President Donald Trump has set his sights on several targets in the Western Hemisphere beyond Venezuela — from Mexico with its drug cartels to the political cause célèbre of Cuba. But one place is oddly missing from Trump’s list: Nicaragua. This is a country led not by one, but two dictators. A place where the opposition has been exiled, imprisoned or otherwise stifled so much the word “totalitarian” comes to mind. A place the first Trump administration named alongside Cuba and Venezuela as part of a “troika of tyranny.” Yet it’s barely been mentioned by the second Trump administration. That could change any moment, of course, but right now Nicaragua is in an enviable position in the region. That got me wondering: What is the regime in Managua doing right to avoid Trump’s wrath? What does it have that others don’t? Or, maybe, what does it not have? And what does Nicaragua’s absence from the conversation say about Trump’s bigger motives? Current and former government officials and activists gave me a range of explanations, including that the regime is making smart moves on battling drug trafficking, that it’s benefiting from a lack of natural resources for Trump to covet and that it doesn’t have a slew of migrants in the U.S. Taken together, their answers offer one of the strongest arguments yet that Trump’s actions in the Western Hemisphere or beyond are rarely about helping oppressed people and more about U.S. material interests. “The lesson from Nicaragua is: Don’t matter too much, don’t embarrass Washington and don’t become a domestic political issue,” said Juan Gonzalez, a former Latin America aide to then-President Joe Biden. “For an administration that doesn’t care about democracy or human rights, that’s an effective survival strategy for authoritarians.” Some Nicaraguan opposition leaders say they remain optimistic, and I can’t blame them. Trump is rarely consistent about anything. He’s threatening to bomb Iran right now because, he says, he stands with protesters fighting an unjust regime (albeit one with oil). So maybe he might direct some fury toward Nicaragua? “The fact that Nicaragua is not at the center of the current conversation doesn’t mean that Nicaragua is irrelevant,” Felix Maradiaga, a Nicaraguan politician in exile, told me. “It means that the geopolitical interests of the U.S. right now are at a different place.” Nicaragua is run by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, a husband and wife who take the term “power couple” somewhat literally. They are now co-presidents of the Central American nation of 7 million. Over the years, they’ve rigged elections, wrested control over other branches of the government and crushed the opposition, while apparently grooming their children to succeed them. It has been a strange and circular journey for a pair of one-time Sandinista revolutionaries who previously fought to bring down a dynastic dictatorship. Hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans have fled the impoverished country, some to the United States. Meanwhile, the regime has enhanced ties to Russia, China and other U.S. adversaries, while having rocky relations with Washington. Nicaragua is part of a free trade agreement with Washington, but it has also faced U.S. sanctions, tariffs and other penalties for oppressing its people, eroding democracy and having ties to Russia. Even the current Trump administration has used such measures against it, but the regime hasn’t buckled. Nicaraguan officials I reached out to didn’t respond with a comment. Several factors appear to make Nicaragua a lower priority for Trump. Unlike Venezuela, Nicaragua isn’t a major source of oil, the natural resource Trump covets most. It has gold, but not enough of that or other minerals to truly stand out. (Although yes, I know, Trump loves gold.) It’s also not a major source of migrants to the U.S. Besides, Trump has largely shut down the border. Unlike Panama, another country Trump has previously threatened, it doesn’t have a canal key to global commerce, although there’s occasional talk of building one. Nicaragua may be placating the president and his team by taking moves to curb drug trafficking. At least, that’s what a White House official told me when I sought comment from the administration on why Nicaragua has not been a focus. “Nicaragua is cooperating with us to stop drug trafficking and fight criminal elements in their territory,” the official said. I granted the White House official anonymity to discuss a sensitive national security issue. It’s difficult to establish how this cooperation is happening, and the White House official didn’t offer details. In fact, there were reports last year of tensions between the two countries over the issue. A federal report in March said the U.S. “will terminate its Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) operations in Nicaragua in 2025, partly due to the lack of cooperation from Nicaragua’s agencies.” The DEA didn’t reply when I asked if it had followed up with that plan, but it’s possible the regime has become more helpful recently. The U.S. and Nicaragua’s cooperation on drugs has waxed and waned over the years. In any case, although drug runners use Nicaraguan territory, it’s not a major cartel hub compared to some other countries facing Trump’s ire, such as Mexico. Some Nicaraguan opposition activists have been hoping that U.S. legal moves against Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro would expose narcotrafficking links between Managua and Caracas, providing a reason for the U.S. to come down harder on the regime. They’ve pointed to a 2020 U.S. criminal indictment of Maduro that mentioned Nicaragua. But the latest indictment, unveiled upon Maduro’s Jan. 3 capture, doesn’t mention Nicaragua. When I asked the White House official why the newer indictment doesn’t mention Nicaragua, the person merely insisted that “both indictments are valid.” A spokesperson for the Department of Justice declined to comment. Nicaraguan opposition leaders say that although the new indictment doesn’t mention the country, they still hope it will come up during Maduro’s trial. My sense, though, is that Ortega and Murillo are cooperating just enough with the U.S. that the administration is willing to go easy on them for now. It probably also doesn’t hurt that, despite railing frequently against Washington, Ortega and Murillo don’t openly antagonize Trump himself. They may have learned a lesson from watching how hard Trump has come down on Colombia’s president for taunting him. Another reason Nicaragua isn’t getting much Trump attention? It is not a domestic political flashpoint in the U.S. Not, for example, the way Cuba has been for decades. The Cuban American community can move far more votes than the Nicaraguan American one. Plus, none of the aides closest to Trump are known to be too obsessed with Nicaragua. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has long denounced the Nicaraguan regime, but he’s of Cuban descent and more focused on that island’s fate. Cuba’s regime also is more dependent on Venezuela than Nicaragua’s, making it an easier target. Ortega and Murillo aren’t sucking up to Trump and striking deals with him like another area strongman, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. But, especially since the U.S. capture of Maduro, the pair seem bent on proving their anti-imperialist credentials without angering Trump. The results can be head-scratching. For example, in recent days, the regime is reported to have detained around 60 people for celebrating Maduro’s capture. But around the same time, the regime also reportedly freed “tens” of prisoners, at least some of whom were critics of Ortega and Murillo. Those people were released after the U.S. embassy in the country called on Nicaragua to follow in Venezuela’s recent footsteps and release political prisoners. However, the regime is reported to have described the releases as a way to commemorate 19 years of its rule. Alex Gray, a former senior National Security Council official in the first Trump administration, argued that one reason the president and his current team should care more about Nicaragua is its ties to U.S. adversaries such as Russia and China — ties that could grow if the U.S. ignores the Latin American country. Russia in particular has a strong security relationship with the regime in Managua. China has significantly expanded its ties in recent years, though more in the economic space. Iran also has warm relations with Managua. Nicaragua is the “poster child” for what Trump’s own National Security Strategy called the Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which warns the U.S. will deny its adversaries the ability to meddle in the Western Hemisphere, Gray said. The White House official said the administration is “very closely” monitoring Nicaragua’s cooperation with U.S. rivals. But even that may not be enough for Trump to prioritize Nicaragua. Regardless of what his National Security Strategy says, Trump has a mixed record of standing up to Russia and China, and Nicaragua’s cooperation with them may not be as worrisome as that of a more strategically important country. With Trump, who himself often acts authoritarian, many things must fall in place at the right moment for him to care or act, and Nicaraguan opposition activists haven’t solved that Rubik’s Cube. Many are operating in exile. (In 2023, Ortega and Murillo put 222 imprisoned opposition activists on a plane to the U.S., then stripped them of their Nicaraguan citizenship. Many are now effectively stateless but vulnerable to Trump’s immigration crackdown.) It’s not lost on these activists that Trump has left much of Maduro’s regime in place in Venezuela. It suggests Trump values stability over democracy, human rights or justice. Some hope Ortega and Murillo will be weakened by the fall of their friend, Maduro. The two surely noticed how little Russia, China and others did to help the former leader. Maybe Nicaragua’s co-dictators will ease up on internal repression as one reaction. “When you get this kind of pressure, there are things that get in motion,” said Juan Sebastian Chamorro, a Nicaraguan politician forced out of the country. “They are feeling the heat.”

Vice President JD Vance on Sunday defended the Trump administration’s military operation in Venezuela and capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as part of the efforts to reduce fentanyl trafficking into the U.S. His defense comes as some Republican lawmakers broach skepticism toward the White House’s use of the fentanyl crisis as a justification for the aggressive military intervention. The vast majority of fentanyl smuggled into the U.S. originates in Mexico and China, according to federal law enforcement. Vance pushed back on claims that the operation in Venezuela had “nothing to do with drugs” in a social media post on Sunday, arguing that combating drug trafficking in Venezuela aids the administration’s broader response to the fentanyl crisis on multiple fronts. Vance claimed that some fentanyl does flow to the U.S. from Venezuela, but argued that cocaine trafficking from the country helps prop up cartels. Maduro was indicted on narcoterrorism charges and conspiracy to import cocaine upon his arrival in the U.S. on Saturday. “Cocaine, which is the main drug trafficked out of Venezuela, is a profit center for all of the Latin America cartels,” Vance wrote on X. “If you cut out the money from cocaine (or even reduce it) you substantially weaken the cartels overall. Also, cocaine is bad too!” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), a frequent Trump administration critic who has opposed U.S. military actions abroad in the past, disputed that theory in a social media post and urged supporters of President Donald Trump to reject Vance’s argument. “Wake up MAGA. VENEZUELA is not about drugs; it’s about OIL and REGIME CHANGE. This is not what we voted for,” Massie wrote on social media on Sunday. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who is resigning from Congress on Monday following a schism with the president, said the Trump administration should be focused on Mexico if they’re serious about preventing the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. “The majority of American fentanyl overdoses and deaths come from Mexico. Those are the Mexican cartels that are killing Americans,” Greene told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “And so my pushback here is if this was really about narcoterrorists and about protecting Americans from cartels and drugs being brought into America, the Trump administration would be attacking the Mexican cartels.” Vance defended the Trump administration’s response in Mexico while acknowledging that “a lot of fentanyl is coming out of Mexico,” arguing the nation “continues to be a focus.” He pointed to the president’s actions to restrict immigration via the southern border as a primary response to the flow of fentanyl from Mexico.

American oil companies have long hoped to recover the assets that Venezuela’s authoritarian regime ripped from them decades ago. Now the Trump administration is offering to help them achieve that aim — with one major condition. Administration officials have told oil executives in recent weeks that if they want compensation for their rigs, pipelines and other seized property, then they must be prepared to go back into Venezuela now and invest heavily in reviving its shattered petroleum industry, two people familiar with the administration’s outreach told POLITICO on Saturday. The outlook for Venezuela’s shattered oil infrastructure is one of the major questions following the U.S. military action that captured leader Nicolás Maduro. But people in the industry said the administration’s message has left them still leery about the difficulty of rebuilding decayed oil fields in a country where it’s not even clear who will lead the country for the foreseeable future. “They’re saying, ‘you gotta go in if you want to play and get reimbursed,’” said one industry official familiar with the conversations. The offer has been on the table for the last 10 days, the person said. “But the infrastructure currently there is so dilapidated that no one at these companies can adequately assess what is needed to make it operable.” President Donald Trump suggested in a televised address Saturday morning that he fully expects U.S. oil companies to pour big money into Venezuela. “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure and start making money for the country,” Trump said as he celebrated Maduro’s capture. DECAYED INFRASTRUCTURE It’s been five decades since the Venezuelan government first nationalized the oil industry and nearly 20 years since former President Hugo Chávez expanded the asset seizures. The country has some of the largest oil reserves in the world, but its petroleum infrastructure has decayed amid years of mismanagement and meager investment. Initial thoughts among U.S. oil industry officials and market analysts who spoke to POLITICO regarding a post-Maduro Venezuela focused more on questions than answers. The administration has so far not laid out what its long-term plan looks like, or even if it has one, said Bob McNally, a former national security and energy adviser to President George W. Bush who now leads the energy and geopolitics consulting firm Rapidan Energy Group. “It’s not clear there’s been a specific plan beyond the principal decision that in a post-Maduro, Trump-compliant regime that the U.S. companies — energy and others — will be at the top of the list” to reenter the country, McNally said. He added: “What the regime looks like, what the plans are for getting there, that has not been fully fleshed out yet.” A central concern for U.S. industry executives is whether the administration can guarantee the safety of the employees and equipment that companies would need to send to Venezuela, how the companies would be paid, whether oil prices will rise enough to make Venezuelan crude profitable and the status of Venezuela’s membership in the OPEC oil exporters cartel. U.S. benchmark oil prices were at $57 a barrel, the lowest since the end of the pandemic, as of the market’s close on Friday. The White House did not immediately reply to questions about its plan for the oil industry, but Trump said during Saturday’s appearance at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida that he expected oil companies to put up the initial investments. “We’re going to rebuild the oil infrastructure, which requires billions of dollars that will be paid for by the oil companies directly,” Trump said. “They will be reimbursed for what they’re doing, but it’s going to be paid, and we’re going to get the oil flowing.” However, the administration’s outreach to U.S. oil company executives remains “at its best in the infancy stage,” said one industry executive familiar with the discussions, who was granted anonymity to describe conversations with the president’s team. “In preparation for regime change, there had been engagement. But it’s been sporadic and relatively flatly received by the industry,” this person said. “It feels very much a shoot-ready-aim exercise.” ‘WHOLESALE REMAKING’ Venezuela’s oil output has fallen to less than a third of the 3.5 million barrels per day that it produced in the 1970s, and the infrastructure that is used to tap into its 300 billion barrels of reserves has deteriorated in the past two decades. “Will the U.S. be able to attract U.S. oilfield services to go to Venezuela?” the executive asked. “Maybe. It would have to involve the services companies being able to contract directly with the U.S. government.” Talks with administration officials over the past several days also involved the fate of the state oil company, which is known as PdVSA, this person added. “PdVSA will not be denationalized in some way and broken,” this person said. “Definitely it’s going to be wholesale remaking of PdVSA leadership, but at least at this point, there is no plan for denationalization or auctioning it off. It’s in the best position to keep production flowing.” Chevron, the sole major oil company still working in Venezuela under a special license from the U.S. government, said in a statement Saturday that it “remains focused on the safety and wellbeing of our employees, as well as the integrity of our assets. “We continue to operate in full compliance with all relevant laws and regulations,” Chevron spokesperson Bill Turenne said in a statement. Evanan Romero, a Houston-based oil consultant involved in the effort to bring U.S. oil producers back to Venezuela, said in a text message that Saturday’s events laid the groundwork for American oil companies to return “very soon.” Romero is part of a roughly 400-person committee, mostly made up of former employees of the Venezuelan state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, that formed about a year ago to strategize about how to revive the country’s oil industry under a new government. The committee, which is not directly affiliated with opposition leader María Corina Machado’s camp, is debating the role any new government should have in the oil sector. Some members favor keeping the industry under the control of the government while others contend that international oil majors would return only under a free market system, Romero said. ‘ABOVE-GROUND RISK’ Ultimately, the “orderliness” in any transition will determine U.S. investment and reentry in Venezuela, said Carrie Filipetti, who was deputy assistant secretary for Cuba and Venezuela and the deputy special representative for Venezuela at the State Department in Trump’s first administration. “If you were to see a disorderly transition, obviously I think that would make it very challenging for American companies to enter Venezuela,” said Filipetti, who is now executive director of nonpartisan foreign policy group The Vandenberg Coalition. “It’s not just about getting rid of Maduro. It’s also about making sure that the legitimate opposition comes into power. ” Richard Goldberg, who led the White House’s National Energy Dominance Council until August, said the Trump administration could offer financial incentives to coax companies back into Venezuela. That could include the Export-Import Bank and the U.S. International Development Finance Corp., whose remit Congress expanded in December, underwriting investments to account for political and security risks. Promoting U.S. investment in Venezuela would keep China — a major consumer of Venezuela’s oil — out of the nation and cut off the flow of the discounted crude that China buys from Venezuela’s ghost fleets of tankers that skirt U.S. sanctions. “There’s an incentive for the Americans to get there first and to ensure it’s American companies at the forefront, and not anybody else’s,” said Goldberg. It’s unclear how much the Trump administration could accelerate investment in Venezuela, said Landon Derentz, an energy analyst at the Atlantic Council who worked in the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. Many consider Venezuela a longer-term play given current low prices of $50 per barrel oil and the huge capital investments needed to modernize the infrastructure, Derentz said. But as U.S. shale oil regions that have made the country the world’s leading oil producer peter out over time, he said, it would become increasingly economical to export Venezuelan heavy crude to the Gulf Coast refineries built specifically to process it. “Venezuela would be a crown jewel if the above-ground risk is removed. I have companies saying let’s see where this lands,” said Derentz, who served in Trump’s National Security Council during his first term. “I don’t see anything that gives me the sense that this is a ripe opportunity.”

The message from Capitol Hill on both sides of the aisle is clear: Get ready for U.S. relations with China to spiral all over again in the new year. The one-year trade truce brokered in October between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping is already looking shaky. And lawmakers are preparing to reup clashes over trade, Taiwan and cyber-intrusions when they return in January. “It’s like a heavyweight fight, and we’re in that short time period in-between rounds, but both sides need to be preparing for what is next after the truce,” Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.), a member of the House Select Committee on China, said in an interview. POLITICO talked to more than 25 lawmakers, including those on the House Select Committee on China, the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s East Asia subcommittee and the Congressional Executive Commission on China, for their views on the durability of the trade treaty. Both Republicans and Democrats warned of turbulence ahead. More than 20 of the lawmakers said they doubt Xi will deliver on key pledges the White House said he made in October, including reducing the flow of precursor chemicals to Mexico that cartels process into fentanyl and buying agreed volumes of U.S. agricultural goods. “China can never be trusted. They’re always looking for an angle,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said. That pessimism comes despite an easing in U.S.-China tensions since the Trump-Xi meeting in South Korea. The bruising cycle of tit-for-tat tariffs that briefly hit triple digits earlier this year is currently on pause. Both countries have relaxed export restrictions on essential items (rare earths for the U.S., chip design software for China), while Beijing has committed to “expanding agricultural product trade” in an apparent reference to the suspension of imports of U.S. agricultural products it imposed earlier this year. This trend may continue, given that Trump is likely to want stability in the U.S.-China relationship ahead of a summit with Xi planned for April in Beijing. “We’re starting to see some movement now on some of their tariff issues and the fentanyl precursor issue,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) said. But a series of issues have been brushed aside in negotiations or left in limbo — a status quo the Trump administration can only maintain for so long. The U.S.-China trade deal on rare earths that Bessent said the two countries would finalize by Thanksgiving remains unsettled. And the White House hasn’t confirmed reporting from earlier this month that Beijing-based ByteDance has finalized the sale of the TikTok social media app ahead of the Jan. 23 deadline for that agreement. “The idea that we’re in a period of stability with Beijing is simply not accurate,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Shaheen has been sounding the alarm on China’s national security threats since she entered the Senate in 2009. But even some lawmakers who have been more open to engagement with Beijing — such as California Democratic Reps. Ro Khanna and Ami Bera — said that they don’t expect the armistice to last. The White House is more upbeat about the prospects for U.S.-China trade ties. “President Trump’s close relationship with President Xi is helping ensure that both countries are able to continue building on progress and continue resolving outstanding issues,” the White House said in a statement, adding that the administration “continues to monitor China’s compliance with our trade agreement.” It declined to comment on the TikTok deal. Still, the lawmakers POLITICO spoke with described four issues that could derail U.S.-China ties in the New Year: A SOYBEAN SPOILER U.S. soybean farmers’ reliance on the Chinese market gives Beijing a powerful non-tariff trade weapon — and China doesn’t appear to be following through on promises to renew purchases. The standoff over soybeans started in May, when China halted those purchases, raising the prospect of financial ruin across farming states including Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and Indiana — key political constituencies for the GOP in the congressional midterm elections next year. The White House said last month that Xi committed to buying 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans in November and December. But so far, Beijing has only purchased a fraction of that agreed total, NBC reported this month. “What agitates Trump and causes him to react quickly are things that are more domestic and closer to home,” Rep. Jill Tokuda (D-Hawaii) said. China’s foot-dragging on soybean purchases “is the most triggering because it’s hurting American farmers and consumers, so that’s where we could see the most volatility in the relationship,” she said. That trigger could come on Feb. 28 — the new deadline for that 12 million metric ton purchase, which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced earlier this month. The Chinese embassy in Washington declined to comment on whether Beijing plans to meet this deadline. The White House said one of the aspects of the trade deal it is monitoring is soybean purchases through this growing season. THE TAIWAN TINDERBOX Beijing’s threats to invade Taiwan are another near-term potential flashpoint, even though the U.S. hasn’t prioritized the issue in its national security strategy or talks between Xi and Trump. China has increased its preparations for a Taiwan invasion this year. In October, the Chinese military debuted a new military barge system that addresses some of the challenges of landing on the island’s beaches by deploying a bridge for cargo ships to unload tanks or trucks directly onto the shore. “China is tightening the noose around the island,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who joined a bipartisan congressional delegation to China in September and returned calling for better communications between the U.S. and Chinese militaries. Some of the tension around Taiwan is playing out in the wider region, as Beijing pushes to expand its military reach and its influence. Chinese fighter jets locked radar — a prelude to opening fire — on Japanese aircraft earlier this month in the East China Sea. “There is a real chance that Xi overplays his hand on antagonizing our allies, particularly Australia and Japan,” Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) said. “There is still a line [China] cannot cross without making this truce impossible to sustain.” The U.S. has a decades-long policy of “strategic ambiguity” under which it refuses to spell out how the U.S. would respond to Chinese aggression against Taiwan. Trump has also adhered to that policy. “You’ll find out if it happens,” Trump said in an interview with 60 Minutes in November. MORE EXPORT RESTRICTIONS ON THE WAY Beijing has eased its export restrictions on rare earths — metallic elements essential to both civilian and military applications — but could reimpose those blocks at any time. Ten of the 25 lawmakers who spoke to POLITICO said they suspect Beijing will reimpose those export curbs as a convenient pressure point in the coming months. “At the center of the crack in the truce is China’s ability to levy export restrictions, especially its chokehold on the global supply of rare earths and other critical minerals,” Rep. André Carson (D-Ind.) said. Others are worried China will choose to expand its export controls to another product category for which it has market dominance — pharmaceuticals. Beijing supplies 80 percent of the U.S. supply of active pharmaceutical ingredients — the foundations of common drugs to treat everything from high blood pressure to type 2 diabetes. “Overnight, China could turn off the spigot and many basic pharmaceuticals, including things like aspirin, go away from the supply chain in the United States,” Rep. Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas) said. China restarted exports of rare earths earlier this month, and its Commerce Ministry pledged “timely approval” of such exports under a new licensing system, state media reported. Beijing has not indicated its intent to restrict the export of pharmaceuticals or their components as a trade weapon. But the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission urged the Food and Drug Administration to reduce U.S. reliance on Chinese sources of pharmaceuticals in its annual report last month. The Chinese embassy in Washington didn’t respond to a request for comment. GROWING CHINESE MILITARY MUSCLE China’s drive to develop a world-class military that can challenge traditional U.S. dominion of the Indo-Pacific could also derail relations between Washington and Beijing in 2026. China’s expanding navy — which, at more than 200 warships, is now the world’s largest — is helping Beijing show off its power across the region. The centerpiece of that effort in 2025 has been the addition of a third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, which entered into service last month. The Fujian is two-thirds the size of the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier. But like the Ford, it boasts state-of-the-art electromagnetic catapults to launch J-35 and J-15T fighter jets. The Trump administration sees that as a threat. The U.S. aims to insulate allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific from possible Chinese “sustained successful military aggression” powered by Beijing’s “historic military buildup,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said earlier this month at the Reagan National Defense Forum. Five lawmakers said they see China’s increasingly aggressive regional military footprint as incompatible with U.S. efforts to maintain a stable relationship with Beijing in the months ahead. “We know the long-term goal of China is really economic and diplomatic and military domination around the world, and they see the United States as an adversary,” Moran said. Daniel Desrochers contributed to this report.

Soccer may be the world’s most popular pastime, but much about Friday’s lottery draw setting the match schedule for next summer’s World Cup has been programmed with just one fan in mind. Never before has the sports governing body given out a peace prize to a politician eager for one, or booked the Village People and Andrea Bocelli to play alongside. President Donald Trump’s appearance on the Kennedy Center stage will be at least his seventh encounter this year with FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who has logged more face time with Trump this year than any world leader. Infantino’s savvy navigation of the American political scene has helped FIFA build institutional support for a tournament facing unprecedented logistical complications. But that success is beginning to weaken Infantino, as the third-term FIFA president faces newfound internal opposition for his over-the-top courtship of Trump. Our interviews with six international soccer officials across three continents reveal widespread frustration with Infantino’s decision to side with Trump even as White House policies cause chaos for World Cup-bound teams, fans and local organizers, clashing with Infantino’s promise to have a tournament that welcomes the world. “[FIFA] has always promoted a very cozy, close relationship with politicians and political actors in a variety of ways, including by having them in their bodies or running the National Football Associations, for example,” said Miguel Maduro, the chairman of FIFA’s governance and review committee between 2016 and 2017. “This said, the extent of this cozy relationship that we’ve seen and and the public character that has been assumed between Mr. Infantino and Mr. Trump is different even from what we saw in the past,” said Maduro. “It’s not that things like that didn’t happen in the past, but it didn’t happen so obviously and so emphatically as they do now.” Our reporting found that Infantino did not inform his 37-member FIFA Council before creating the FIFA Peace Prize this year, three people familiar with the matter told POLITICO. Over the past year, at least three of FIFA’s eight vice presidents have publicly or privately expressed their concerns about the lengths Infantino is willing to go to please Trump. While Infantino has won his last two terms unopposed, when he stands next for reelection in 2027 he will likely have to answer to FIFA’s 211 member federations for his willing entanglement in the controversies of American politics. Infantino’s allies say that those opposed to many of his soccer-related initiatives — focused on growing the game in emerging markets and expanding FIFA’s flagship tournaments — are using his Trump ties to exploit differences on unrelated issues. “If a challenger to Gianni for the 2027 election emerges, it will be in the next six to eight months and the World Cup will be a litmus test,” said a person involved with World Cup planning granted anonymity to characterize private conversations with top soccer officials. “If something goes off the rails or somebody decides they want to make a run against him, they’re going to use his relationship with Trump to exploit the cracks.” THE MAKING OF THE PRESIDENTS Infantino launched his first campaign for FIFA’s presidency as an underdog. A corruption scandal had toppled much of FIFA’s leadership in 2015, forcing a so-called “extraordinary congress” the next year in which members would vote to decide who would complete the unfinished term vacated by the newly suspended president Sepp Blatter. FIFA, comprised of national soccer federations, picks its president through a secret ballot of those members — one nation, one vote. To win in a multi-candidate field, one must capture two-thirds of the total ballots cast, with rounds of voting until a single candidate locks in a two-way majority. The favorite to succeed Blatter was Sheik Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, a Bahraini royal who headed the Asian Football Confederation and appeared to have stitched together a coalition of Asian and African nations. Infantino, a polyglot Swiss-Italian lawyer who had spent seven years as secretary general of European confederation UEFA, pitched himself as someone who could disperse the organization’s wealth back to member countries. “The money of FIFA is your money,” Infantino said in a speech shortly before the vote. “It is not the money of the FIFA president. It’s your money.” Infantino and Al Khalifa ran neck-in-neck in the first round. With a clear two-person race, the United States — which had been supporting Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein of Jordan, who finished a distant third — switched its vote to Infantino in the second round, triggering a rush of support from the Western Hemisphere that gave Infantino a conclusive 115-vote total. A fourth candidate, former French diplomat Jérome Champagne, credited Infantino’s victory to “a strong alliance between Europe and North America and the Anglo-Saxon world.” “Prepare yourself well but be vigilant,” Blatter warned Infantino upon his election in a public letter. “While everyone supports you and tells you nice words, know that once you are the president, friends become rare.” Once in office, Infantino’s initiatives were focused on expanding FIFA’s most valuable properties. He converted a ten-day, exhibition-like competition among seven regional club champions into the month-long FIFA Club World Cup. He also pushed, with mixed success, to grow the size and scope of the World Cup and increase its frequency. In 2017, Infantino announced that the first World Cup under an expanded format — up from 32 countries participating to 48, adding a week of matches to the schedule — would take place in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Facing the first tournament in which hosting responsibilities would be shared by three countries, Infantino visited Trump to secure assurances of government support. Infantino went on to win subsequent terms in 2019 and 2023, and when Trump returned to the White House for his second, in 2025, their political trajectories became permanently intertwined. Infantino set out to raise his profile in American life and his relationships with the country’s political class, including through a campaign-style tour through many of the American cities hosting matches for the inaugural Club World Cup in 2025 and the World Cup the following summer. Infantino sat next to Trump at the tournament’s final, held at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium in July, dragging him onto the winners’ platform as Infantino went to award a trophy and medals to champions Chelsea. Trump lingered awkwardly on stage to the befuddlement of Chelsea’s players, who had not expected they would share the moment with an American politician. Other appearances with Trump placed Infantino squarely between a president intent on solving overseas conflicts and punishing foes, while closing American borders to visitors and trade, and FIFA member nations who may hold starkly different views, or worse. Infantino stood quietly in the Oval Office as he said he would not rule out strikes against fellow World Cup co-host Mexico to target drug cartels, and joined Trump’s entourage on a trip designed to cultivate investment opportunities in the Persian Gulf. When FIFA had to delay the opening of its annual congress in Asuncion, Paraguay, to accommodate Infantino’s travel from a Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in Riyadh, two FIFA vice presidents were among those who joined English Football Association chairwoman Debbie Hewitt and other federation heads exiting in protest. European confederation UEFA — with 55 member nations, FIFA’s largest — attacked him with unusually pointed language. “To have the timetable changed at the last minute for what appears to be simply to accommodate private political interests,” UEFA wrote in its statement, “does the game no service and appears to put its interests second.” GIANNI ON THE SPOT In September, Trump said he would try to move scheduled World Cup matches out of Democratic-run jurisdictions that are “even a little bit dangerous.” Infantino, whose organization had spent years vetting and preparing those cities for the tournament, said nothing. But a potential rival to Infantino’s leadership took issue with both the American president’s threat — since repeated but not acted upon — and the FIFA president’s silence. “It’s FIFA’s tournament, FIFA’s jurisdiction, FIFA makes those decisions,” FIFA vice president Victor Montagliani, the organization’s leading figure from North America, said at a sports-business conference in London six days later. While president of the Canadian Soccer Association, Montagliani helped to secure his country’s participation in the three-way so-called “United Bid” for next summer’s World Cup. (The Vancouver insurance executive also helped bring the Women’s World Cup to Canada in 2015.) He now serves as president of CONCACAF, the 41-member regional federation encompassing the 41 nations of North America, Central America and the Caribbean. Close to Prime Minister Mark Carney, Montagliani has come to believe Infantino has catered too much to Trump for a tournament realized through the cooperation of three nations, according to three of the people familiar with the dynamics of FIFA’s leadership. (Montagliani declined an interview request.) The leaders of the United States, Mexico and Canada will all participate in a ceremonial ball draw in today’s draw. “With all due respect to current world leaders, football is bigger than them and football will survive their regime and their government and their slogans,” Montagliani told an interviewer at the London conference in late September. “That’s the beauty of our game, is that it is bigger than any individual and bigger than any country.” Montagliani’s “FIFA’s jurisdiction” remarks did not land well with Infantino’s inner sanctum. “It is ultimately the government’s responsibility to decide what’s in the best interest of public safety,” FIFA said in a statement to POLITICO in October after Trump’s next round of threats to relocate matches. The relationship between Infantino and Montagliani has further soured in recent months as Trump reignited tensions between Washington and Ottawa over an anti-tariff ad taking aim at U.S. trade policy, according to a person close to Montagliani granted anonymity to candidly characterize his thinking. Montagliani has his own thoughts on how far relationships with government figures should go but respects Infantino’s perspective, that person said, maintaining the two men had a good relationship despite occasional differences. Others around FIFA have their own parochial concerns with Trump. Despite being among the first teams to qualify for the tournament, Iran threatened to boycott Friday’s draw because some members of its delegation were denied visas for travel to Washington. According to a FIFA official, Iran ultimately reversed course and sent Iranian head coach Ardeshir Ghalenoy after FIFA worked closely with the U.S. government and Iran’s soccer federation. Another qualifying team, Haiti, is also covered by the 19-country travel ban that Trump signed in June. The State Department said that while the policy has a specific carveout for World Cup competitors and their families, the exception will not be applied to fans or spectators. The president of the Japanese Football Association, Tsuneyasu Miyamoto, told POLITICO in an interview last month that he was worried that Trump’s immigration policies could subject Japanese travelers to “deportations happening unnecessarily.” Infantino has stopped short of pressuring Trump to make exceptions to immigration policy for the sake of soccer. FIFA officials have said that when it chooses a tournament location it does not expect that country to significantly alter its immigration laws or vetting standards for the tournament, although many past hosts have chosen to relax visa requirements for World Cup ticketholders. Many European countries’ soccer federations, led by Ireland and Norway, have pushed to ban Israel from international soccer due to its military invasion of Gaza. The movement received an apparent boost from UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin, who supported unfurling a banner that read “Stop Killing Children; Stop Killing Civilians” on the field before a UEFA Super Cup match in August. “If such a big thing is going on, such a terrible thing that doesn’t allow me to sleep — not me, all my colleagues,” — nobody in this organization said we shouldn’t do it. No one,” Čeferin told POLITICO in August. “Then you have to do what is the right thing to do.” European countries were set on a collision with Trump, whose State Department indicated it would work to “fully stop any effort to attempt to ban Israel’s national soccer team from the World Cup.” UEFA pulled back on a planned vote over Israel’s place as a Trump-negotiated peace agreement took hold. Infantino joined Trump and other heads of state in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, for a summit to implement the agreement’s first phase. Nothing threatens to awaken opposition to Infantino as much as his decision to invent a FIFA Peace Prize just as Trump began to complain in October about being passed over for one from the Norwegian Nobel Committee. According to a draft run-of-show for Friday’s draw, Trump is scheduled to speak for two minutes today after receiving the Peace Prize. “He is just implementing what he said he would do,” Infantino said at an American Business Forum in Miami, also attended by Trump, on the day news of the prize was made public. “So I think we should all support what he’s doing because I think it’s looking pretty good.” According to FIFA rules, the organization’s president needs sign-off from the 37-member FIFA council on certain items like the international match calendar, host designations for upcoming FIFA tournaments, and financial matters. FIFA’s charter does not contemplate the creation of a new prize specifically to award a world leader, but those familiar with the organization’s governance say it may violate an ethics policy that requires officers “remain politically neutral.” (In 2019, FIFA honored Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri, who previously led venerable club Boca Juniors, with its first-ever Living Football Award.) “Giving this award to someone that is an active political actor, by itself, is, at least in my opinion, likely a violation of the principle of political neutrality,” said Maduro, a Portuguese legal scholar appointed to oversee FIFA’s governance in the wake of the corruption scandal that helped bring Infantino to office. “We need to know two things: how the award was created and who then took the decision to whom the award was to be given. Both of these decisions should not be taken by the president himself.” Infantino fully bypassed the FIFA Council in deciding to create and award the prize to Trump, according to three people familiar with conversations between Infantino and the council’s members. Even the vice presidents who were given a heads-up ahead of time say they were simply being told after the decision was made. FOUR MORE YEARS? Infantino, a quintessential European first elected with support from his home continent, now sees his strongest base of support in Asia, Africa, and the Gulf countries. He won his last two terms by acclamation, after delivering on his promises to disperse the $11 billion FIFA takes in each World Cup cycle. The FIFA Forward program, launched in 2016, sent $2.8 billion back to member federations and regional confederations in its first six years, funding everything from the development of Papua New Guinea’s women’s squad to an air dome for winter training in Mongolia. But Infantino’s political choices may be costing him in Europe, where the sport is more established and national federations are less dependent on FIFA’s largesse. Infantino’s defenders say that European soccer officials, including Čeferin, have turned against him because they see his attempts to expand the World Cup and institute the Club World Cup as a threat to the primacy of their regional competitions. Many in international soccer see Montagliani as the most viable potential challenger, although a person close to him says he has no intention of seeking FIFA’s presidency in 2027 and instead plans to seek reelection that year to what would have to be his final term as CONCACAF’s president. But he fits the profile of someone best positioned to dethrone the incumbent, ironically by stitching together the type of trans-Atlantic alliance that lifted Infantino to his first victory. “Mexico is not happy. Canada is not happy, and that’s because they’re politically not happy with Trump,” said a senior national-federation official, granted anonymity to candidly discuss dynamics within CONCACAF. “There’s that direct tension.”

President Donald Trump intends for the U.S. to keep a bigger military presence in the Western Hemisphere going forward to battle migration, drugs and the rise of adversarial powers in the region, according to his new National Security Strategy. The 33-page document is a rare formal explanation of Trump’s foreign policy worldview by his administration. Such strategies, which presidents typically release once each term, can help shape how parts of the U.S. government allocate budgets and set policy priorities. The Trump National Security Strategy, which the White House quietly released Thursday, has some brutal words for Europe, suggesting it is in civilizational decline, and pays relatively little attention to the Middle East and Africa. It has an unusually heavy focus on the Western Hemisphere that it casts as largely about protecting the U.S. homeland. It says “border security is the primary element of national security” and makes veiled references to China’s efforts to gain footholds in America’s backyard. “The United States must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity — a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently where and when we need to in the region,” the document states. “The terms of our alliances, and the terms upon which we provide any kind of aid, must be contingent on winding down adversarial outside influence — from control of military installations, ports, and key infrastructure to the purchase of strategic assets broadly defined.” The document describes such plans as part of a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. The latter is the notion set forth by President James Monroe in 1823 that the U.S. will not tolerate malign foreign interference in its own hemisphere. Trump’s paper, as well as a partner document known as the National Defense Strategy, have faced delays in part because of debates in the administration over elements related to China. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pushed for some softening of the language about Beijing, according to two people familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity to describe internal deliberations. Bessent is currently involved in sensitive U.S. trade talks with China, and Trump himself is wary of the delicate relations with Beijing. The new National Security Strategy says the U.S. has to make challenging choices in the global realm. “After the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country. Yet the affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests,” the document states. In an introductory note to the strategy, Trump called it a “roadmap to ensure that America remains the greatest and most successful nation in human history, and the home of freedom on earth.” But Trump is mercurial by nature, so it’s hard to predict how closely or how long he will stick to the ideas laid out in the new strategy. A surprising global event could redirect his thinking as well, as it has done for recent presidents from George W. Bush to Joe Biden. Still, the document appears in line with many of the moves he’s taken in his second term, as well as the priorities of some of his aides. That includes deploying significantly more U.S. military prowess to the Western Hemisphere, taking numerous steps to reduce migration to America, pushing for a stronger industrial base in the U.S. and promoting “Western identity,” including in Europe. The strategy even nods to so-called traditional values at times linked to the Christian right, saying the administration wants “the restoration and reinvigoration of American spiritual and cultural health” and “an America that cherishes its past glories and its heroes.” It mentions the need to have “growing numbers of strong, traditional families that raise healthy children.” As POLITICO has reported before, the strategy spends an unusual amount of space on Latin America, the Caribbean and other U.S. neighbors. That’s a break with past administrations, who tended to prioritize other regions and other topics, such as taking on major powers like Russia and China or fighting terrorism. The Trump strategy suggests the president’s military buildup in the Western Hemisphere is not a temporary phenomenon. (That buildup, which has included controversial military strikes against boats allegedly carrying drugs, has been cast by the administration as a way to fight cartels. But the administration also hopes the buildup could help pressure Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro to step down.) The strategy also specifically calls for “a more suitable Coast Guard and Navy presence to control sea lanes, to thwart illegal and other unwanted migration, to reduce human and drug trafficking, and to control key transit routes in a crisis.” The strategy says the U.S. should enhance its relationships with governments in Latin America, including working with them to identify strategic resources — an apparent reference to materials such as rare earth minerals. It also declares that the U.S. will partner more with the private sector to promote “strategic acquisition and investment opportunities for American companies in the region.” Such business-related pledges, at least on a generic level, could please many Latin American governments who have long been frustrated by the lack of U.S. attention to the region. It’s unclear how such promises square with Trump’s insistence on imposing tariffs on America’s trade partners, however. The National Security Strategy spends a fair amount of time on China, though it often doesn’t mention Beijing directly. Many U.S. lawmakers — on a bipartisan basis — consider an increasingly assertive China the gravest long-term threat to America’s global power. But while the language the Trump strategy uses is tough, it is careful and far from inflammatory. The administration promises to “rebalance America’s economic relationship with China, prioritizing reciprocity and fairness to restore American economic independence.” But it also says “trade with China should be balanced and focused on non-sensitive factors” and even calls for “maintaining a genuinely mutually advantageous economic relationship with Beijing.” The strategy says the U.S. wants to prevent war in the Indo-Pacific — a nod to growing tensions in the region, including between China and U.S. allies such as Japan and the Philippines. “We will also maintain our longstanding declaratory policy on Taiwan, meaning that the United States does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait,” it states. That may come as a relief to Asia watchers who worry Trump will back away from U.S. support for Taiwan as it faces ongoing threats from China. The document states that “it is a core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine,” and to mitigate the risk of Russian confrontation with other countries in Europe. But overall it pulls punches when it comes to Russia — there’s very little criticism of Moscow. Instead, it reserves some of its harshest remarks for U.S.-allied nations in Europe. In particular, the administration, in somewhat veiled terms, knocks European efforts to rein in far-right parties, calling such moves political censorship. “The Trump administration finds itself at odds with European officials who hold unrealistic expectations for the [Ukraine] war perched in unstable minority governments, many of which trample on basic principles of democracy to suppress opposition,” the strategy states. The strategy also appears to suggest that migration will fundamentally change European identity to a degree that could hurt U.S. alliances. “Over the long term, it is more than plausible that within a few decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority non-European,” it states. “As such, it is an open question whether they will view their place in the world, or their alliance with the United States, in the same way as those who signed the NATO charter.” Still, the document acknowledges Europe’s economic and other strengths, as well as how America’s partnership with much of the continent has helped the U.S. “Not only can we not afford to write Europe off — doing so would be self-defeating for what this strategy aims to achieve,” it says. “Our goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory,” it says. Trump’s first-term National Security Strategy focused significantly on the U.S. competition with Russia and China, but the president frequently undercut it by trying to gain favor with the leaders of those nuclear powers. If this new strategy proves a better reflection of what Trump himself actually believes, it could help other parts of the U.S. government adjust, not to mention foreign governments. As Trump administration documents often do, the strategy devotes significant space to praising the commander-in-chief. It describes him as the “President of Peace” while favorably stating that he “uses unconventional diplomacy.” The strategy struggles at times to tamp down what seem like inconsistencies. It says the U.S. should have a high bar for foreign intervention, but it also says it wants to “prevent the emergence of dominant adversaries.” It also essentially dismisses the ambitions of many smaller countries. “The outsized influence of larger, richer, and stronger nations is a timeless truth of international relations,” the strategy states. The National Security Strategy is the first of several important defense and foreign policy papers the Trump administration is due to release. They include the National Defense Strategy, whose basic thrust is expected to be similar. Presidents’ early visions for what the National Security Strategy should mention have at times had to be discarded due to events. After the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush’s first-term strategy ended up focusing heavily on battling Islamist terrorism. Biden’s team spent much of its first year working on a strategy that had to be rewritten after Russia moved toward a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

A pair of documents laying out the Trump administration’s global security strategy have been delayed for weeks due in part to changes that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent insisted on concerning China, according to three people familiar with the discussions on the strategies. The documents — the National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy — were initially expected to be released earlier this fall. Both are now almost done and will likely be released this month, one of the people said. The second person confirmed the imminent release of the National Security Strategy, and the third confirmed that the National Defense Strategy was coming very soon. All were granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The strategies went through multiple rounds of revisions after Bessent wanted more work done on the language used to discuss China, given sensitivity over ongoing trade negotiations with Beijing and the elevation of the Western Hemisphere as a higher priority than it had been in previous administrations, the people said. The National Security Strategy has been used by successive administrations to outline their overall strategic priorities from the economic sphere to dealing with allies and adversaries and military posture. The drafting goes through a series of readthroughs and comment periods from Cabinet officials in an attempt to capture the breadth of an administrations’ vision and ensure the entire administration is marching in the same direction on the president’s top issues. The administration has been involved in sensitive trade talks with Beijing for months over tariffs and a variety of trade issues, but the Pentagon has maintained its position that China remains the top military rival to the United States. The extent of the changes after Bessent’s requests remains unclear, but two of the people said that Bessent wanted to soften some of the language concerning Chinese activities while declining to provide more details. Any changes to one document would require similar changes to the other, as they must be in sync to express a unified front. It is common for the Treasury secretary and other Cabinet officials to weigh in during the drafting and debate process of crafting a new strategy, as most administrations will only release one National Security Strategy per term. In a statement, the Treasury Department said that Bessent “is 100 percent aligned with President Trump, as is everyone else in this administration, as to how to best manage the relationship with China.” The White House referred to the Treasury Department. Trump administration officials have alternately decried the threat from China and looked for ways to improve relations with Beijing. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is expected to deliver a speech on Friday at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, on Pentagon efforts to build weapons more quickly to meet the China challenge. At the same time, Hegseth is working with his Chinese counterpart, Adm. Dong Jun, to set up a U.S.-China military communication system aimed to prevent disagreements or misunderstandings from spiraling into unintended conflict in the Indo-Pacific. Bessent told the New ‍York Times Dealbook summit on Wednesday that China was on schedule to meet the pledges it made under a ‌U.S.-China trade agreement, including purchasing 12 million metric tons of soybeans by February 2026. “China is on track to ‍keep every ⁠part of the deal,” ⁠he said. Those moves by administration officials are set against the massive Chinese military buildup in the Indo-Pacific region and tensions over Beijing’s belligerent attitude toward the Philippines, where Beijing and Manila have been facing off over claims of land masses and reefs in the South China Sea. The U.S. has been supplying the Philippines with more sophisticated weaponry in recent years in part to ward off the Chinese threat. China has also consistently flown fighter planes and bombers and sailed warships close to Taiwan’s shores despite the Taiwan Relations Act, an American law that pledges the U.S. to keep close ties with the independent island. The National Security Strategy, which is put out by every administration, hasn’t been updated since 2022 under the Biden administration. That document highlighted three core themes: strategic competition with China and Russia; renewed investment and focus on domestic industrial policy; and the recognition that climate change is a central challenge that touches all aspects of national security. The strategy is expected to place more emphasis on the Western Hemisphere than previous strategies, which focused on the Middle East, counterterrorism, China and Russia. The new strategy will include those topics but also focus on topics such as migration, drug cartels and relations with Latin America — all under the umbrella of protecting the U.S. homeland. That new National Defense Strategy similarly places more emphasis on protecting the U.S. homeland and the Western Hemisphere, as POLITICO first reported, a choice that has caused some concern among military commanders. Both documents are expected to be followed by the “global posture review,” a look at how U.S. military assets are positioned across the globe, and which is being eagerly anticipated by allies from Germany to South Korea, both of which are home to tens of thousands of U.S. troops who might be moved elsewhere.

The United States on Friday sanctioned Colombian President Gustavo Petro, the latest escalation of tensions between Washington and Bogotá over drug trafficking and other issues of bilateral importance. In a press release, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the left-wing leader “has allowed drug cartels to flourish and refused to stop this activity.” The sanctions target Petro and his associates — chiefly his wife, son and several leading Colombian officials. Bessent added that the Trump administration’s actions are intended to “protect our nation and make clear that we will not tolerate the trafficking of drugs into our nation.” Reacting to the sanctions on social media, Petro said “fighting against drug trafficking for decades with efficiency has brought these measures against me by the government of the country which we help to stop its consumption of cocaine. All a paradox, but no steps back and never on our knees.” It’s highly unusual for the U.S. to sanction the sitting leader of a country, let alone a longtime ally like Colombia. But the imposition of sanctions reflects the continued tensions between Petro and the administration, as the Colombian leader has criticized the U.S. military buildup in the Western Hemisphere in the name of combating drug cartels. Petro also previously criticized the U.S. for supporting what he alleged was an Israeli genocide in Gaza, and called on U.S. officials to face charges for a recent spate of strikes against alleged drug trafficking vessels that he claims killed innocent Colombian fishermen. The administration has made no secret of its frustrations with Colombia’s leader. Earlier this week, Trump cut off U.S. aid to Colombia after Petro attacked the administration’s drug boat strikes. And in September, the U.S. revoked Petro’s visa, citing comments he made at a pro-Palestine protest on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly where he called on U.S. service members to resist Israeli actions in Gaza. Colombia was also recently restored to a U.S. list of countries seen as major hubs of narcotics trafficking. The country’s coca fields have expanded continuously since Petro took power, even as Colombia has pushed back on claims that it has turned a blind eye to a resurgent cocaine industry within its borders. Colombian officials have pointed to the continued interdiction of cocaine. Petro, who as a young man joined a Marxist guerrilla group that fought against the Colombian state during the South American country’s ongoing decades-long armed conflict, has advocated for reaching “total peace” with militant groups that continue to fight against the Colombian state. He’s also downplayed the need for eradicating coca fields and blamed Western elites for driving demand for cocaine, severing cooperation with longtime allies, including the United States. Petro’s son, Nicolás Petro, has been accused of funneling drug cartel funds into his father’s electoral campaign. But there is no evidence that the Colombian president himself is involved with or directly supportive of the cartels the U.S. links him to. The decision was applauded by some of Petro’s Republican critics in Congress, many of whom represent large Colombian American communities and have bashed the leader. “GREAT MOVE, Petro is a problem for Colombia and our hemisphere!” posted Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Western Hemisphere Subcommittee. Salazar also called Petro a “socialist dictator” in her post on X.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday floated targeting Venezuelan drug cartels with land strikes, an escalation of his administration’s repeated strikes on boats out of the country as he tries to staunch the flow of drugs into the U.S. Speaking to reporters, Trump said his administration has “almost totally stopped” drug trafficking by sea and “now we’ll stop it by land.” “I don’t want to tell you exactly, but we are certainly looking at land now because we have the sea very well under control,” Trump said. Over the last month, the U.S. has carried out at least five strikes on Venezuelan boats the White House characterized as “narcoterrorists” responsible for smuggling drugs into the country. The latest strike on Tuesday killed six suspected drug traffickers in international waters, Trump said. The strikes have been met with backlash, with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle arguing the actions constitute “illegal killings.” A group of former Republican officials have said they believe the strikes may not be legal. Trump on Wednesday defended his administration’s decisions, stating that the previous use of the U.S. Coast Guard investigating boats before action was taken has been “totally ineffective.” “They have faster boats, some of these boats, I mean, they are world-class speedboats,” Trump said. “But they’re not faster than missiles.” Trump argued that each strike his administration launches saves thousands of American lives. “Every time you see a boat and you feel badly and you say ‘wow that’s rough,’ it is rough but if you lose three people and save 25,000 people — these are people that are killing our population,” Trump said. “The boats get hit and you see that fentanyl all over the ocean, it’s like floating in bags, it’s all over the place. We’re saving a tremendous amount of lives.”

BRUSSELS — The European Union will not forge ahead with plans to impose a tough new price cap on the Russian oil exports funding the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine in light of concerns that a new conflict in the Middle East will drive up oil prices. The proposal, which would have seen the maximum price of Moscow’s oil slashed from $60 per barrel to $45, was due to be discussed Monday in Brussels by foreign ministers from across the bloc. However, two diplomats confirmed to POLITICO that the burgeoning conflict between Israel and Iran meant that the plan is no longer workable. “The idea of lowering the price cap is probably not going to fly because of the international situation in the Middle East and the volatility,” said one diplomat, granted anonymity to speak frankly about the market-sensitive policy. “At the G7 meeting this week, it was agreed by all the countries they would prefer not to take the decision right now,” the diplomat added. “The prices were quite close to the cap; but now the prices are going up and down, the situation is too volatile for the moment.” At the G7 summit in Canada, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen admitted the existing measures “had little effect — but in the last days, we have seen that the oil price has risen [and] the cap in place does serve its function … So for the moment, there’s little pressure on lowering the oil price cap.” The pitch for a $45-per-barrel cap would translate into billions of dollars in lost oil revenues for Russia as it scrambles to maintain high levels of military spending and plug holes in its national budget. After being initially proposed by Ukraine, the lowered price cap was included in the text of the EU’s 18th sanctions package, unveiled earlier this month. However, without support from United States President Donald Trump, implementing the idea would prove impossible, experts point out. “Lowering the cap without a buy-in from the U.S. wouldn’t be effective,” said Maria Shagina, a sanctions expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “Designed as a buyer’s cartel, the cap needs the U.S. to be part of it.” Shagina also emphasized strengthening enforcement, “as currently around 90 percent of Russian crude is shipped over the price cap.” Oil prices have climbed sharply in the days since Israel and Iran began trading strikes. European foreign ministers are meeting with their Iranian counterparts in Geneva on Friday, while Trump may order a strike against the Tehran regime’s best-reinforced nuclear sites.