World
China moves into Venezuela as Maduro regime gets Beijing lifeline amid US tensions
Venezuela’s Maduro accuses US of starting ‘eternal war’
Manhattan Institute fellow Daniel Di Martino, who faces losing his Venezuelan citizenship, discusses Nicolás Maduro’s plan to target opposition activists and President Donald Trump’s denial that he is considering strikes within the country.
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As President Donald Trump warns of “zero tolerance” for narco-states in America’s backyard, China is tightening its grip on Venezuela — a high-risk economic and political bet that could soon collide with U.S. power.
U.S. defense officials confirmed to Reuters last month that a U.S. aircraft carrier strike group had entered the Southern Command region, which covers the Caribbean and the northern coast of South America, to monitor narcotrafficking routes linked to Venezuela’s military leadership.
The Pentagon said the arrival of USS Gerald R. Ford, carrying more than 4,000 sailors and dozens of tactical aircraft, would “bolster US capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities.” It added that the mission aims to “degrade and dismantle transnational criminal organizations.”
CHINA CONDEMNS US MILITARY BUILDUP OFF VENEZUELA COAST AS FOREIGN INTERFERENCE IN REGIONAL AFFAIRS
China’s President Xi Jinping (R) waves next to Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro during a visit to a housing development in Caracas July 21, 2014. China will provide Venezuela with a $4 billion credit line under an agreement signed on Monday, with the money to be repaid by oil shipments from OPEC member Venezuela. The deal was inked during a 24-hour visit to Venezuela by Xi, who is on a tour of Latin America. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins/ Reuters)
Within weeks, Venezuelan officers were reportedly training for guerrilla-style defense against a possible U.S. strike — an acknowledgment, according to Reuters, of “rising anxiety inside Caracas.”
Into this standoff, Beijing unveiled a “zero-tariff” trade agreement with Caracas at the Shanghai Expo 2025, announced by Deputy Minister for Foreign Trade Coromoto Godoy. Venezuelan officials said the accord covers roughly 400 tariff categories, removing duties on Chinese and Venezuelan goods.
While final implementation details remain pending verification, the goal is clear: Beijing is moving fast into a sanctioned economy that Washington has sought to isolate.
“This really looks like China is going to completely take over the Venezuelan economy,” said Gordon Chang, an expert on China’s global trade strategy. “It’s going to decimate Venezuela’s local industry.”
“Venezuela basically sells petroleum to China and very little else,” he said. “China, of course, is a manufacturer of many, many items. Venezuelan manufacturing is not going to experience a renaissance anytime soon — it’s going the opposite direction.”
VENEZUELA MOBILIZES TROOPS, WEAPONS IN RESPONSE TO US WARSHIP BUILDUP IN CARIBBEAN
Sailors aboard the world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), launch a Carrier Air Wing 8 F/A-18E Super Hornet attached to Strike Fighter Squadron 31 from the flight deck, Sept. 26, 2025. (Mariano Lopez)
Chang added that Maduro’s sudden embrace of Beijing stems from fear of Trump’s next move.
“Maduro probably doesn’t have a choice,” he said. “He realizes he’s got a problem in the form of Donald J. Trump. There’s a U.S. aircraft carrier not far from his shores, and a lot of military assets bearing down on him. He needs a friend, and he’s desperate.”
“For Maduro, the zero-tariff pact may offer temporary relief — but it only deepens dependence,” Chang added. “I don’t see this trade deal as strengthening Venezuela. I see it strengthening China’s stranglehold over Venezuela.”
US MILITARY BUILDUP IN CARIBBEAN SEES BOMBERS, MARINES AND WARSHIPS CONVERGE NEAR VENEZUELA
From Beijing’s perspective, the tariff-free pact opens a commercial and strategic doorway into the Western Hemisphere just as Washington doubles down on sanctions.
The Council on Foreign Relations estimates that China has extended around $60 billion in loans to Venezuela over the past two decades, much of it repaid through oil shipments — a figure still cited by both Chinese and Venezuelan officials in 2025.
Members of the Bolivarian National Militia patrol on a street in the 23 de Enero neighborhood during a military exercise, in Caracas, Venezuela, January 23, 2025. (Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/Reuters)
“China has leveraged multibillion-dollar loans and the establishment of satellite positioning and surveillance facilities to secure strategic control over Venezuela’s natural resources and critical infrastructure,” said Isaias Medina III, an Edward Mason Fellow at Harvard University and a former Venezuelan diplomat to the U.N. Security Council.
Medina was referring to the El Sombrero satellite ground station in Venezuela’s Guárico province — a joint China-Venezuela project that Western analysts, including a recent Associated Press report, describe as part of a wider space cooperation network giving Beijing an intelligence foothold in Latin America.
US BOLSTERS MILITARY PRESENCE IN CARIBBEAN NEAR VENEZUELA AMID TRUMP’S EFFORTS TO HALT DRUG TRAFFICKING
Medina said the new pact must be understood as one layer in a wider anti-Western alignment.
“Under the banner of so-called ‘21st Century Socialism,’ initiated by Hugo Chávez and expanded by Nicolás Maduro, the nation has evolved into a forward operating base for regimes openly hostile to the United States and its allies,” he said.
“Iran, Russia, China, and Cuba have entrenched themselves across Venezuelan territory, using the country as a platform for asymmetric warfare, intelligence operations, and ideological expansion throughout Latin America.”
President Nicolas Maduro stands in front of a portrait of Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chavez. (AP Photo/Miraflores Press Office, File)
He noted that “Russia’s military footprint includes more than $12 billion in arms sales and ongoing defense cooperation and Wagner Group presence in military exercises,” while Cuban military advisers remain embedded inside Venezuelan security institutions.
“Iran has exploited this environment to embed terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas, using Venezuela as both a financial hub and a logistical corridor. These activities extend to former training camps in Syria, where Venezuelan operatives and mercenaries have been indoctrinated in hybrid warfare tactics,” he added. “Iranian interest includes potential drone manufacturing and uranium mining.”
“The Maduro government, shielded by the absence of the rule of law or legitimate governance, has replaced statecraft with criminal enterprise,” Medina said. “Grand corruption is not the exception; it is the system.”
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has yet to publicly comment on the strike. (Ariana Cubillos/AP Photo)
“The humanitarian toll is catastrophic,” he added. “Over 30% of Venezuela’s population has been forcibly displaced. Starvation has been weaponized as a tool of social control, amounting to a war crime under international law. Despite the enormity of these crimes, many United Nations member states continue to recognize and engage with this illegitimate regime, thereby perpetuating its impunity. The failure to confront this crisis decisively enables a coalition of adversaries, state and non-state actors alike, to project power dangerously close to U.S. territory.”
For now, Washington’s sanctions campaign still constrains Venezuela’s oil lifelines. In March 2025, Reuters reported that U.S. threats to impose tariffs on nations buying Venezuelan crude caused a temporary disruption in shipments to China. Beijing dismissed the measures as “illegal extraterritorial actions” and vowed to continue cooperation — but has not disclosed how it will enforce the new tariff-free pact.
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The Maduro administration is seeking to rally government supporters amidst a sagging economy and refugee crisis. (Jesus Vargas/AP Photo)
Chang said the underlying reality hasn’t changed: China can’t protect Caracas from U.S. hard power.
“It can certainly launch a propaganda blitz,” he said, “but it can’t project military force in the region. It’s really up to what President Trump does. China does not have the military strength to oppose American intervention if that’s what Trump decides.”
Medina agreed that the stakes reach beyond economics. “Just three hours from U.S. shores, this narco-terrorist regime has become the operational convergence of organized crime, drug trafficking, money laundering, and human rights atrocities,” he said, urging a Western response combining “diplomatic isolation, targeted sanctions, and, when necessary, defensive deployments.”
World
Minnesota braces for what’s next amid immigration arrests and in the wake of Renee Good shooting
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Already shaken by the fatal shooting of a woman by an immigration officer, Minnesota’s Twin Cities on Sunday braced for what many expect will be a new normal over the next few weeks as the Department of Homeland Security carries out what it called its largest enforcement operation ever.
Protesters screamed at heavily-armed federal agents and honked car horns, banged on drums and blew whistles in attempts to disrupt their operations in one Minneapolis neighborhood filled with single-family homes.
There was some pushing and several people were hit with chemical spray just before agents banged down the door of one home on Sunday. They later took one man away in handcuffs.
“We’re seeing a lot of immigration enforcement across Minneapolis and across the state, federal agents just swarming around our neighborhoods,” said Jason Chavez, a Minneapolis city councilmember. “They’ve definitely been out here.”
Chavez, the son of Mexican immigrants who represents an area with a growing immigrant population, said he is closely monitoring information from chat groups about where residents are seeing agents operating.
People holding whistles positioned themselves in freezing temperatures on street corners in the neighborhood where 37-year-old Renee Good was shot and killed Wednesday, watching for any signs of federal agents.
More than 20,000 people have taken part in a variety of trainings to become “observers” of enforcement activities in Minnesota since the 2024 election, said Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for Unidos MN, a local human rights organization .
“It’s a role that people choose to take on voluntarily, because they choose to look out for their neighbors,” Argueta said.
The protests have been largely peaceful, but the Twin Cities remained anxious. Minneapolis public schools on Monday will start offering remote learning for the next month in response to concerns that children might feel unsafe venturing out while tensions remain high.
Many schools closed last week after Good’s shooting and the upheaval that followed.
While the enforcement activity continues, two of the state’s leading Democrats said on Sunday that the investigation into Good’s shooting death shouldn’t be overseen solely by the federal government.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said in separate interviews Sunday that state authorities should be included in the investigation because the federal government has already made clear what it believes happened.
“How can we trust the federal government to do an objective, unbiased investigation, without prejudice, when at the beginning of that investigation they have already announced exactly what they saw — what they think happened,” Smith said on ABC’s “This Week.”
The Trump administration has defended the officer who shot Good in her car, saying he was protecting himself and fellow agents and that Good had “weaponized” her vehicle.
Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE, defended the officer on Fox News Channel’s “The Sunday Briefing.”
“That law enforcement officer had milliseconds, if not short time to make a decision to save his life and his other fellow agents,” he said.
Lyons also said the administration’s enforcement operations in Minnesota wouldn’t be needed “if local jurisdictions worked with us to turn over these criminally illegal aliens once they are already considered a public safety threat by the locals.”
The killing of Good by an ICE officer and the shooting of two people by federal agents in Portland, Oregon, led to dozens of protests across the country over the weekend.
Thousands of people marched Saturday in Minneapolis, where Homeland Security called its deployment of immigration officers in the Twin Cities its biggest ever immigration enforcement operation.
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Associated Press journalists Giovanna Dell’Orto in Minneapolis, Thomas Strong in Washington, Bill Barrow in Atlanta, and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.
World
Netanyahu and Rubio discuss US military intervention in Iran amid ongoing nationwide protests: report
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the possibility of U.S. intervention in Iran, according to a report.
The two leaders spoke by phone Saturday as Israel is on “high alert,” preparing for the possibility of U.S. military intervention in Iran, according to Reuters, citing multiple Israeli sources. A U.S. official confirmed the call to Fox News Digital but did not provide additional details.
The report comes as nationwide anti-regime demonstrations across Iran hit the two-week mark.
On Saturday, the Iranian regime triggered an internet “kill switch” in an apparent effort to conceal alleged abuses by security forces and as protests against it surged nationwide, according to a cybersecurity expert. The blackout reduced internet access to a fraction of normal levels.
KEANE WARNS IRANIAN REGIME TO TAKE TRUMP ‘DEAD SERIOUS’ ON PROTEST KILLING THREAT AMID ONGOING DEMONSTRATIONS
Secretary of State Marco Rubio holds his end-of-year press conference at the State Department in Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2025. (Kevin Mohatt/Reuters)
On Sunday, Iran’s parliament speaker warned that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America strikes the Islamic Republic.
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf issued the threat as lawmakers rushed the dais in the Iranian parliament, shouting, “Death to America!” according to The Associated Press.
President Donald Trump offered support for the protesters on Saturday, writing on Truth Social that “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”
IRANIAN MILITARY LEADER THREATENS PREEMPTIVE ATTACK AFTER TRUMP COMMENTS
In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran’s Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)
At a news conference Friday, Trump said Iran was facing mounting pressure as unrest spreads across the country.
“Iran’s in big trouble,” he said. “It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago. We’re watching the situation very carefully.”
The president said the U.S. would respond forcefully if the regime resorts to mass violence.
“We’ll be hitting them very hard where it hurts. And that doesn’t mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very, very hard where it hurts,” he said.
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Protests in Iran intensify for the 12th day. (The National Council of Resistance of Iran)
Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department and White House for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Emma Bussey, Brie Stimson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
World
Four killed, 20 injured in overnight Russian strikes across Ukraine
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Russia fired more than 150 drones overnight into Sunday targeting close to two dozen locations across Ukraine, killing at least four people and injuring 20 more.
Ukraine’s Air Forces say they intercepted 125 drones aerially but confirmed that at least 25 strike drones struck their targets.
They added that Moscow’s latest barrage mainly targeted Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk, all of which were targeted in Saturday’s overnight strikes as well.
Local officials in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia say the strikes targeted residential areas and energy infrastructure. More than 385,000 homes were affected by electric, gas or water outages, at a critical time as temperatures plunged to 10 degrees below Celsius.
Regional lawmakers say service was restored to most of the affected households and areas by Sunday morning, but added that emergency work was still being carried out to restore power to the remaining homes.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of timing their attacks with the cold peaks of winter as to maximise civilian suffering.
“They struck targets that have no military purpose whatsoever – energy infrastructure, residential buildings. They deliberately waited for freezing weather to make things worse for our people. This is deliberate, cynical Russian terror specifically against civilians,” wrote Zelenskyy in a post on X.
He also noted that this week had seen heightened Russian assault on Ukrainian cities, announcing that his country’s defence forces recorded thousands of attacks using a variety of different weapons.
“Over the course of this week, Russia launched almost 1,100 attack drones against Ukraine, more than 890 guided aerial bombs, and over 50 missiles of various types – ballistic, cruise, and even the Oreshnik medium-range ballistic missile.”
The Ukrainian leader thanked all units responsible for protecting the country and responding to attacks, and praised their tireless efforts and resilience.
He also called on allies to ensure his embattled country maintains “stable support”, in defence and diplomatic fields as coordinated dialogue efforts continue in search of peace.
Meanwhile, Russia says that one person was killed in Ukrainian strikes on the western city of Voronezh. Officials say a young woman succumbed to her wounds at an intensive care unit of a local hospital after debris from a drone fell on her house during Saturday’s attacks.
They added that at least three others were injured in the attacks which targeted more than 10 residential apartment buildings, private homes and a high school.
The city of Voronezh lies just 250 kilometres from the Ukrainian border and is home to approximately one million people. The attacks, which Kyiv have yet to confirm, came after the Kremlin’s major offensive on Ukraine in the early hours of Saturday.
Additional sources • AP
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