agreement was updated to add Greenland, which established some self-governance in 1979, as a signatory.

    The U.S. has only one military base on Greenland today, the Pituffik Space Base, down from about 50 during the height of the Cold War. But should the U.S. want to expand its presence there for national security reasons, as Trump has suggested, it would require negotiations with Denmark and Greenland, Olesen said. Historically, those negotiations have been friendly.

    “In practical terms, there has been a tendency on the Danish and the Greenlandic side to always look at us security requests in Greenland with a lot of goodwill and a lot of openness,” he said.

    Danish Prime Minister Frederiksen, citing the 1951 agreement, implored the Trump administration to stop his talk of taking over Greenland.

    “We already have a defense agreement between the Kingdom and the United States today, which gives the United States wide access to Greenland,” Frederiksen said in a statement over the weekend. “I would therefore strongly urge the United States to stop the threats against a historically close ally and against another country and another people who have said very clearly that they are not for sale.”

    Trump’s motivations for taking Greenland

    Garret Martin, lecturer and codirector of the Transatlantic Policy Center at American University, speculates Trump’s insistence on appearing to brush off the 1951 agreement in favor of military force or offers to purchase Greenland (despite Danish officials repeatedly saying the country is not for sale), is an extension of the 19th century “gunboat diplomacy” philosophy the president took with Venezuela.

    In the case of Greenland, Trump could be wanting to send a message to Denmark the U.S. has greater military capabilities that it is willing to deploy.

    “Trump believes—and is often very keen to emphasize—the United States as leverage,” Martin told Fortune. “And it’s possible he’s trying to tell Denmark, ‘Look, you are in a position of weakness. Greenland really fundamentally depends on us. Why should we have to avail ourselves of those formalities when really we’re the key player?’” 

    Trump’s tactics could also come from a desire to stake claim over the rare earth metals buried deep under the Greenlandic ice, which has become more urgent to Trump as China sits on 90% of the rare earth the world needs.

    Anthony Marchese, chairman of Texas Mineral Resources Corporation, told Fortune earlier this week the president’s hope of mining those rare earths is nearly a fantasy. The northern part of Greenland is mineable only six months out of the year due to treacherous weather conditions, and expensive mining equipment has to endure months in that cold climate.

    “If you’re going to go to Greenland for its minerals, you’re talking billions upon billions upon billions of dollars and extremely long time before anything ever comes of it,” he said.

    According to Olesen, Trump’s desire for rare earths, as well as his national security urgency, can be addressed by Danish and Greenlandic officials through negotiations, making them less of a concern. The trouble will be if Trump’s biggest motivator to move into Greenland is a symbolic show of military prowess rather than specific demands that can be addressed through diplomacy.

    “It’s hard to compromise with territorial expansion,” Olesen said.

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    Sasha Rogelberg

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  • The Aggressive Ambitions of Trump’s “Donroe Doctrine”

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    The fate of the largest island in the world could upend transatlantic ties, in turn undermining the most important political and military alliance in the world. Denmark is one of the original members of NATO. After Trump’s comments, Mette Frederiksen, the Danish Prime Minister, warned about the consequences: “If the U.S. chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops, including NATO and thus the security that has been established since the end of the Second World War.” On Tuesday, a joint statement by seven European countries asserted that Greenland’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, as part of Denmark, were protected by the U.N. Charter. Nicholas Burns, a former U.S. Ambassador to NATO, called picking a fight over Greenland “a colossal mistake.” Douglas Lute, a retired three-star general and another former U.S. Ambassador to NATO, predicted that European allies “will be increasingly reluctant to depend on the United States, as they have for nearly eighty years, and not only because Trump and his Administration are focussed on the Western Hemisphere but because what the President says cannot be trusted.”

    And, in the Middle East, the President notified Iran—on his Truth Social account, the day before the operation in Venezuela—that U.S. forces were “locked and loaded” and ready to intervene if the theocracy used lethal force when responding to peaceful anti-government demonstrations that had erupted across the country. Over the weekend, the State Department’s Farsi account posted another warning superimposed over a black-and-white photo of Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the C.I.A. chief, John Ratcliffe, as they watched the raid on Venezuela. In huge red letters, in Farsi, the message read, “Don’t play games with President Trump.” It added, “President Trump is a man of action. If you didn’t know, now you know.” The U.S. threats followed Trump’s meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, last week at Mar-a-Lago, when the two leaders jointly vowed to again strike Iran if its nuclear and ballistic-missile programs are rebuilt.

    In December, the State Department rebranded the U.S. Institute of Peace by tacking on “Donald J. Trump” in big silver letters above the entryway. A White House spokesperson said the peace institute’s rebranding “beautifully and aptly” honored a President “who ended eight wars in less than a year” and was a “powerful reminder of what strong leadership can accomplish for global stability.”

    Except Trump has not really “ended” wars anywhere, he has only spun fragile ceasefires as examples of lasting peace. One of the wars the President claims to have ended was the long-standing conflict between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The President presided over the signing of a peace treaty between the two countries last month. But the reprieve lasted only a few days. And, in the past month, hundreds of people have reportedly died in new fighting along the Rwanda-Congo border.

    Former senior American and European officials scoff at Trump’s claims of being the President of peace. Lute, who served as the deputy national-security adviser under the George W. Bush and Obama Administrations, chuckled when I asked him how many wars Trump has ended. “Zero,” he replied. “He may give himself credit to have paused eight conflicts, but I don’t count any of these as resolved.” Trump has even upped the numbers. “Now it’s eight and a quarter,” Lute noted. “He has this new math on Cambodia and Thailand, which he said he had to sort of solve again. So, he’s giving himself another point-two-five.”

    Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza is far from fully resolved, despite a Trump-brokered agreement last fall. “It’s not very clear what happens first and what happens next,” the Norwegian Foreign Minister, Espen Barth Eide, said at the Doha Forum in December. Without imminent progress, all parties risked a return to war “or descent into total anarchy,” Eide said. In May, Trump notably claimed to have ended hostilities between India and Pakistan, a conflict that dates back to 1947 over control of predominantly Muslim Kashmir by predominantly Hindu India. The President said that he used trade concessions as incentives to get both countries to end a four-day skirmish in the Kashmir region, last spring. After a ceasefire was announced, the government of Pakistan, which had already nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize, thanked him, but India claimed to know nothing about any concessions. “They’re not shooting at one another,” Lute said. “But that doesn’t stop the underlined conflict between India and Pakistan.” The ceasefire did not address the long-standing issue of Kashmir, and troops of both countries remain deployed along the volatile border.

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    Robin Wright

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  • New poll shows Americans are divided on Venezuela as Trump says oversight could last years

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    A recent CBS News poll shows Americans are split on the Trump administration’s operation to remove Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela. This comes as President Trump comments on the country’s future. CBS News’ Anthony Salvanto has more on the data.

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  • House votes on health insurance subsidies as Senate debates military powers

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    It’s the first week of a new year for Congress, and each chamber is considering legislation with votes to watch on Thursday.Enhanced Health Care SubsidiesThe House of Representatives is voting on a bill to reinstate tax credits that expired last year and were central to the government shutdown.The bill aims to extend these subsidies for three years, helping those without insurance through their employers pay for coverage. Four Republicans: Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-1st), Rep. Ryan McKenzie (PA-7th), Rep. Rob Bresnahan (PA-8th), and Rep. Mike Lawler (NY-17th) joined Democrats to push the vote, which is expected to pass. Five more Republicans joined Democrats during a test vote on Wednesday.However, the Senate is not expected to consider this bill, as they are working on their own Affordable Care Act reform measure designed to pass both chambers.Venezuela War Powers ResolutionThe Senate is revisiting a war powers resolution that would prevent the president from using military force in Venezuela without congressional approval. This follows a recent military operation in Venezuela’s capital, which led to the arrest of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, who are now in New York facing narcoterrorism charges. President Donald Trump has stated that the U.S. is running Venezuela and may deploy the military again if the remaining Maduro regime does not comply with U.S. demands.The same resolution failed a previous vote, as well as a measure to stop the Trump administration from bombing alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific that the White House says were connected to Venezuela. Past administrations arrested and charged such suspects. The Trump administration’s campaign has killed more than 100 people.Reactions To Greenland RhetoricThe White House’s suggestion to use military force to take over Greenland has been met with criticism on Capitol Hill. Democrats have long opposed this idea, and several Republicans have recently spoken out against it.Rep. Mike Johnson, House Speaker, said, “All this stuff about military action and all that, I don’t even think that’s a possibility.” Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina criticized the notion, saying, “Making insane comments about how it is our right to have territory owned by the kingdom of Denmark, folks, amateur hour is over.” Rep. Ryan Zinke of Montana noted, “In the case of Greenland, you have two things: one, not a present threat, and so they have a duly elected president. So, he doesn’t have the authority without Congress.”Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska added, “It’s very… amateurish. I feel like we’ve got high school kids playing Risk.”Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also stated that the president wants to buy Greenland.Earlier this week, the White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Hearst Television: “President Trump has made it well known that acquiring Greenland is a national security priority of the United States, and it’s vital to deter our adversaries in the Arctic region. The President and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilizing the U.S. Military is always an option at the Commander in Chief’s disposal.”Keep watching for the latest from the Washington News Bureau:

    WASHINGTON —

    It’s the first week of a new year for Congress, and each chamber is considering legislation with votes to watch on Thursday.

    Enhanced Health Care Subsidies

    The House of Representatives is voting on a bill to reinstate tax credits that expired last year and were central to the government shutdown.

    The bill aims to extend these subsidies for three years, helping those without insurance through their employers pay for coverage. Four Republicans: Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-1st), Rep. Ryan McKenzie (PA-7th), Rep. Rob Bresnahan (PA-8th), and Rep. Mike Lawler (NY-17th) joined Democrats to push the vote, which is expected to pass. Five more Republicans joined Democrats during a test vote on Wednesday.

    However, the Senate is not expected to consider this bill, as they are working on their own Affordable Care Act reform measure designed to pass both chambers.

    Venezuela War Powers Resolution

    The Senate is revisiting a war powers resolution that would prevent the president from using military force in Venezuela without congressional approval. This follows a recent military operation in Venezuela’s capital, which led to the arrest of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, who are now in New York facing narcoterrorism charges.

    President Donald Trump has stated that the U.S. is running Venezuela and may deploy the military again if the remaining Maduro regime does not comply with U.S. demands.

    The same resolution failed a previous vote, as well as a measure to stop the Trump administration from bombing alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific that the White House says were connected to Venezuela. Past administrations arrested and charged such suspects. The Trump administration’s campaign has killed more than 100 people.

    Reactions To Greenland Rhetoric

    The White House’s suggestion to use military force to take over Greenland has been met with criticism on Capitol Hill. Democrats have long opposed this idea, and several Republicans have recently spoken out against it.

    Rep. Mike Johnson, House Speaker, said, “All this stuff about military action and all that, I don’t even think that’s a possibility.”

    Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina criticized the notion, saying, “Making insane comments about how it is our right to have territory owned by the kingdom of Denmark, folks, amateur hour is over.”

    Rep. Ryan Zinke of Montana noted, “In the case of Greenland, you have two things: one, not a present threat, and so they have a duly elected president. So, he doesn’t have the authority without Congress.”

    Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska added, “It’s very… amateurish. I feel like we’ve got high school kids playing Risk.”

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also stated that the president wants to buy Greenland.

    Earlier this week, the White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Hearst Television: “President Trump has made it well known that acquiring Greenland is a national security priority of the United States, and it’s vital to deter our adversaries in the Arctic region. The President and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilizing the U.S. Military is always an option at the Commander in Chief’s disposal.”

    Keep watching for the latest from the Washington News Bureau:


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  • Column: Trump’s 626 overseas strikes aren’t ‘America First.’ What’s his real agenda?

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    Who knew that by “America First,” President Trump meant all of the Americas?

    In puzzling over that question at least, I’ve got company in Marjorie Taylor Greene, the now-former congresswoman from Georgia and onetime Trump devotee who remains stalwart in his America First movement. Greene tweeted on Saturday, just ahead of Trump’s triumphal news conference about the United States’ decapitation of Venezuela’s government by the military’s middle-of-the-night nabbing of Nicolás Maduro and his wife: “This is what many in MAGA thought they voted to end. Boy were we wrong.”

    Wrong indeed. Nearly a year into his second term, Trump has done nothing but exacerbate the domestic problems that Greene identified as America First priorities — bringing down the “increasing cost of living, housing, healthcare” within the 50 states — even as he’s pursued the “never ending military aggression” and foreign adventurism that America Firsters scorn, or at least used to. Another Trump con. Another lie.

    Here’s a stunning stat, thanks to Military Times: In 2025, Trump ordered 626 missile strikes worldwide, 71 more than President Biden did in his entire four-year term. Targets, so far, have included Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Nigeria, Iran and the waters off Venezuela and Colombia. Lately he’s threatened to hit Iran again if it kills demonstrators who have been marching in Tehran’s streets to protest the country’s woeful economic conditions. (“We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump posted Friday.)

    The president doesn’t like “forever wars,” he’s said many times, but he sure loves quick booms and cinematic secret ops. Leave aside, for now, the attacks in the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific. It’s Trump’s new claim to “run” Venezuela that has signaled the beginning of his mind-boggling bid for U.S. hegemony over the Western Hemisphere. Any such ambition raises the potential for quick actions to become quagmires.

    As Stephen Miller, perhaps Trump’s closest and most like-minded (read: unhinged) advisor, described the administration’s worldview on Monday to CNN’s Jake Tapper: “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

    You know, that old, amoral iron law: “Might makes right.” Music to Vladimir Putin’s and Xi Jinping’s ears as they seek hegemonic expansion of their own, confident that the United States has given up the moral high ground from which to object.

    But it was Trump, the branding maven, who gave the White House worldview its name — his own, of course: the Donroe Doctrine. And it was Trump who spelled out what that might mean in practice for the Americas, in a chest-thumping, war-mongering performance on Sunday returning to Washington aboard Air Force One. The wannabe U.S. king turns out to be a wannabe emperor of an entire hemisphere.

    “We’re in charge,” Trump said of Venezuela to reporters. “We’re gonna run it. Fix it. We’ll have elections at the right time.” He added, “If they don’t behave, we’ll do a second strike.” He went on, suggestively, ominously: “Colombia is very sick too,” and “Cuba is ready to fall.” Looking northward, he coveted more: “We need Greenland from a national security situation.”

    Separately, Trump recently has said that Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro “does have to watch his ass,” and that, given Trump’s unhappiness with the ungenuflecting Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, “Something’s going to have to be done with Mexico.” In their cases as well as Maduro’s, Trump’s ostensible complaints have been that each has been complacent or complicit with drug cartels.

    And yet, just last month Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in a U.S. court and given a 45-year sentence for his central role in “one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world.” Hernández helped traffickers ship 400 tons of cocaine into the United States — to “stuff the drugs up the gringos’ noses.” And Trump pardoned him after less than two years in prison.

    So it’s implausible that a few weeks later, the U.S. president truly believes in taking a hard line against leaders he suspects of abetting the drug trade. Maybe Trump’s real motivation is something other than drug-running?

    In his appearance after the Maduro arrest, Trump used the word “oil” 21 times. On Tuesday, he announced, in a social media post, of course, that he was taking control of the proceeds from up to 50 barrels of Venezuelan oil. (Not that he cares, but that would violate the Constitution, which gives Congress power to appropriate money that comes into the U.S. Treasury.)

    Or perhaps, in line with the Monroe Doctrine, our current president has a retro urge to dominate half the world.

    Lately his focus has been on Venezuela and South America, but North America is also in his sights. Trump has long said he might target Mexico to hit cartels and that the United States’ other North American neighbor, Canada, should become the 51st state. But it’s a third part of North America — Greenland — that he’s most intent on.

    The icy island has fewer than 60,000 people but mineral wealth that’s increasingly accessible given the climate warming that Trump calls a hoax. For him to lay claim isn’t just a problem for the Americas. It’s an existential threat to NATO given that Greenland is an autonomous part of NATO ally Denmark — as Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned.

    Not in 80 years did anyone imagine that NATO — bound by its tenet that an attack on one member is an attack on all — would be attacked from within, least of all from the United States. In a remarkable statement on Tuesday, U.S. allies rallied around Denmark: “It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”

    Trump’s insistence that controlling Greenland is essential to U.S. national security is nuts. The United States has had military bases there since World War II, and all of NATO sees Greenland as critical to defend against Russian and Chinese encroachment in the Arctic. Still, Trump hasn’t ruled out the use of force to take the island.

    He imagines himself to be the emperor of the Americas — all of it. Americas First.

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    Jackie Calmes

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  • German President Says US Is Destroying World Order

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    BERLIN, Jan 8 (Reuters) – German President ‌Frank-Walter ​Steinmeier has strongly criticised ‌the U.S. foreign policy under President ​Donald Trump and urged the world not to let the ‍world order disintegrate into ​a “den of robbers” where the unscrupulous take what ​they ⁠want.

    In unusually strong remarks, which appeared to refer to actions such as the ousting of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro at the weekend, the former foreign minister said global ‌democracy was being attacked as never before.

    Although the German ​president’s ‌role is largely ceremonial, ‍his ⁠words carry some weight and he has more freedom to express views than politicians.

    Describing Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a watershed, Steinmeier said the U.S. behaviour represented a second historic rupture.

    “Then there is ​the breakdown of values by our most important partner, the USA, which helped build this world order,” Steinmeier said in remarks at a symposium late on Wednesday.

    “It is about preventing the world from turning into a den of robbers, where the most unscrupulous take whatever they want, where regions or entire countries are treated as the property of ​a few great powers,” he said.

    Active intervention was needed in threatening situations and countries such as Brazil and India must be convinced to protect ​the world order, he said.

    (Reporting by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Alison Williams)

    Copyright 2026 Thomson Reuters.

    Photos You Should See – December 2025

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  • 1/7: The Takeout with Major Garrett

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    1/7: The Takeout with Major Garrett – CBS News









































    Watch CBS News



    The latest reporting from Minneapolis after an ICE agent fatally shoots a woman; Details on the U.S. seizure of two oil tankers linked to Venezuela.

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  • ‘Take the Oil’: Trump’s Venezuelan Petroleum Fantasies | RealClearPolitics

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    'Take the Oil': Trump's Venezuelan Petroleum Fantasies

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    Michael Klare, The Nation

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  • Did Trump have to give Congress a heads-up on Venezuela?

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    After the U.S. military captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and brought him to the U.S. to face drug-related charges, congressional Democrats criticized President Donald Trump’s unilateral actions. 

    “The president cannot run a military operation of this size, cannot invade a foreign country, without coming to Congress first,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said Jan. 4 on CNN’s “State of the Union.” 

    Presidents and Congress have battled for decades over who has the institutional power to declare war, with presidents from both political parties trying to assert power and limit lawmakers’ interference. 

    At a Jan. 3 press conference after Maduro’s capture, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that members of Congress were not notified in advance. Trump said the administration was concerned about lawmakers potentially leaking news of the decision.

    It’s unusual for an administration not to offer advance notification — at a minimum, to a select group of eight senior lawmakers who have historically been trusted with classified information. In June 2025, the administration told Republicans, but not Democrats, about the forthcoming U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. 

    Legal experts say the most relevant law makes it clear that the president “shall consult with Congress” before initiating military action. But there is less certainty about whether other laws might provide some flexibility for the president. 

    Murphy’s office did not respond to inquiries.

    What do the Constitution and U.S. law say about notifying Congress?

    One law that supports Murphy’s critique is the War Powers Resolution. 

    While most of this law’s text addresses after-action notification and deadlines for congressional approval, it also says, “The president in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances.”

    The use of “shall” offers strong support for advance notification, even in the absence of a formal vote to authorize an action in advance, experts said.

    Another section of U.S. law that addresses covert operations offers more leniency for the president, but it may not apply to the Venezuela operation. 

    The provision allows the president to notify the so-called Gang of Eight — the chair and ranking members of both the House and Senate intelligence committees, and the top-ranking members from both parties in the House and Senate — rather than Congress as a whole.

    But this provision includes a loophole: If the administration doesn’t provide advance notification, “the president … shall provide a statement of the reasons for not giving prior notice” once the operation is launched.

    Although the operation was planned and carried out in secret, it does not fit the definition of “covert action” under this law. The law refers to an effort where it is “intended that the role of the United States government will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly.” 

    “The Venezuela raid simply cannot fit within the law’s clear definition of a covert operation,” said Michael J. Glennon, a Tufts University professor of constitutional and international law. “Obviously, there are confidential aspects to virtually every military operation, but that does not render them covert operations.”

    War powers have been contested for decades

    Courts have not provided much guidance about who has the authority to initiate military action. The Constitution and laws giving powers to Congress have been followed inconsistently.

    The U.S. Constitution assigns Congress the right to declare war. The last time Congress did that was at the beginning of World War II.

    Since then, presidents have generally initiated military action using their constitutionally granted powers as commander in chief without an official declaration of war.

    In August 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Congress to back his effort to widen the United States’ role in Vietnam. He received approval with enactment of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which passed both chambers of Congress, including the Senate, with only two dissenting votes.

    The U.S. Navy destroyer USS Maddox, one of the vessels involved in the Gulf of Tonkin incident, in the South China Sea in 1964. (U.S. Navy)

    As public sentiment turned against the Vietnam War, lawmakers became increasingly frustrated about their secondary role in sending U.S. troops abroad. So in 1973, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution, which was enacted over President Richard Nixon’s veto. 

    The resolution required the president to report to Congress within 48 hours of introducing armed forces into hostilities and to terminate the use of U.S. armed forces within 60 days unless Congress approves. If approval is not granted and the president deems it an emergency, an additional 30 days are allowed to end operations.

    Presidents have often followed the act’s requirements, usually framing any entreaties to Congress as a voluntary bid to secure “support” for military action rather than “permission.”

    This has sometimes taken the form of an “authorization for the use of military force” — legislation that amounts to a modern version of a declaration of war.

    Presidents who have sought and received such authorizing legislation include:

    • Ronald Reagan, to oversee the handover of the Sinai Peninsula from Israel to Egypt, and separately to participate in a deployment to Lebanon. The deployment ended with a suicide attack that killed 241 American service members.

    • George H.W. Bush, to oust Iraq’s Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. 

    • Bill Clinton, for military action in Somalia.

    • George W. Bush, to enter Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks, and separately to oust Hussein from power in what became the Iraq War.

    Presidents from both parties have used the broad wording of the post 9/11 authorization to support military action against a wide array of targets, using language that approves efforts “to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States.”

    The Venezuela operation did not have any advance authorization by congressional vote.

    If Congress wants a bigger role in the process, “they have to force the president’s hand,” said Sarah Burns, a Rochester Institute of Technology political scientist. That means passing legislation that would “make it more consequential that the president didn’t abide by the law,” she said.

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