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The United States has designated the Cartel de los Soles (Spanish for Cartel of the Suns) - a group it alleges is headed by Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, and senior figures in his government - as a foreign terrorist organisation. Labelling an organisation as a terrorist group gives US law enforcement and military agencies broader powers to target and dismantle it. In recent months, the US has been ramping up pressure on Maduro, saying his government is illegitimate following last year's election, which was widely dismissed as rigged. The designation gives it another way to turn up the heat. But...

President Gustavo Petro said a U.S. strike in the Caribbean had killed a fisherman. President Trump said he would cut aid and impose new tariffs on Colombian imports. President Gustavo Petro of Colombia accused the United States of murdering an innocent fisherman in an attack on a boat that the American authorities claimed had been carrying illicit drugs, prompting President Trump to declare on Sunday that he would slash assistance to Colombia, one of Washington’s top aid recipients in Latin America, and impose new tariffs on the country’s goods. The feuding between the two leaders reflected rising tensions in the...

Just hours after President Donald Trump cancelled all subsidies with Colombia and warned leftist President Gustavo Petro that he would be taking action against drug-trafficking organizations within the country if the Colombian president failed to deal with them, War secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the U.S. Military had carried out a successful strike on a drug-trafficking boat linked to a leftist terrorist group. “On October 17th, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), a Designated Terrorist Organization, that was operating in the...

Colombia, Latin America's leading coal producer, reported a sharp drop in exports after President Gustavo Petro's government banned sales to Israel, the main buyer of Colombian coal. In July, coal shipments fell by nearly half from the same month a year earlier. According to Colombia's National Administrative Department of Statistics, exports dropped 45.8% to $479.8 million, down from $885.8 million in July 2024. From January to July, coal exports totaled $2.85 billion, a 35.5% drop from the $4.42 billion reported in the same period of 2023. Colombia's coal export sector has faced a steady decline in revenue because of lower...

One of President Trump's most valuable cabinet members, Marco Rubio, who wears both the Secretary of State cap, and the National Security Advisor cap, gets called on to perform a lot of duties. One of them is the equivalent of barroom bouncer. At the United Nations, he threw out the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro from the U.S. premises. That was after a string of leftwing buffooneries and outrages. Two days ago, it was buffooneries: It should be noted that this was the assessment of Colombians who also believed he had not just been drinking but snorting cocaine. It ought...

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is facing criticism over the timing of her recent overseas trip to Ghana, and budget cuts that hampered the city's fire department from doing its job amid the ongoing citywide blaze. The mayor’s poorly timed foreign travel has raised questions about her priorities and similar past trips. One of the most interesting chapters of Bass’ political career and international travel involves her past excursions to communist Cuba. The former U.S. congresswoman turned metropolitan mayor played a significant role with the Venceremos Brigade —a group linked to Cuba's communist regime.

BOGOTA, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Saturday dismissed the U.S. decision to revoke his visa and accused Washington of violating international law over his criticism of Israel's actions in Gaza.The U.S. said on Friday it would revoke Petro's visa after he took to New York's streets on Friday to join a pro-Palestinian demonstration and urged U.S. soldiers to disobey President Donald Trump's orders.Read about innovative ideas and the people working on solutions to global crises with the Reuters Beacon newsletter. Sign up here."I no longer have a visa to travel to the United States. I don't...

Former US president Barack Obama has said there is no military rationale right now for continuing to pummel what is already broken in Gaza, and he said it was unacceptable to ignore the human crisis that is happening there. He said children there were starving and that a starting point in the crisis would be for both sides to acknowledge each other’s history, in a bid to break the cycle of violence. He told a paying audience at the 3Arena in Dublin that where the truth becomes whitewashed, “you lose touch with reality and it puts you in a position...

The United States said it would revoke Colombian President Gustavo Petro's visa after he took to New York's streets on Friday in a pro-Palestinian demonstration and urged U.S. soldiers to disobey President Donald Trump's orders. "We will revoke Petro’s visa due to his reckless and incendiary actions," the State Department posted on X. Petro, addressing a crowd of pro-Palestinian protesters outside the U.N. headquarters in Manhattan, called for a global armed force with the priority to liberate Palestinians, adding, "This force has to be bigger than that of the United States." "That's why from here, from New York, I ask...

..."Disobey Trump's order"...Colombian President Gustavo Petro...visa revoked by the United States... The FBI has fired as many as 20 agents... Explosions ringing out late tonight in the central Ukrainian... Controversy over the release of the military records of Democrat candidate... Sources tell NBC News that US military officials...possible attacks on sites in Venezuela... A retired investment banker...arrested on federal sex trafficking charges... The US and allied nations vetoing a UN Security Council resolution... The medical charity 'Doctors Without Borders' (MSF) suspending...work in Gaza... Democrats on the US House Oversight Committee releasing Jeffrey Epstein documents... Trump tonight speaking of four days...

The president of the leading cocaine producer in the world said Wednesday morning that the U.S. strike on a Tren de Aragua drug trafficking vessel Tuesday was tantamount to “murder.” Colombian President Gustavo Petro said, in in a post translated by the Daily Caller News Foundation, that the pilots of the boat were likely “poor young people” and that the killing was unjust because the transporters weren’t the “big narcos.” Colombia is not only the world’s largest exporter of cocaine, but also plays host to some of Latin America’s most vicious cartels and militias. “We have been capturing civilians who...

Leftists have long held no qualms about assassination against their rivals, and in Colombia, where narcoterrorism is also a problem and left-narco alliances are common, it has started up again.. But at least we have a secretary of state who is wise to what's going on. This week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a high-level delegation to Bogota after a leading Colombian presidential candidate, conservative Sen. Miguel Uribe, died of his wounds in a June shooting by a criminal known as a 'sicario' or hitman who obviously had a sponsor. Rubio seems to know who that might be, though,...

Cocaine is no worse for your health than the common glass of whiskey, claimed the president of Colombia — the world’s biggest producer and exporter of the illegal drug. In a first-of-its-kind, six-hour live broadcast ministerial meeting in the South American country, Colombian President Gustavo Petro argued that cocaine is only illegal because of global politics — further claiming that it can be consumed as casually as alcohol, according to a report. “Scientists have analyzed this. Cocaine is no worse than whiskey,” the 64-year-old president said, according to CBS News. It is not clear what analysis the president was referring...

Undocumented migrants who were deported back to Colombia this week have warned others to not go to the United States, because president Trump is 'deporting everyone.' The Colombian press, including reporter Richi Malagon, was present to speak to the migrants arriving in Bogota on Tuesday, who shared harrowing testimonies of their deportations. 'Don't go [to the US] because they're deporting everyone..,' a mother carrying her baby said outside the plane provided by the Colombian government to bring the migrants back to their homeland. 'They're not going to let you out in a day... There's people that have been detained for...

The daughter of Colombia’s president has waded into the short-lived standoff between her father and President Trump over deportations – suggesting the Latin American nation should send back an American sex tourist for every Colombian deported from the US. “For every Colombian deported we will return a gringo from the Poblado,” wrote Andrea Petro, the daughter of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in a post on X Monday. She accompanied the cheeky message with a meme of dolphins jumping from the sea under a rainbow-crested sky. Petro, 33, seemed to be referring to the red light district in the city Medellin,...

The time of a weak America is over. Over the weekend, President Trump was golfing when he decided it was time to teach the government of Colombia what would happen if they mess with him.Colombia had announced that they were not going to accept planes filled with deportees, as the Trump administration had moved very quickly when it came into office to start arresting and deporting people who are criminal illegal immigrants.That included many Colombian deportees. The president of Colombia stated — while President Trump was in the middle of a round of golf — that he would not accept...

President Donald Trump is not the man to play a game of chicken with. Colombian President Gustavo Petro learned that lesson Sunday in short order after choosing to test the newly re-elected U.S. leader's resolve. It all began when, as part of the Trump administration's expansive deportation effort, two flights of criminal Colombian nationals illegally residing in the U.S. were scheduled to fly back to their native country.

Turns out Nicolás Maduro's still the guy the world has to talk to in Venezuela. But recognizing Juan Guaidó as the country's legitimate president is still a useful tool. This week Colombia’s leftist President-elect Gustavo Petro said he recently discussed bilateral issues with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro — despite the fact that Colombia does not recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate head of state. But even top aides to President Biden are visiting Caracas lately to talk with top Maduro aides, even though the U.S. doesn't recognize Maduro, either. (On Thursday, the Biden Administration said it would make it easier for...

BREAKING: Per source w/ knowledge, the Trump admin plans to retaliate against the Colombian president’s decision to reject two deportation flights by closing the US embassy Colombia’s visa section tomorrow, where 1,500 appointments had been scheduled. I’m told “additional retaliatory measures will be rolled out soon.”

To fully understand just how remarkable today’s exchange with Colombia was, you need to understand how Washington DC has traditionally worked through these sorts of issues, and the different way it works now under Trump. I’ll illustrate. Traditional Approach: 1. Colombia announces it will not take our repatriation flights. 2. On Monday, the State Department convenes an interagency task force with DoD, NSC, DEA, INS, ICE, Commerce, Treasury and Homeland Security. 3. The task force meets for four days and develops a position paper. 4. The position paper is rejected by the Secretary of State, who is unhappy that insufficient...