dailynewsnblog
Opening summary
Donald Trump has said Venezuela will be “turning over” $2bn worth of Venezuelan crude to the United States, a flagship negotiation that would divert supplies from China while helping Venezuela avoid deeper oil production cuts.
Trump said in a post online:
This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!
Venezuelan government officials and state company PDVSA did not provide comment.
Venezuela has millions of barrels of oil loaded on tankers and in storage tanks that it has been unable to ship due to the blockade imposed by Trump, as part of the pressure campaign that culminated in the toppling of Nicolás Maduro who was seized from his country by US forces over the weekend.
Top Venezuelan officials have called Maduro’s capture a kidnapping and accused the US of trying to steal the country’s vast oil reserves, however Tuesday’s supposed agreement is a strong sign that the government is responding to Trump’s demand that they open up to US oil companies or risk more military intervention.
Meanwhile, Trump and his advisers have said they are looking into “a range of options” in an effort to acquire Greenland, noting in a White House statement on Tuesday that using the US military to do so is “always an option”.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement:
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 US military is always an option at the commander-in-chief’s disposal.
Leavitt’s comments came as the leaders of major European powers pushed back against Trump’s long-running desire to seize the Arctic territory. More on both of these stories in a moment, but first here are some other developments in US politics:
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Trump’s administration is freezing more than $10bn in federal childcare and family assistance funds to California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said, citing what it called concerns about fraud and misuse.
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The Department of Justice has released less than 1% of the so-called Epstein files, a court filing has revealed, as Democrats step up criticism of the Trump administration’s “lawlessness” for keeping records under seal.
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The Trump administration has sent more immigration agents to Minnesota, part of escalating attacks and rhetoric against the state and its immigrant populations in what immigration officials are saying is the agency’s “largest operation to date”.
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Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, urged Trump to give up his “fantasies about annexation” of Greenland and accused the US of “completely and utterly unacceptable” rhetoric. “Enough is enough,” he said. The prime minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen previously warned that an attack by the US on a Nato ally would mean the “end” of the military alliance and “post-second world war security”. It would, she said, be the end of “everything”.
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The Trump administration has abandoned efforts to combat child exploitation, human trafficking and cartels as it diverts thousands of law enforcement personnel to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Democratic senators said in a letter to the White House.
Key events
US legislators spoke out against the idea of military action against Greenland on Tuesday.
In social media posts, Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego, a Democrat, vowed to introduce a resolution “to block Trump from invading Greenland,” saying the 79-year-old Republican simply “wants a giant island with his name on it. He wouldn’t think twice about putting our troops in danger if it makes him feel big and strong.”
In a sharp departure from the party’s typical partisanship, Republicans also pushed back against Trump’s military-backed expansionism, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
House speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, told reporters on Tuesday night that he did not think it was “appropriate” for Washington to take military action on Greenland, Politico reported.
Republican Senator Jerry Moran of the midwestern state of Kansas, who serves on the Senate intelligence committee, told HuffPost “it’s none of our business” and warned that the move would lead to “the demise of Nato.”
Nebraska Republican congressman Don Bacon put it even more bluntly in a post on X:
This is really dumb. Greenland and Denmark are our allies.
Trump administration escalates attack on Minnesota with more immigration agents
Rachel Leingang
The Trump administration has sent more immigration agents to Minnesota, part of escalating attacks and rhetoric against the state and its immigrant populations in what immigration officials are saying is the agency’s “largest operation to date”.
“A 100% chance of ICE in the Twin Cities – our largest operation to date,” the official Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) account on X wrote on Tuesday afternoon. “If you’re a criminal illegal alien and/or you are engaged in fraud, expect a visit from ICE.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed on X that it is “surging to Minneapolis to root out fraud, arrest perpetrators and remove criminal illegal aliens”. Todd Lyons, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told Newsmax that the agency has in the city “the largest immigration operation ever taking place right now”.
CBS News reported on Monday that the administration would bring another 2,000 agents, both from ICE and homeland security investigations, into the state for 30 days. Lyons didn’t confirm the number of agents, but said it was an effort from both ICE and HSI. DHS wouldn’t confirm a number to the Guardian, but said that the agency has “surged law enforcement”.
Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, is in the state. She can be seen in a video produced by DHS of an arrest in Minneapolis of a man from Ecuador who the agency said is wanted for murder in his home country.
Operation Metro Surge, the agency’s name for its crackdown on Minnesota, has been under way since early December. Community members have fought back against ICE, protesting and impeding deportations, as some immigrants have stayed away from public life, avoiding grocery stores or medical care for fear of apprehension.
The fixation on Minnesota comes as the state grapples with several high-profile cases alleging fraud of social services, which have captured Trump’s attention and led to xenophobic comments from him about Somalis. Minnesota is home to the largest Somali population in the US, and most Somalis in the state are US citizens.
The White House’s latest calls for a US takeover of Greenland come after the dark-of-night arrest of Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan president, on Saturday. The next day, Trump said that he needed Greenland “very badly”, prompting a ramping-up of tensions among the US, the semi-autonomous Danish territory and Europe.
Greenland has repeatedly stated that it does not want to be part of the US. The idea is also unpopular in the US, where one poll found just 7% of Americans agree with a military seizure of Greenland.
In a show of solidarity on Tuesday, the leaders of France, Germany, the UK and other nations issued a joint statement with the prime minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, urging the US to respect its sovereignty. They wrote in the statement that Arctic security was a top priority for Nato, a defense alliance that includes the United States and Greenland.
In a private briefing on Capitol Hill, the US secretary of state Marco Rubio told lawmakers on Monday that the administration would prefer to buy the island from Denmark rather than invade it, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
Opening summary
Donald Trump has said Venezuela will be “turning over” $2bn worth of Venezuelan crude to the United States, a flagship negotiation that would divert supplies from China while helping Venezuela avoid deeper oil production cuts.
Trump said in a post online:
This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!
Venezuelan government officials and state company PDVSA did not provide comment.
Venezuela has millions of barrels of oil loaded on tankers and in storage tanks that it has been unable to ship due to the blockade imposed by Trump, as part of the pressure campaign that culminated in the toppling of Nicolás Maduro who was seized from his country by US forces over the weekend.
Top Venezuelan officials have called Maduro’s capture a kidnapping and accused the US of trying to steal the country’s vast oil reserves, however Tuesday’s supposed agreement is a strong sign that the government is responding to Trump’s demand that they open up to US oil companies or risk more military intervention.
Meanwhile, Trump and his advisers have said they are looking into “a range of options” in an effort to acquire Greenland, noting in a White House statement on Tuesday that using the US military to do so is “always an option”.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement:
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 US military is always an option at the commander-in-chief’s disposal.
Leavitt’s comments came as the leaders of major European powers pushed back against Trump’s long-running desire to seize the Arctic territory. More on both of these stories in a moment, but first here are some other developments in US politics:
-
Trump’s administration is freezing more than $10bn in federal childcare and family assistance funds to California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said, citing what it called concerns about fraud and misuse.
-
The Department of Justice has released less than 1% of the so-called Epstein files, a court filing has revealed, as Democrats step up criticism of the Trump administration’s “lawlessness” for keeping records under seal.
-
The Trump administration has sent more immigration agents to Minnesota, part of escalating attacks and rhetoric against the state and its immigrant populations in what immigration officials are saying is the agency’s “largest operation to date”.
-
Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, urged Trump to give up his “fantasies about annexation” of Greenland and accused the US of “completely and utterly unacceptable” rhetoric. “Enough is enough,” he said. The prime minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen previously warned that an attack by the US on a Nato ally would mean the “end” of the military alliance and “post-second world war security”. It would, she said, be the end of “everything”.
-
The Trump administration has abandoned efforts to combat child exploitation, human trafficking and cartels as it diverts thousands of law enforcement personnel to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Democratic senators said in a letter to the White House.
