US reportedly ready for next phase of Venezuela military operations
Trump has been escalating pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and has now labelled him and government allies as members of a foreign terrorist organization.
That designation is another step towards criminalizing Maduro – analysts say it could pressure Maduro into stepping down with the threat of military force.
It also potentially gives the US expanded military options for striking within the country, US media is reporting.
Reports of looming action have proliferated in recent weeks as the US military has deployed warships to the Caribbean amid worsening relations.
Reuters had an alarming exclusive yesterday, saying the US is poised to launch a new phase of operations in the coming days, according to four unnamed US officials.
The exact timing or scope of the new operations is unknown, and it’s not clear either whether Trump has made a final decision to act, Reuters reported.
Key events
My colleague, Jakub Krupa, is covering the latest developments out of Europe today. He notes that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted on Telegram to say that his country’s delegation is returning home after talks in Geneva.
Zelenskyy says that he is “awaiting a full report” on the progress of negotiations, which should come this evening.
He added:
Based on the results of the reports, we will determine further steps and timing. We will continue to coordinate with Europe and other partners in the world.
You can follow along at our dedicated live blog below.
Marjorie Taylor Greene calls out ‘smear, lies, attacks and name calling’ following resignation announcement
The outgoing Georgia congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene, said today that “smears, lies, attacks, and name calling is childish behavior, divisive, and bad for our country”. This comes after she announced her decision to resign from Congress in January.
In recent weeks, Greene has had a very public falling out with Donald Trump, which culminated in the president calling her a “traitor” after she supported a vote for the justice department to release the complete trove of Jeffrey Epstein files.
On Saturday, Trump told reporters that much of his frustration towards Greene, previously one of his fiercest allies on Capitol Hill, was because she supported Republican representative Thomas Massie with his discharge petition effort. Soon after, Trump announced he was no longer supporting Greene. “Once I left her, she resigned,” he said. “Because she would have never have survived the primary. But I think she’s a nice person.”
Today, without naming the president or any Republican colleagues, the Georgia lawmaker pushed back on X.
“Memes and red meat rants do nothing. Actions speak louder than words,” Greene wrote. “Be quiet, be kind, be humble and fix the real problems that are crushing Americans. Not foreign country’s problems. Not the donor’s problems.”
Trump touts tariff ‘POWER’ and ‘RECORD SETTING’ payments in Truth Social post
The president was online early today, and fired off a Truth Social post at 5:38am touting the economic impact that his sweeping tariffs will soon have on the country. He also noted that countries’ efforts to stockpile US goods ahead of the levies kicking in was “wearing thin”.
“These payments will be RECORD SETTING, and put our Nation on a new and unprecedented course,” he wrote. “This Tariff POWER will bring America National Security and Wealth the likes of which has never been seen before.”
He added:
Those opposing us are serving hostile foreign interests that are not aligned with the success, safety and prosperity of the USA. They couldn’t care less about us. I look so much forward to the United States Supreme Court’s decision on this urgent and time sensitive matter,” he added.
A reminder, both conservative and liberal justices on the bench were skeptical of the legal basis of Trump’s tariffs during oral arguments earlier this month.
Donald Trump is in Washington today. The only event on his schedule is an executive order signing at 4pm ET. That’s currently closed to the press, but we’ll let you know if that changes.
Also today, we’ll see the first lady, Melania Trump, welcome the deliver of the White House Christmas tree at 12pm ET.
What is the Cartel de los Soles ‘group’ linked to Maduro?
Back to Venezuela, and I just wanted to run readers through the Maduro-linked organization which has now been designated a foreign terror group by the US.
Despite the label, Cartel de los Soles is not a cartel or any sort of formal, organised group.
Rather it’s the term Venezuelans use to refer to what was at first, just high-ranking military officers who built their wealth through drug-running, and then as corruption expanded under the Chávez presidency, the term was also used to refer to police and other government officials benefitting off illegal mining and fuel trafficking.
The umbrella term was elevated to a Maduro-led drug-trafficking organization in 2020, AP reports, when US justice authorities under Trump’s first term announced the indictment of Venezuela’s leader and his inner circle on narcoterrorism and other charges.
Up until this year, the foreign terrorist organization designation has been reserved for groups like Islamic State or Al-Qaeda.
But the Trump administration in February applied it to eight Latin American criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking – and it has used that designation since to justify the strikes on boats in the ocean, saying they belong to these groups. US officials however have provided scant evidence justifying the strikes, leading to accusations of extrajudicial killings.
‘Something good just may be happening,’ Trump says on Ukraine talks
Trump has also posted positively about the negotiations in his usual spray of morning missives on his Truth Social account:
“Is it really possible that big progress is being made in Peace Talks between Russia and Ukraine??? Don’t believe it until you see it, but something good just may be happening. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”
US and Ukraine negotiators continue hammering out peace plan in Geneva
And let’s turn to the latest on Ukraine – talks are continuing in Geneva today between US and Ukrainian representatives following a weekend where there was “significant progress made”, according to Marco Rubio, but the specifics remain vague.
The US had blindsided Kyiv and European countries with a 28-point peace plan last week, giving Ukraine until Thursday to agree to a framework.
Washington and Kyiv said in a joint statement on Sunday they had drafted a “refined peace framework” after a first day of talks, but disclosed no detail on what the refinements were, or if any concessions had been made on the key sticking points.
These include territorial concessions and security guarantees for Ukraine against Russian threats in the future.
Doge quietly disbanded ahead of schedule
Back to some domestic news and the “department of government efficiency” (Doge) has apparently been dissolved with eight months still remaining on its contract, ending a drawn-out campaign of invading federal agencies and firing thousands of federal workers.
“That doesn’t exist,” office of personnel management (OPM) director Scott Kupor told Reuters earlier this month when asked about Doge’s status, adding that it was no longer a “centralized entity”.
The statement confirmed longstanding suspicions that Doge, created by an executive order that Donald Trump signed on his first day, was on its way out. The tech billionaire Elon Musk and the former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy were tapped to lead the effort and were expected to drive “large scale structural reform” through 24 July 2026.
“We are actually trying to be as transparent as possible,” Musk said about the department back in February, ignoring the fact that Doge agents refused to identify themselves in many cases, slashed agency spending often without consulting the agencies, and did not transparently provide a public accounting of its work. “I don’t know of a case where an organization has been more transparent than the Doge organization.”
Suspicions that Doge may have been disbanded began to surface earlier this summer, after Politico reported in June that staffers had “packed up their clothes and bedding” at the department’s headquarters, where they had been sleeping since February, and looked for new homes.
Maduro warned Trump against ‘forever war’
amid growing tensions with the US. Photograph: Miguel Gutiérrez/EPA
Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, has accused the US of seeking to “bomb and invade” the South American country.
Just 10 days ago, he warned Trump to not lead the US into an Afghanistan-style “forever war”. The comments came after the US Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, the world’s largest, arrived in the region.
Speaking to CNN outside the Miraflores presidential palace in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas on 14 November, Maduro called on Trump to make peace, not war.
“No more forever wars. No more unjust wars. No more Libya. No more Afghanistan. Long live peace,” Maduro, 62, said as he pushed his way through crowds of supporters.
Earlier that week he had announced what he called a a “massive deployment” of land, sea, air, river and missile forces, as well as civilian militia, to counter the US naval presence off his country’s coast.
A timely opinion piece from Daniel Mendiola, a professor of Latin American history and migration studies at Vassar College this morning on the situation currently playing out around Venezuela.
For the last two months, US forces have amassed outside Venezuela and carried out a series of lethal strikes on civilian boats. The Trump White House has ordered these actions in the name of fighting “narco-terrorists” – a label apparently applicable to anyone suspected of participating in drug trafficking near Latin American coastlines.
More than 80 people have already been killed in these pre-emptive strikes, and war hawks are calling for expanded military action to depose the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro.
While on the surface Trump’s second term has been characterized by a disorienting barrage of executive orders and culture war polemics, the administration has in fact been running a cohesive authoritarian playbook aimed at conferring near limitless powers to the presidency. These concerted efforts have played out in numerous policy arenas from immigration, to higher education, to economics, to even determining who is a citizen.
Consistent with this pattern, Trump is asserting the same unchecked authority over the violent capacities of the US military.
The Trump White House is similarly asserting the unencumbered right to define “terrorist”, along with the corresponding right to take deadly action with virtually no outside oversight.
In public statements, Trump has defended treating drug smugglers as terrorists by citing the harm done by drug overdoses, in effect suggesting that drug traffickers are directly killing US citizens. Ignoring the fact that Venezuela doesn’t produce fentanyl, the main driver of overdoses in the US, Trump has even gone so far as to float the mathematically impossible claim that each boat strike has saved 25,000 lives. Of course, officials have provided zero public evidence that the boats attacked were carrying drugs at all, much less tried to explain how blowing up boats would have any impact at all on drug abuse in the US.
But again, why would they? The whole point of the argument is that such facts don’t matter because Trump simply has the unchecked authority to use lethal force.
US reportedly ready for next phase of Venezuela military operations
Trump has been escalating pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and has now labelled him and government allies as members of a foreign terrorist organization.
That designation is another step towards criminalizing Maduro – analysts say it could pressure Maduro into stepping down with the threat of military force.
It also potentially gives the US expanded military options for striking within the country, US media is reporting.
Reports of looming action have proliferated in recent weeks as the US military has deployed warships to the Caribbean amid worsening relations.
Reuters had an alarming exclusive yesterday, saying the US is poised to launch a new phase of operations in the coming days, according to four unnamed US officials.
The exact timing or scope of the new operations is unknown, and it’s not clear either whether Trump has made a final decision to act, Reuters reported.
Good morning
And welcome to our US politics live blog. I’m Frances Mao and I’ll be taking you through the major developments these next few hours.
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The US and Ukraine say they have made progress in talks on ending the war with Russia, with Marco Rubio announcing amendments to a “refined” draft agreement.
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However Donald Trump has lashed out at Ukraine’s leadership, saying Kyiv has shown “zero gratitude”.
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His administration has also designated Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, as a member of a foreign terrorist organisation, which could allow for the hit of new sanctions. Reports also emerged on the weekend that the US military could be set to move into a new phase of operations in the Caribbean this week. More on this soon.
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The resignation of Maga loyalist turned rebel Marjorie Taylor Greene is a warning sign to Trump, analysts say. The Georgian congresswoman had once been one of Trump’s most vocal allies but she announced an exit on Friday, following a public spat over the Epstein files, saying she refused to be a “battered wife”.
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And Trump’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) – famously run by Elon Musk for a few months – has disbanded with eight months left on its mandate, ending a highly-publicised initiative that had been a symbol of Trump’s pledge to slash the government’s size but which critics say delivered few measurable savings.
