Politics
What to know about Venezuela, Maduro and Trump’s possible military plans – National TenX News
The prospect of U.S. military action against Venezuela and the regime of Nicolas Maduro is growing by the day, with U.S. President Donald Trump threatening this week to begin land operations in the Latin American country “very soon.”
The Trump administration has accused Maduro of leading a “narco-terrorist” state that facilitates drug trafficking into the U.S. and Europe, and of flooding the U.S. with illegal immigrants.
The U.S. has raised pressure on Venezuela by moving an armada of aircraft carriers and other warships to the region, along with thousands of troops. The military has also conducted more than 20 strikes on vessels suspected of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, which the administration has said are being run by drug cartels — some of them in collusion with Maduro’s government, which Maduro denies.
The legality of those strikes, which the Pentagon said this week have killed more than 80 people to date, has come under increased scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers. The Pentagon on Friday confirmed its latest strike in the area killed four people.
Despite no formal declaration of war against Venezuela, Trump has suggested the military operations against drug cartels could expand to within the country itself and could involve the CIA.
“You know, the land is much easier, much easier. And we know the routes they take,” Trump told reporters Tuesday as he met with his cabinet at the White House. “We know everything about them. We know where they live. We know where the bad ones live. And we’re going to start that very soon, too.”
The Department of National Defence told Global News that Canada “continues to monitor the situation closely.”
“The U.S.’s actions are unilateral and the Canadian Armed Forces does not participate,” a spokesperson said in an email.
Max Cameron, a political science professor at the University of British Columbia who studies Latin America, said in an interview that the U.S.’s military strategy is alarming.
He warned a military conflict between the U.S. and Venezuela could push the South American country into violent civil war — particularly if Maduro relinquishes power.
“I think there’s a sense of horror in many places that this is a return to gunboat diplomacy, to the Monroe Doctrine, to the Americans treating the Caribbean as an American lake that they can control and do what they want in, that they don’t have to comply with international law,” Cameron said.
The 1823 Monroe Doctrine, formulated by former U.S. president James Monroe, was originally aimed at opposing any European meddling in the Western Hemisphere and was used to justify U.S. military interventions in Latin America.
What is behind the U.S. actions against Venezuela?
Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio have called Maduro an illegitimate president since his 2018 re-election, which the G7 and independent observers like the United Nations Panel of Electoral Experts said was plagued with voting irregularities.
Those countries and observer groups also accused Maduro of rigging the 2024 presidential election in his favour.
Canada has refused to recognize Maduro’s presidency alongside the rest of the G7 and has sanctioned members of the regime, most recently in March. The government has suspended consular services in Caracas and advises Canadians to avoid all travel to the country.
More than seven million people have fled Venezuela, according to Human Rights Watch, where Maduro has overseen a collapsing economy and violent — even deadly — human rights abuses since taking power in 2013.
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In 2020, during Trump’s first term, U.S. prosecutors charged Maduro and top officials with narco-terrorism and drug trafficking offences, and announced a US$15-million reward for Maduro’s arrest. That bounty has since been raised to US$50 million.
The indictment accused Maduro of leading the Cártel de Los Soles, or “Cartel of the Suns,” which prosecutors say infiltrated Venezuela’s government, judiciary and military and has worked with gangs like Tren de Aragua and drug trafficking organizations like Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel to “flood” the U.S. with cocaine from Colombia and with the help of other Latin American countries.
Independent experts and researchers have cast doubt on whether the Cártel de Los Soles is a traditional drug trafficking organization — where the sole focus is the distribution and sale of drugs — but have acknowledged the Maduro regime is rife with corruption and colludes with drug traffickers to enrich itself.
Last month, the U.S. State Department declared the Cártel de Los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization, a designation also made for Tren de Aragua and Mexican drug cartels earlier this year.
The Tren de Aragua and cartel terrorist designations have been used by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Pentagon to justify the U.S. military strikes on alleged drug boats under a 2001 law, the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which allows a U.S. president to take military action against terrorist groups without congressional approval.
Although the law was passed to allow for quick actions against terrorist groups behind the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, it has been broadly used by multiple administrations to go after designated terrorist groups around the world over the ensuing decades.
Designating Cártel de Los Soles would allow Trump to order military action against Maduro’s government in the same fashion.
Democratic lawmakers and even some Republicans have argued only Congress has the power to approve foreign wars, noting the unprecedented nature of attacking drug cartels with military force under the AUMF law.
“The American people do not want to be dragged into endless war with Venezuela without public debate or a vote,” Republican Sen. Rand Paul said Wednesday in a joint statement with Democrats pushing a war powers resolution for Venezuela in the Senate. “We ought to defend what the Constitution demands: deliberation before war.”
Do Canada, allies have a role?
CNN and the New York Times reported last month that the United Kingdom — a key U.S. partner in the Caribbean — has stopped sharing intelligence about drug trafficking in the Caribbean Sea because it did not want to be “complicit” in strikes Britain views as possibly illegal. Rubio called the report “false.”
The CNN report also said Canada has “distanced itself” from the strikes and told the U.S. it won’t share intelligence for the operations, although it will continue its U.S. Coast Guard partnership in the Caribbean.
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand declined to comment on that report or the strikes in general when asked at the G7 foreign ministers meeting in Ontario last month, which Rubio attended.
“The United States has made clear that it is using its own intelligence, and that has been clear for some time,” she said, adding she did not bring up the strikes with Rubio at the meeting.
“In terms of Canadian efforts, I will say that we have been, under Operation CARIBBE and the Canadian Armed Forces, supporting the U.S. Coast Guard (and) intercepting narcotics destined for North America. We’re continuing to monitor the situation, but we have no involvement in the operations you’re referring to.”
Anand’s office and Global Affairs Canada deferred questions this week to the Department of National Defence. The minister’s office would not say if she and Rubio have discussed Venezuela in their recent conversations.
Trump’s actions against Venezuela, Cameron said, “has put the international community in a very difficult position” with no easy solutions.
“I would love to be able to say we should go back to diplomatic negotiations, which the regime has completely played,” he said. “So it is a very, very tough situation. That’s just the reality.”
Does the U.S. want regime change?
Trump has said, “we’re not talking about” regime change in Venezuela or removing Maduro from power.
But U.S. media outlets like Politico, citing administration sources, have reported that Rubio — the son of Cuban immigrants and a longtime critic of socialist leaders like Maduro — is the architect of the Venezuela strategy, with the goal of pressuring Maduro to give up power.
“Rubio has hit on a formula, which is we sort of combine the war on drugs with the war on terrorism,” Cameron said.
Democratic Rep. Adam Smith, who sits on the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, told NBC News last month that Rubio “denied” the administration was pursuing regime change in a classified briefing with lawmakers.
Cameron said he believes the Trump administration doesn’t want to admit to regime change plans “because then the analogy becomes Iraq” and the 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein, which destabilized that country for years afterward.
Asked in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday if the U.S. is on the verge of conflict with Venezuela, Rubio said “no” but proceeded to defend the U.S. operations and poured cold water on efforts to resolve the issue with diplomacy.
“The fact that Maduro feels threatened by the presence of U.S. assets in the region in a counter-drug mission, it proves that he’s into the drug business,” he said.
“If you wanted to make a deal with him, I don’t know how you do it. He’s broken every deal he’s ever made. Now that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.”
Reuters reported on Monday that Trump spoke with Maduro by phone last month and told him he had a week to leave Venezuela and give up power. Trump last weekend announced airspace over Venezuela was “closed” — an announcement Reuters reported marked the end of the week-long deadline — which raised speculation of an imminent U.S. attack.
Maduro, who has denied the U.S. accusations against him and sought to rally the Venezuelan people to his side amidst Trump’s pressure campaign, confirmed Wednesday he had spoken with Trump, describing the call as “cordial.”
Trump this week met with his national security team to discuss “next steps” for Venezuela, but a decision has not been announced.
Cameron said a U.S. military invasion could bring about not just violent resistance from the military and pro-regime guerilla forces known as “colectivos,” but also what he called a “generation-defining civil conflict” to fill the power vacuum “that could go on for decades.”
“It’s a highly armed society, and not all of the people who are organized and armed are part of the chain of command,” he said. “It’s also a deeply divided country.”
Politics
X outages reported by tens of thousands of users worldwide: Downdetector – National TenX News
X, formerly Twitter, was down for tens of thousands of users worldwide on Friday, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com.
There were more than 62,000 reports of issues with the social media platform as of 10:22 a.m. EST, according to Downdetector, which tracks outages by collating status reports from a number of sources.
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Users in the U.K. reported around 11,000 incidents and over 3,000 issues were reported in India.
The actual number of affected users may differ from what is shown on the platform, as the reports are submitted by users.
Politics
Trump says he may tariff countries that don’t ‘go along’ with Greenland plans – National TenX News
U.S. President Donald Trump suggested Friday that he may punish countries with tariffs if they don’t back the U.S. controlling Greenland, a message that came as a bipartisan Congressional delegation sought to lower tensions in the Danish capital.
Trump for months has insisted that the U.S. should control Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark, and said earlier this week that anything less than the Arctic island being in U.S. hands would be “unacceptable.”
During an unrelated event at the White House about rural health care, he recounted Friday how he had threatened European allies with tariffs on pharmaceuticals.
“I may do that for Greenland too,” Trump said. “I may put a tariff on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland, because we need Greenland for national security. So I may do that,” he said.
He had not previously mentioned using tariffs to try to force the issue.
Earlier this week, the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland met in Washington this week with U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
That encounter didn’t resolve the deep differences but did produce an agreement to set up a working group — on whose purpose Denmark and the White House then offered sharply diverging public views.
European leaders have insisted that is only for Denmark and Greenland to decide on matters concerning the territory, and Denmark said this week that it was increasing its military presence in Greenland in cooperation with allies.
A relationship ‘we need to nurture’
In Copenhagen, a group of senators and members of the House of Representatives met Friday with Danish and Greenlandic lawmakers, and with leaders including Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.
Delegation leader Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, thanked the group’s hosts for “225 years of being a good and trusted ally and partner” and said that “we had a strong and robust dialog about how we extend that into the future.”
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Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, said after meeting lawmakers that the visit reflected a strong relationship over decades and “it is one that we need to nurture.” She told reporters that “Greenland needs to be viewed as our ally, not as an asset, and I think that’s what you’re hearing with this delegation.”
The tone contrasted with that emanating from the White House. Trump has sought to justify his calls for a U.S. takeover by repeatedly claiming that China and Russia have their own designs on Greenland, which holds vast untapped reserves of critical minerals. The White House hasn’t ruled out taking the territory by force.
“We have heard so many lies, to be honest and so much exaggeration on the threats towards Greenland,” said Aaja Chemnitz, a Greenlandic politician and member of the Danish parliament who took part in Friday’s meetings. “And mostly, I would say the threats that we’re seeing right now is from the U.S. side.”
Murkowski emphasized the role of Congress in spending and in conveying messages from constituents.
“I think it is important to underscore that when you ask the American people whether or not they think it is a good idea for the United States to acquire Greenland, the vast majority, some 75%, will say, we do not think that that is a good idea,” she said.
Along with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, Murkowski has introduced bipartisan legislation that would prohibit the use of U.S. Defense or State department funds to annex or take control of Greenland or the sovereign territory of any NATO member state without that ally’s consent or authorization from the North Atlantic Council.
Inuit council slams White House
The dispute is looming large in the lives of Greenlanders. Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said on Tuesday that “if we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark. We choose NATO. We choose the Kingdom of Denmark. We choose the EU.””
The chair of the Nuuk, Greenland-based Inuit Circumpolar Council, which represents around 180,000 Inuit from Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Russia’s Chukotka region on international issues, said persistent statements from the White House that the U.S. must own Greenland offer “a clear picture of how the US administration views the people of Greenland, how the U.S. administration views Indigenous peoples, and peoples that are few in numbers.”
Sara Olsvig told The Associated Press in Nuuk that the issue is “how one of the biggest powers in the world views other peoples that are less powerful than them. And that really is concerning.”
Indigenous Inuit in Greenland do not want to be colonized again, she said.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said she presented her Nobel Peace Prize medal to President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday even as he has questioned her credibility to take over her country after the U.S. ousted then-President Nicolás Maduro.
The Nobel Institute has said Machado could not give her prize to Trump, an honour that he has coveted. Even if the gesture proves to be purely symbolic, it was extraordinary given that Trump has effectively sidelined Machado, who has long been the face of resistance in Venezuela. He has signalled his willingness to work with acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who had been Maduro’s second in command.
“I presented the president of the United States the medal, the Nobel Peace Prize,” Machado told reporters after leaving the White House and heading to Capitol Hill. She said she had done so “as a recognition for his unique commitment with our freedom.”
Trump confirmed later on social media that Machado had left the medal for him to keep, and he said it was an honour to meet her.
“She is a wonderful woman who has been through so much. María presented me with her Nobel Peace Prize for the work I have done,” Trump said in his post. “Such a wonderful gesture of mutual respect. Thank you María!”
The White House later posted a photo of Machado standing next to Trump in the Oval Office as he holds the medal in a large frame. A text in the frame reads, “Presented as a personal symbol of gratitude on behalf of the Venezuelan people in recognition of President Trump’s principled and decisive action to secure a free Venezuela.”
Trump has raised doubts about his stated commitment to backing democratic rule in Venezuela, giving no timetable on when elections might be held. Machado indicated that he had provided few specifics on that front during their discussion.
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She did not provide more information on what was said.
‘We can count on President Trump’
After the closed-door meeting, Machado greeted dozens of cheering supporters waiting for her near the White House gates, stopping to hug many.
“We can count on President Trump,” she told them without elaborating, prompting some to briefly chant, “Thank you, Trump.”
Before her visit to Washington, Machado had not been seen in public since she travelled last month to Norway, where her daughter received the peace prize on her behalf. She had spent 11 months in hiding in Venezuela before she appeared in Norway after the ceremony.
The jubilant scene after her meeting with Trump stood in contrast to political realities in Venezuela. Rodríguez remains in charge of day-to-day government operations, along with others in Maduro’s inner circle. In her first state of the union speech Thursday, the interim president promoted the resumption of diplomatic ties between the historic adversaries and advocated for opening the state-run oil industry to more foreign investment after Trump pledged to seize control of Venezuelan crude sales.
Trump has said it would be difficult for Machado to lead because she “doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country.” Her party is widely believed to have won 2024 elections rejected by Maduro.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called Machado “a remarkable and brave voice” but also said the meeting didn’t mean Trump’s opinion of her changed, calling it “a realistic assessment.”
Leavitt told reporters that Trump supported new Venezuelan elections “when the time is right” but did not say when he thought that might be.
A ‘frank and positive discussion’ about Venezuela
Leavitt said Machado had sought the face-to-face meeting without setting expectations for what would occur. She spent about two and a half hours at the White House.
“I don’t think he needs to hear anything from Ms. Machado,” the press secretary said while the meeting was still going on, other than to have a ”frank and positive discussion about what’s taking place in Venezuela.”
After leaving the White House, Machado went on to a closed-door meeting with a bipartisan group of senators.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said Machado told them that “if there’s not some progress, real progress towards a transition in power, and/or elections in the next several months, we should all be worried.”
“She reminded us that Delcy Rodríguez is, in many ways, worse than Maduro,” he added.
Asked if Machado had heard any commitment from the White House on holding elections in Venezuela, Murphy said, “No, I don’t think she got any commitment from them.”
Sen. Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican, was exultant following the meeting, saying Machado “delivered a message that loud and clear: What President Trump did was the most important, significant event in Latin America. That getting rid of Maduro was absolutely essential.”
Machado’s Washington stop coincided with U.S. forces in the Caribbean Sea seizing another sanctioned oil tanker that the Trump administration says had ties to Venezuela. It is part of a broader U.S. effort to take control of the South American country’s oil after U.S. forces captured Maduro and his wife less than two weeks ago at a heavily guarded compound in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas and brought them to New York to stand trial on drug trafficking charges.
Leavitt said Venezuela’s interim authorities have been fully cooperating with the Trump administration and noted that Rodríguez’s government said it planned to release more prisoners detained under Maduro. Among those released were five Americans this week.
Trump said Wednesday that he had a “great conversation” with Rodríguez, their first since Maduro was ousted.
Machado doesn’t get the nod from Trump
Just hours after Maduro’s capture, Trump said of Machado that “it would be very tough for her to be the leader.” Machado had steered a careful course to avoid offending Trump, notably after winning the peace prize, and had sought to cultivate relationships with him and key administration voices like Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The industrial engineer and daughter of a steel magnate, Machado began challenging the ruling party in 2004, when the nongovernmental organization she co-founded, Súmate, promoted a referendum to recall then-President Hugo Chávez. The initiative failed, and Machado and other Súmate executives were charged with conspiracy.
A year later, she drew the anger of Chávez and his allies again for travelling to Washington to meet President George W. Bush, whom Chávez considered an adversary.
Almost two decades later, she marshalled millions of Venezuelans to reject Chávez’s successor, Maduro, for another term in the 2024 election. But ruling party-loyal electoral authorities declared him the winner despite ample credible evidence to the contrary. Ensuing anti-government protests ended in a brutal crackdown.
X outages reported by tens of thousands of users worldwide: Downdetector – National TenX News
Trump says he may tariff countries that don’t ‘go along’ with Greenland plans – National TenX News
Trump gifted Nobel Peace Prize by Venezuela’s María Corina Machado – National TenX News
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