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The doctor estimated that the virus could be caused by mutated strains of influenza or coronavirus, and stated that it has caused deaths and serious injuries, especially among children and the elderly.

Quoted by Safa news agency, the specialist stated that its effects are exacerbated by severe malnutrition in the coastal enclave, which has weakened the body’s ability to resist disease.

In this regard, he described the health situation in Gaza as “catastrophic and tragic” due to the effects of the war unleashed by Israel more than two years ago.

Abu Salmiya pointed out that the spread of viruses is facilitated because the shelters in the Strip are overcrowded and lack basic public health requirements, which accelerates transmission.

He stressed that a large part of Gaza’s population lives under the weight of famine and acute malnutrition as a result of food insecurity and high rates of poverty.

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The post Warning issued about respiratory virus outbreak in Gaza first appeared on Prensa Latina.

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Titled “Printmaking in the Courtyard,” the initiative, which began yesterday, is demonstrative and practical, and is designed to provide essential knowledge of linocut and screen printing techniques.

The activity at UNEAC’s Havana headquarters aims to teach participants basic elements for creating an image, as well as traditional, rudimentary, and widely accessible procedures.

According to the institution’s press release, the workshop also includes instruction in printing techniques.

“Printmaking in the Courtyard” is one of the final activities of the 1st National Expanded Printmaking Competition, organized by UNEAC’s Visual Artists Association with the goal of providing “a fresh perspective on one of the most fruitful specialties of Cuban visual arts.”

The initiative engages with the winning works of the competition, exhibited at Villa Manuela, and “encourages participants to engage with the techniques used in the creative process.”

The First National Expanded Printmaking Competition included a competitive section for professionals and students of the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts, the text adds.

jdt/jav/lam/amr

The post Engraving in the courtyard, a date with the visual arts in Cuba first appeared on Prensa Latina.

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According to the Prime Minister, a gathering for unity and remembrance will take place that day, centered around the theme: “Light will triumph.”

To decide on the date, Albanese said he consulted with Sydney Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, who lost family members in the December 14 attack, which killed 16 people.

“Flags will fly at half-staff at all Commonwealth buildings in Australia, and further details will be announced later this week,” he stated.

The Prime Minister also called an early session of Parliament to discuss stricter laws against hate speech and gun violence next week in the wake of the Bondi terrorist attack.

He argued that the terrorists had hatred in their minds but weapons in their hands, and both problems must be addressed through the law.

An estimated 2,000 people were on the popular Bondi beach on the day of the attack, most of them members of the Jewish community, to celebrate Hanukkah.

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The post Australia calls for a national day of mourning for Bondi victims first appeared on Prensa Latina.

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  “We are witnessing a completely unbridled imperialism, which has been capable of kidnapping the president of Venezuela and threatening to bomb that country again,” Amoros told Prensa Latina during his participation in the Fiesta de los Abrazos (Festival of Embraces).

  He stated that this event, convened by the Communist Party of Chile (PCCh) and where many gather to talk and debate, is a first step in showing on the current situation.

“In the midst of this bewilderment, we have to know where we are going, to a new era marked by the military hegemony of imperialism, and there has to be a response,” he said.

Amoros presented his book, “Gladys Marin: A Revolutionary Life,” at the Fiesta de los Abrazos (Festival of Embraces).

The biography tells the story of the former congresswoman, secretary

general, and president of the Communist Party of Chile (PCCh), and the first woman to run for president of the Republic.

“She had the capacity to give everything in the fight against the dictatorship of (Augusto) Pinochet. That is to say, although she could have remained in exile, she fought to return to Chile and here she led the clandestine leadership of the Party,” he remembered.

The book was presented in Plaza de las Letras Volodia Teitelboin, at an event attended by the president of the PCCh, Lautaro Carmona, and the leader of the Communist Youth, Catalina Lufin. This year’s Fiesta de los Abrazos had the theme “The struggle for peace and against imperialist aggression.”

jdt/jha/car

The post Spanish writer calls for preparation for a more difficult world first appeared on Prensa Latina.

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Caracas (OrinocoTribune.com)—On Monday, Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez announced changes to the Executive Cabinet. The first appointment she announced was that of Vice Admiral Aníbal Coronado, who will assume the Ministry for Ecosocialism.

Coronado replaces Ricardo Molina, who had been in charge of this office since February 2025. Regarding Coronado, Rodríguez said he will continue the “supreme objective of developing ecosocialism as a fundamental strategic line of our revolutionary process for the preservation of the environment.”

Later, Acting President Rodríguez announced the appointment of Captain Juan Escalona as the new minister of the Office of the Presidency. “I know that his loyalty, ability, and commitment will carry forward the monitoring of the development of the plans of our government alongside the people,” she wrote on social media.

Delcy Rodríguez assumed the Venezuelan presidency as interim president on January 5, following the illegal abduction of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores by US military forces after the air raid and bombing against civilian and military infrastructure. Over 100 Venezuelans were killed, and a similar number were wounded, in the attack.

Rodríguez’s appointment of Escalona, ​​a member of President Maduro’s security team, as minister of the Office of the Presidency, replaces Vice Admiral Aníbal Coronado, who is now in charge of the Ecosocialism Ministry.

Following her appointment as acting president, Rodríguez announced the designation of General Gustavo Enrique López as the new commander of the Presidential Honor Guard, in charge of the Venezuelan president’s security. She recognized the work of outgoing General Javier Marcano Tábata, highlighting the dedication, loyalty, and unwavering commitment demonstrated throughout his tenure.

Meeting with European diplomats
Also on Monday, Acting President Rodríguez held a strategic meeting with heads of diplomatic missions from European Union member states, the United Kingdom, and the Swiss Confederation, as reported by Telesur.

“We reviewed the state of relations between Venezuela and the governments of the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the Swiss Confederation,” Foreign Minister Yván Gil stated after the meeting, describing it as a “frank, cordial, and pleasant” encounter.

Minister Gil highlighted that, among the points discussed, the need to move forward in productive relations, with openness to deeper and more intense avenues of dialogue, stands out.

He also reported that links in strategic sectors were reviewed. “We reviewed the trade and economic relations in areas such as energy, education, science, technology, and the pharmaceutical industry, in which European companies have been based in Venezuela for a long time,” he added in statements to the press.

Venezuela Responds to US Travel Advisory (+President Maduro’s Message)

Gil mentioned that Acting President Rodríguez sent a clear message: Cooperation must be developed within a framework of respect and equality between states. He added that “We are ready to move forward with a new and intensive work agenda for the well-being of the peoples of Europe and Venezuela.”

Recently, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez also spoke by telephone with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. The main purpose of these calls was to inform them about the serious criminal, illegal, and illegitimate aggression perpetrated against Venezuela.

The meeting was also attended by Venezuelan National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez and Minister of the Interior, Justice, and Peace Diosdado Cabello. During the meeting, the official presented an assessment of the criminal US military attacks against Venezuela on January 3.

Special for Orinoco Tribune by staff

OT/JRE/SF

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Venezuela’s Acting President Delcy Rodríguez attended the start of the second term of the 2025-2026 school year nationwide on Monday, January 12. Over six million children returned to their academic activities around Venezuela.

During the day, Rodríguez inaugurated the state-of-the-art Pedro Camejo National School, designed for 106 students in Catia La Mar, La Guaira state. The acting president also oversaw the simultaneous inauguration of 11 other schools, bringing the total number of new and renovated school centers to 1,725 nationwide.

The acting president emphasised that, in response to recent US military attacks on civil infrastructure, Venezuela mobilized and organized popular power to ensure that public education remains operational and free of charge.

Education Minister Héctor Rodríguez reported that school enrollment in the country reached 97%, driven by the strengthening of the School Meals Program (PAE), which serves two million students daily with domestically produced food. As part of this effort, 100 new trucks were added to optimize program logistics, increasing its reach by 36%. Meanwhile, 400,000 teachers were deployed to classrooms to ensure the continuity of the academic calendar.

Currently, Venezuela maintains a unified governance scheme headed by Acting President Rodríguez, as the constitutional president, Nicolás Maduro, remains in a US prison since his illegal abduction.

The Venezuelan state is focusing its efforts on restoring basic services and maintaining social programs such as the PAE. The restoration of 200 of the 226 schools in La Guaira state, along with the nationwide distribution of technological equipment and furniture, is part of the plan to heal the wounds of the US imperialist aggression against the country.

“We ratify and reaffirm the sovereignty of Venezuela,” the acting president stated, adding that “here, there is a government that runs Venezuela, there is an interim president, and there is a president held hostage in the United States. We govern together with the organized people, and we are advancing in respectful international relations, within the framework of international law.”

Diplomatic relations with US and Italy
Also on Monday, Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello reported that progress is being made in opening the Venezuelan Embassy in the United States.

He highlighted that this will allow Venezuela to have consular representation in the US, so that the safety and security of the constitutional president, Nicolás Maduro, and First Lady Cilia Flores can be ensured, along with the well-being of Venezuelans living in the country.

“That is the fundamental objective, to allow us to have someone there. Because at this moment, we have no one. They are being held hostage, and we have no one except for the lawyers, who are not Venezuelan. We appreciate what they are doing, but they are not Venezuelan,” Cabello added.

Foreign Minister Yván Gil announced that Venezuela and Italy have decided to elevate their diplomatic missions to the rank of ambassadors, following a telephone conversation with his Italian counterpart, Antonio Tajani.

“We have agreed to elevate the level of our diplomatic missions to the rank of ambassadors. In the coming days, we will be making the corresponding announcements and contacts,” Gil stated on Monday.

Venezuela Responds to US Travel Advisory (+President Maduro’s Message)

The agreement comes after the release of two Italian citizens detained in Caracas since the end of 2024. This had generated tensions in the bilateral relationship, in addition to the recurrent European support of US imperial aggression against Venezuela.

During the conversation, both foreign ministers assessed the possibility of working on a bilateral agenda to strengthen political, economic, and cultural ties between the two countries.

Minister Gil reported that he had explained to Tajani the situation generated by the recent US military attacks against Venezuela, which caused dozens of deaths among civilians and military personnel, in open violation of international law and the Charter of the United Nations.

(Telesur) with Orinoco Tribune content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

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The Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective’s Red Paper series takes on the pressing issues of our time with urgency and principled clarity. We are at the frontlines of the Battle of Ideas and we use anti-imperialist methodology to clarify the stakes, intensify the contradictions, challenge the propaganda, and defend the Resistance.

We, the Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective (AISC), condemn in the strongest terms possible the US imperialist attack against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The US kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro and First Combatant Cilia Flores in a blatantly criminal breach of international law on January 3, 2026, while violently assaulting the sovereignty of Nuestra América. We stand firmly with the Venezuelan people and their revolutionary Bolivarian State as they defend their sovereign right to self-determination. We unequivocally recognize Nicolás Maduro as the legitimate president of Venezuela and demand the United States government immediately release him and First Combatant Flores. As an organization committed to challenging US-led imperialism and supporting the sovereignty and national liberation of the Global Majority, AISC calls on anti-imperialist forces in the US and across the world to unite in defense of President Maduro and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

In Red Paper #1, AISC provides a critical analysis of the current US attack on Venezuela, demonstrating that it must be understood as an existential conflict between US imperialism and the sovereignty of the peoples of the Americas.

Introduction: The Two Fronts of Imperialist War

The US is waging war against Venezuela on two inter-related levels. First, this war constitutes a renewed escalation of a decades-long “counter-revolutionary” attack on revolutionary forces and states in the region that have overturned imperialist property structures.[1] Second, this war represents an escalation of US imperialism’s attempt to weaken and subjugate the architects and backers of an emergent polycentric world order in which the US will no longer be the sole, hegemonic superpower.[2] The two “fronts” of the US imperialist war are inter-related. The fracturing of the alliances driving forward the polycentric world order provides a necessary condition for isolating, and destroying, the sovereign development projects of the revolutionary states of the Americas. These projects are marked for destruction as they pose an existential challenge to US imperialism. They disrupt the ability of capital in the imperialist core to superexploit labor and dominate resources while also contesting the definitive basis of imperialist power: the control over the flow of resources and capital between territories.

The attack against Venezuela and the Trump regime’s escalated war footing have generated a broad spectrum of criticism and opposition. However, the terms of the opposition have often risked delegitimizing the Venezuelan state—and thus supporting the objectives of US imperialism. In particular, there is a return to a register of anti-war opposition that posits a fundamental distinction between the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and a generic category of the Venezuelan “people.” This is a self-defeating move at best, a complicit one at worst. It is not possible to defend the “Venezuelan people” while aligning with the imperialists in delegitimizing the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela as a “dictatorship.” It is not a generic category of the “Venezuelan people” that is under attack, but a specific state formation structured upon reorienting the nation’s resources in the service of national development rather than imperialist wealth appropriation. To delegitimize this state structure is to lay the groundwork for legitimizing US imperialist interventions. The questioning of an anti-imperialist state’s legitimacy, particularly by imperialist forces, should never serve as a basis for violating its state sovereignty.

As imperialist forces sow confusion, it is thus imperative that we respond with clarity as to why Venezuela has been attacked and move with a principled commitment to the defence of its sovereignty. This is a war on a revolutionary state that has challenged imperialism by reclaiming both its “internal” and “external” bases of sovereign power: it has constructed a sovereign national development project and forged sovereign international relations with other anti-imperialist states.

Socialism with Bolivarian Characteristics: Resource Sovereignty, Communal Power and Popular Defense

In the late twentieth century, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela emerged as a revolutionary challenge to the foundational bases of US imperialism. The Bolivarian Republic has deepened and sustained Venezuelan sovereign-popular ownership over its own resources, reclaiming control over its oil wealth from US corporations such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips.[3] It subsequently directed its oil wealth into sovereign national development projects[4] as well as into regional and international “South-South” frameworks[5] that fundamentally challenge the dependent relations that have kept Global South states at the mercy of the US-led imperialist order.

The formation of communes has been at the heart of the sovereign national development projects advanced by the Bolivarian Republic. Emerging out of the historic social missions launched by President Hugo Chávez in 2004—which virtually eliminated illiteracy via Misión Robinson and built a nationwide, free community healthcare system via Misión Barrio Adentroand significantly reduced poverty—the commune project advanced the revolutionary process towards what Chávez termed “communal socialism.”[6] In these grassroots structures, communities legislate, administer resources, and manage their own means of production. Forged under the pressure of the US economic blockade and imperialist hybrid warfare, the communes now collectively control productive resources in close coordination with the state. They have played a central role in mitigating the deleterious impact of sanctions by meeting urgent community needs and advancing food sovereignty.[7] Even under escalating US attack, President Nicolás Maduro’s government deepened the state’s commitment to the communes by launching a new strategic plan in November 2025 based on over 36,000 proposals from a national popular consultation intended to fortify national unity and resilience.[8]

This same communal infrastructure that sustains daily life under siege also forms the material and organizational basis for Venezuela’s national defense. In December, building on the grassroots power of the communes, the Bolivarian National Militia activated Nicolás Maduro’s doctrine of “Guerra de Todo el Pueblo,” distributing rifles and other weapons to millions of civilians.[9] The intent of the militia is to involve the whole of the Venezuelan people in the national defense against imperialist aggression. Maduro warned that any large-scale US invasion will face a “new Viet Nam,” a prolonged campaign of guerrilla war characterized by cascading hit-and-run attacks springing from compact urban areas, foreboding mountains, and immense jungles. While the US military retains immensely destructive technological capacities, it is increasingly evident that it is not capable of engaging in such a land war. By its own admission, it has not trained in tropical environments in decades, having just revived its “jungle warfare” training program in Panama for the first time in over 20 years.

It is the popular basis of the Bolivarian Revolution, renewed and reforged through the communes and the National Militia, that grounds the legitimacy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The “qualitative basis” of the sovereignty of the Bolivarian Republic is to be found in the empowerment of Indigenous, Afro-Venezuelan, and working class peoples, and the reorientation of the nation’s land and resources in service of a popular form of national development that meets the needs of all its peoples. This qualitative force provides the Bolivarian Republic with its greatest source of legitimacy and deepest power in resisting US imperialism.

Venezuela v. US Imperialism

It is precisely this combination of sovereign development, popular power, and territorial defense that the US led capitalist imperialist world order could never accept. Capitalist imperialism requires a consistent drain of cheap resources and goods from the periphery into the imperialist core as a means of both stabilizing class relations in the core and appropriating surplus value from the periphery.[10] Imperialism has historically established the conditions for such appropriation through military force and imposing economic dependency on the peripheries. Time and again, when the peoples of the imperially subjugated Global Majority have sought to reclaim their sovereign right over both their territories and the flow of economic capital into and out of their territories, they have been subjected to imperialist war and economic sanctions.[11] This is the fundamental rule of the capitalist imperialist system, as seen in the economic warfare and blockades imposed on Haiti in the 19th century, Cuba in the 20th century, and now Venezuela in the 21st century.

The emergence of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has been all the more threatening to the US imperialist order because it is a key insurgent challenge to the “end of history” Washington consensus that the US sought to impose on the entire planet at the close of the twentieth century. The structural adjustment programs that the United States enforced across the Global South destroyed national economies, undermined social reproduction capacities, and in so doing produced massive pools of cheap labor and resources for exploitation and appropriation by the imperialist core.[12] But what US imperialism did not foresee at the time was the strength of the anti-imperialist challenge that would be launched against the IMF-World Bank neocolonial program. Key among these challenges included the anti-IMF Caracazo movement in Venezuela that led to the Bolivarian socialist revolution and the rise of the communes;[13] Venezuela’s PetroCaribe Energy Agreement program that leveraged the country’s oil wealth for the socio-economic development and the integration of Caribbean countries;[14] the resilience of the Cuban socialist revolution in the face of the collapse of the Soviet Union;[15] the Lavalas program in Haiti demanding reparations and higher wages;[16] the struggle in Zimbabwe that led to the reclamation of stolen land by dispossessed Zimbabweans;[17] the anti-privatization water wars in Bolivia that led to the rise of MAS;[18] and the Palestinian second intifada that brought the Washington consensus Oslo framework to crisis.[19] The US has systematically sought to destroy each and every one of these challenges to the foundations of imperialist-core accumulation.

US imperialism has, over the past twenty five years, attempted coups d’etats and imposed punitive economic sanctions as a means to try to overthrow the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Among the longstanding aims of the US are to deny Venezuela sovereign control over its oil wealth and to hand it over instead to US oil majors, including through persistent demands that Venezuela pay “compensation” for the nationalization of its oil industry. Rather than cooperate with an increasingly sovereign Venezuelan oil sector, US oil majors escalated legal warfare, aggressively suing Venezuela for so-called “lost assets” and demanding compensation payments for the 2007 oil nationalization.[20] This demand for compensation to the expropriator—to the colonizer, to the imperialist—coupled with sanctions against national liberation projects, is a structural feature of imperialism. The roots of colonial-imperialist “compensation” lie in the blockades imposed against Haiti and Cuba, which demanded that colonial property owners be compensated for the “losses” incurred when the Haitian and Cuban peoples reclaimed sovereign power over their territories and lives.[21] Similar demands were imposed against Zimbabwe earlier this decade.[22] What is at stake today, however, is not only resource domination and colonial-imperialist compensation, but also control over the country’s financial flows as finance capital aims to dominate future revenues, debt, and collateral streams.

However, the US has failed time and again in its attempts to destroy the sovereignty of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The first Trump administration rolled out a “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign, which led to a severe economic crisis in Venezuela.[23] Its GDP contracted by close to 90 percent between 2013 to 2020, resulting in 40,000 deaths due to the devastating impact of the sanctions regime on Venezuela’s public health system.[24] The economic crisis also triggered massive economically motivated emigration from the country. The Venezuelan state not only withstood the sanctions campaign, but has achieved a small degree of economic recovery in recent years. In fact, Venezuela is forecasted to lead GDP growth in Latin America for both 2024 and 2025.[25] It is in light of the failure of the US economic sanctions regime to achieve its objectives of regime change and complete subordination that we must view the turn to military force against Venezuela. This latest wave of US imperialist intervention seeks to extract concessions from the Venezuelan state—particularly access to its oil and mineral wealth—and to curtail its independent, South-South solidaristic international relations. The attack on Venezuela is informed by the same strategic objectives that drove the US attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran this past summer. In both cases, the US has sought to destroy a sovereign state that has provisioned regional economic or military strategic depth to anti-imperialist forces.

The Revival of the Monroe Doctrine and the Recolonization of Nuestra América

The US imperialist attack on Venezuela has been identified as an enactment of the “Trump corollary to the Monroe doctrine” that animates the 2025 US National Security Strategy.[26] At its core, the revival of the Monroe doctrine is centered upon expelling what it identifies as “non-hemispheric rivals”—China, Russia, and Iran—from the Americas and re-consolidating the region under full spectrum US domination.[27] The Trump corollary is premised upon a claim that the “non-hemispheric rivals” threaten both regional prosperity and US power, and their removal and replacement with full spectrum US “leadership” will benefit the region’s economic development and security. What the attack on Venezuela reveals, however, is that the Trump corollary is primarily concerned with these “non-hemispheric rivals” for the role they have played affording Venezuela and other states in the region greater space for constructing and sustaining projects of sovereign development. Sovereign development advances the utilization of national resources for national development, and thus threatens the reproduction of cheap labor and resource pools for appropriation by capitalist imperialist modes of accumulation.

A clearer understanding of the relationship between sovereign development and the region’s engagement with an emergent polycentric world order can be grasped if we recall the key role played by these so-called “non-hemispheric rivals” in the consolidation of the gains of the Bolivarian Revolution. After the Bolivarian Revolution, the Venezuelan state identified deepening relations with non-Western powers as central to reducing dependency on US investment and export markets.[28] This strategy became particularly urgent and pronounced after Venezuela deepened the nationalization of its oil sector in 2007. Western capital, as mentioned above, refused to accept nationalization and instead sought to contest it by suing for “compensation” and effectively conducting a “capital strike” by withdrawing investments from the country.[29] While such measures have historically been used by imperialist powers to force concessions from peripheral states after they achieve independence – i.e. the capital strike will only be ended after the targeted state relents on its nationalization program – Venezuela was able to withstand this financial imperialism by drawing on support from China, Russia, and Iran. China and Venezuela created the “China-Venezuela Joint Fund” in 2007 that received significant injections of capital from Chinese state development banks that proved essential for maintaining state oil revenues in the service of infrastructure development and social spending.[30] Russia’s state-owned oil company, Rosneft, similarly injected significant levels of investment that sustained the Venezuelan state oil sector and provisioned funds for social spending.[31] Iran and Venezuela have deepened relations across multiple sectors such as healthcare and food production, and have forged cooperative economic relations through which they support each other in withstanding US sanctions. Iran, in particular, has transferred vital technical expertise, refinery parts, and catalysts to help sustain Venezuela’s blockaded oil industry.[32]

We see here the outlines of a world premised upon sovereign cooperation and solidarity. Venezuela’s ability to sustain its nationalization program provisioned the means for strengthening the cooperative relations with regional anti-imperialist states, most notably Cuba. Venezuela’s provisioning of discounted oil flows to Cuba has been essential to the latter’s own ability to withstand the nearly 70 year US blockade.[33] Venezuela has further taken leadership in regional integration efforts such as the Bolivaria Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). Venezuela and Cuban solidarity would, in turn, serve as an anchor for a growing Latin American anti-zionist bloc which raised its voice loudly, and took concrete material action, in opposition to the escalating US-zionist genocidal war against Palestinians. Both states have severed ties with the zionist entity. The US-zionist imperialist alliance has, in turn, made the defeat of the anti-zionist bloc in the Americas a key component of its larger strategy to overcome the zionist entity’s increasing international isolation.[34] We note here the commitment of the US backed Venezuelan regime change leader, Maria Corina Machado, to restore full Venezuelan diplomatic support for the zionist entity.[35] In addition, US secretary of state Marco Rubio has demanded that Venezuela sever its relations with anti-zionist forces in West Asia, namely the Islamic Republic of Iran and Hezbollah, as a condition for the ending of the US blockade on Venezuelan oil exports.[36]

These two inter-related levels of anti-imperialist sovereign expression—“internal” sovereign national development and “external” cooperation and solidarity with other anti-imperialist states—pose existential challenges to the US led imperialist world order. Sovereign national development reduces the capitalist core’s access to cheap labor and resources in the Global South, while deepening anti-imperialist inter-state cooperation counteracts the threat of “isolation” that imperialism seeks to impose on anti-imperialist states.

It is for this reason, above all, that the “Trump corollary to the Monroe doctrine” seeks to remove “non-hemispheric rivals” and why it has targeted Venezuela as its first act. It seeks to remove from Venezuela the strategic economic depth through which it has been able to withstand decades of hybrid warfare—capital strikes, international lawfare, sanctions, attempted coups—and sustain its sovereign development project. The attack on Venezuela explicitly takes as its aim the re-routing of oil flows away from China and Russia and towards the US.[37] This will open the door to windfall profits for Western finance and mining capital, severely curtail the sovereign development capacity of the Venezuelan state, and provision the US with a stronger control over international oil and capital flows. Controlling Venezuelan oil would, in turn, provide US imperialism with a powerful instrument with which to intensify its squeeze on the Cuban economy and advance its longstanding aim of rolling back the Cuban revolution. It could further be deployed to exercise leverage against China, the major source of strategic economic depth for anti-imperialist forces in the world today.

US imperialism’s strategic renewal of the Monroe doctrine is thus propelled, in significant part, by an awareness that the US has rapidly lost economic leadership in the world economy. China has demonstrated it is pulling away from the US in economic and technological sectors shaping the future of the world economy.[38] The superior efficiency and performance of its Artificial Intelligence (AI) sector has threatened the valuation of US AI sectors and firms that have received hundreds of billions of dollars in capital investment.[39] In contrast to the US doubling down on oil and gas as a means to power its AI sectors,[40] China is demonstrating a future that ties AI to the accelerated development of its renewable energy sector.[41] This represents a decisive shifting of the world away from dependence on oil and gas, which will not only challenge the basis of US imperialist power—resource dominance and dollar hegemony—but open greater space for more sustainable futures. China has further consolidated its command over the global supply chain for the transition to AI and renewable energy, securing control of both the access to, and the advanced technology required to process, the essential rare earth minerals renewable energy economies demand.[42] It bears emphasizing that China’s strategic control over energy and rare earth supply chains has been anchored primarily in long-term domestic industrial and processing capacity, while its access to upstream resources in the Global South has been sustained through negotiated South–South cooperation frameworks, as seen above in its relations with Venezuela.[43] This contrasts with the coercive sanctions, regime-change operations, and expropriatory demands characteristic of Western imperialism. Recognizing it is incapable of competing with China on economic terms, the US is increasingly using lawfare and military power to seize access to rare earth minerals, deepen control over energy flows, reshape global supply chains and shift capital investment towards US controlled global production lines.

While China has helped sustain Venezuela’s oil nationalization program, US oil majors have for decades sought to undermine and reverse it. In the fall of 2025, when U.S. courts ruled in favor of domestic energy and mining capital by ordering the Venezuelan state to sell its U.S. assets to satisfy colonial-imperialist “compensation” claims from Exxon and ConocoPhillips, the zionist-led “vulture capitalist” firm Elliot Management—owned by the notorious Paul Singer – stepped in and acquired Venezuela’s US assets—largely consisting of CITGO refineries.[44] The rush by the Trump regime to re-route Venezuelan oil to the US will then provision windfall profits to Elliot Management and other US firms involved in refining Venezuelan crude oil in the CITGO refineries.

A similar dynamic exists if the US is able to gain access to Venezuela’s substantial rare earth mineral supply. This will strengthen the “Pax Silica” alliance recently forged by the US. The “Pax Silica” is an explicit framework in which the US has brought together eleven allied states in an attempt to build a supply chain for semiconductor chips and AI technology independent of China.[45] Venezuela’s critical minerals (including coltan) would constitute an important foundation to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative.[46]

We can thus see how the US imperialist state’s “strategic” move to re-consolidate control over global energy and mineral flows has implications for the profitability and valuation of US capital and firms. It is necessary to be attentive to the motives of US imperialism at both the firm level and the structural level of the world economy in order to grasp the dynamics of the “Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.”

The Contradictions of the Trump Corollary: Tactical Gains versus Strategic Losses

In light of the US attack on Venezuela, it may appear that US imperialism has re-established its primacy in the world-system. However, it remains the case that its crises not only persist, but deepen. Absent a fundamental re-organization of its economic structure, the US will continue to prove incapable of keeping up with China’s productive leaps across a range of sectors, including renewable energy and AI. As the US doubles down on wars for oil, China has decisively opened a post-fossil fuel trajectory wherein its own dependency on oil will enter into secular decline.

The ongoing US-led wars in Ukraine and Palestine have become a resource drain for NATO.[47] Its member nations are suffering cash flow problems and declining economies compounded by exhausted weapons and defense systems that are expensive and slow-to-manufacture.[48] Social unrest across the US and Europe is high and political fragmentation threatens the stability of both.[49] In this context, the desperation of US imperialism betrays itself, manifesting in racist, colonial language, fascist repression, savage violence and abductions of both migrants and heads of state, as well as the accelerating use of concentration camps like the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in El Salvador. Having lost the ability to conduct long wars as those waged against Viet Nam and Iraq, the US turns to short, sequential wars sprinkled with discrete and barbaric acts of aggression, like the abduction of President Maduro and First Combatant Flores.

The underlying contradiction persists for US imperialism: its immediate tactical victories undermine its longer term strategic objectives. It is notable that the US prepared for six months, then deployed 150 aircraft and dozens of military personnel to capture two people.[50] In the aftermath of this spectacular display of force, however, the Bolivarian Republic remains intact. Interim President Delcy Rodriguez has been sworn in, the Venezuelan armed forces, together with the mass-based Bolivarian militia, have ensured national security and stability, opposition parties have united with President Maduro’s party—Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV)—in defense of the nation; and each day has brought growing global and national outcry against the US as a “rogue superpower.”

US-led Western imperialism has once again reaffirmed its refusal to make any space for the sovereign development of the peoples of the Global South. The defeat of US imperialism therefore remains the fundamental task confronting all those who are fighting for a world founded on sovereignty, justice, and peace. In the face of the criminal terrorist attack conducted by US imperialism, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela remains standing and its popular forces remain prepared to defend it. It is imperative that anti-imperialist forces across the world unite in demanding the release of President Maduro and First Combatant Flores, the unconditional lifting of U.S. sanctions and the blockade against Venezuela and Cuba, the full defense of the sovereignty of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, and the recognition of the Venezuelan people’s right to resist imperialist aggression.

Notes

[1] Our use of the concepts of “revolutionary” and “counter-revolutionary” is precise. Our understanding of revolution begins with Malcolm X’s definition that “revolutions overturn systems”, which we then combine with Karl Marx’s insight that the overturning of a system (or mode of production) occurs when its organizing property relations are “burst asunder” by class struggle. The system of capitalist imperialism has historically organized itself in its colonies and imperially subjugated peripheries through property regimes—plantations, haciendas, zamindari, etc.—that are structured by a “denial of sovereignty” and which function to transfer cheap labor, resources, and surplus value to the imperialist core. Revolution from the periphery is thus premised upon an overturning of the plantation, its underlying power relations being burst asunder by the violent class struggle of peasants and workers. In the Latin American region, the revolutionary struggle has been waged on a continental scale and has secured important victories in overturning imperialist property structures in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia. The “counter-revolutionary” war seeks to return to the past, to undo the revolution and restore imperialist property. We can grasp here the convergence of US oil majors and Venezuelan class collaborators eager to re-enter Venezuela through the renewed militarized Monroe doctrine.

[2] In this case, the target is the “framework” being constructed by relations between Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, China, and Russia.

[3] James Petras, “Venezuela: Democracy, Socialism, and Imperialism” in The Marxist (24,2), 2008.

[4] George Ciccariello-Maher, We Created Chavez: A People’s History of the Venezuelan Revolution(Duke University Press, 2013).

[5] Cira Pascual Marquina and Chris Gilbert, Venezuela, the Present as Struggle: Voices from the Bolivarian Revolution (New York: Monthly Review Press, October 29, 2020).

[6] Chris Gilbert, Commune or Nothing! Venezuela’s Communal Movement and its Socialist Project (New York: Monthly Review Press, October 1, 2023); ​​Rebecca Trotzky Sirr, “Misión Barrio Adentro: Experiencing Health Care as a Human Right in Venezuela,” Venezuelanalysis, May 27, 2007, https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2406/.

[7] “Preliminary Statement and Findings of the Venezuela Fact-Finding Mission of the International People’s Tribunal on U.S. Imperialism,” National Lawyers Guild International Committee, August 3, 2023, https://nlginternational.org/2023/08/preliminary-statement-and-findings-of-the-venezuela-fact-finding-mission-of-the-international-peoples-tribunal-on-u-s-imperialism/.

[8] President Maduro Celebrates Success of 4th Nationwide Popular Consultation,” Orinoco Tribune, November 25, 2025, https://orinocotribune.com/president-maduro-celebrates-success-of-4th-nationwide-popular-consultation/.

[9] Instituto Tricontinental de Investigación Social, Venezuela y las guerras híbridas en Nuestra América, Dossier no. 17, June 2019, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/190604_Dossier-17_ES-Web-Final-2.pdf.

[10] Samir Amin, The Law of Worldwide Value (Monthly Review Press, 2009); Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik, Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and Present (Monthly Review Press, 2021); Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (London: Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications, 1972).

[11] Antony Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty, and the Making of International Law (Columbia, 2004).

[[12]](https://www.anti-imperialists.com/red-papers/9c87cae1-c7ba-4b1b-b5dc-299fd04b746a/

This article by María del Pilar Martínez originally appeared in the January 12, 2026 edition of El Economista.

The national grain market is facing a new price drop driven by an unexpected report from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) that has triggered widespread pressure on corn, wheat and soybeans, worsening the outlook for Mexican producers.

The publication of an unexpected report from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has plunged the domestic grain market into a phase of marked downward pressure.

“This report has caused a widespread drop in the prices of corn, wheat and soybeans, further complicating the economic situation of Mexican producers,” reported the Agricultural Market Consultants Group (GCMA).

The latest USDA report surprised international markets by confirming significant increases in planted area, yields, production and global inventories, which injected a bearish movement into futures prices.

This global dynamic translates into double bad news for the Mexican agricultural sector, “because the fall in international prices is compounded by the effect of the appreciation of the peso-dollar exchange rate, which further erodes the value in pesos of grain sales in the local market,” the report highlights.

The urgency intensifies when considering the volumes of grain from previous cycles that producers have yet to sell. The combination of abundant global supply and an appreciated exchange rate is forcing farmers to sell at an unsustainable price floor.

The figures for unmarketed grain that still weigh on the market include

• Sinaloa An estimated 100,000 to 120,000 tons of white corn corresponding to the Fall-Winter 2024/25 cycle.
• The Bajío region Between 600,000 and 700,000 tons of white corn from the Spring-Summer harvest aer pending sale
• Chihuahua There is a concentration of about 1 million tons of yellow corn that are still looking for a buyer.

“The market faces a clearly bearish scenario that limits any possibility of price recovery in the short term, seriously compromising the producer’s profitability,” the report states.

It also highlights that, given the lack of timely marketing and risk management mechanisms, pressure on Mexican agricultural income will persist, demanding a coordinated response to ensure the viability of the upcoming Spring-Summer and Autumn-Winter harvests.

• 

  News Briefs

  Falling Grain Prices Stifling Embattled Mexican Producers

  January 12, 2026

  Another blow for Mexican food sovereignty & farmers, who are already battling the US dumping some of the most heavily subsidized crops in the world.

• 

  Analysis

  Under the National Security Strategy, Trump Pushes for Latin America’s Minerals, Energy & Infrastructure

  January 12, 2026January 12, 2026

  Mexico is facing a race against time to strengthen not only energy sovereignty, but also energy security in a period of intensified US imperialism.

• 

  Mañanera

  People’s Mañanera January 12

  January 12, 2026

  President Sheinbaum’s daily press conference, with comments on Mexico-US dialogue and electoral reform.

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The head of the FARAJA Special Forces Units said eight members were killed by ‘swarms of violent rioters’ armed with guns and other weapons

Over 100 members of the Iranian security forces have been killedby violent, foreign-backed rioters since the start of the unrest across the country late last month, local media reports said on 11 January.

According to the semi-official Tasnim News Agency, the number stands at 109 security personnel.

This includes eight members of Iran’s FARAJA Special Forces Units.

“The servicemen were martyred after swarms of violent rioters attacked them by firing bullets and hitting the law enforcement forces with various weapons,” said the commander of the special forces General Masoud Mosaddeq.

In Isfahan alone, 30 members of the security forces were killed during the latest riots.

Qodratollah Mohammadi, the chief of the Tehran Fire Department, said “armed rioters have set 26 houses ablaze, and launched arson attacks on 34 mosques, 40 banks, 15 shopping centers, 13 government buildings, and 50 vehicles, including public service cars.”

🚨🇮🇷⚡️ – Iranian state-affiliated media reports that since nationwide protests began in Iran, rioters have damaged or vandalised nearly 25 mosques and religious institutions. pic.twitter.com/6dO9c6v3Xe

— Pakistan OSINT 🇵🇰 🔎 🛰️ ⚔️ (@Pak_Osint) January 10, 2026

Testimonies from Iranian citizens shown on local media revealed how armed rioters violently attacked civilians. Detained rioters also gave testimonies to authorities about how they were instructed by handlers to shoot people in the head in order to pin blame on security forces, state broadcaster IRIB reported.

Western-based rights groups say dozens of protesters were shot dead by security forces. HRANA, the US-based media arm of the Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI) group, funded by the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED), said 116 protesters have been killed.

“We are working hard to solve the problems of the people who are protesting; we’re working with unions and economic authorities to solve their problems,” said Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday.

Iranian president:

We are working hard to solve the problems of the people who have protests, we’re working with unions and economical authorities to solve their problems.

But protests are different from riots.

Those who are killing people with weapons, those are burning the… pic.twitter.com/kxJVv5LeWQ

— Arya – آریا (@AryJeay) January 11, 2026

“But protests are different from riots. Those who are killing people with weapons, burning the bazaars, burning the police alive … these are not Iranians,” he went on to say, urging citizens to prevent these elements from infiltrating protests.

The head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, urged “decisive action” against all rioters.

“The Judiciary must take decisive action against those who create insecurity, kill people, and vandalize public properties in the riots that have engulfed a number of cities in Iran in recent days. It is necessary to draw a distinction between protests and riots,” he told IRIB.

At least 200 rioters and riot leaders have been arrested in recent days. The Iranian government has also imposed a nationwide internet blackout as unrest spreads, cutting communications across the country amid vows to deal decisively with the unrest.

According to local reports, videos were found on the phones of some protesters, including instructional messages from what appeared to be foreign intelligence. The messages guide protesters on how to act if caught by security forces, while urging young anti-government protesters to put pictures of Supreme Leader Ali Khameneias their wallpaper on their phones in order to disguise themselves as pro-Islamic Republic.

❗️🇮🇷| Phones from arrested rioters had a video of a woman giving instructions on how they should act when caught

The woman—clearly a foreign intelligent agent—tell the rioters in the video:

• If you’ve been arrested, don’t think it’s the end of the line yet. You still have… pic.twitter.com/Mx2U1ohN6D

— Arya – آریا (@AryJeay) January 3, 2026

The protests erupted in late December 2025 following a sharp collapse in Iran’s currency, driven by years of suffocating US and western sanctions compounded by soaring inflation, economic mismanagement, and corruption. Shortly after they began, the protests were co-opted by violent elements, leading to deaths and widespread destruction, alongside an intense global social media campaign calling for the return of exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi, who has openly urged people to support the movement.

Iran's exiled 'crown prince' Reza Pahlavi again begs for US intervention after calling on his supporters to take to the streets:
——
"Mr. President, this is an urgent and immediate call for your attention, support, and action. Last night you saw the millions of brave Iranians in… pic.twitter.com/VNUaB3bFvJ

— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) January 9, 2026

Manufacturing dissent: How Israel manipulates Iran’s Twittersphere
——
A new independent investigation by Social Forensics, funded by the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), has exposed an extensive Israeli government-linked network of fake Twitter accounts built to dominate… pic.twitter.com/ulZDexzUpL

— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) October 5, 2025

Since the protests began, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to attack the Islamic Republic.

The Mossad also publicly urged Iranians to take to the streets, saying, “We are with you.”

Netanyahu visited the US recently and discussed potential new strikes on the Islamic Republic with Trump. During a press conference, the US president said he would potentially support a new Israeli attack.

US, Israel Export the ‘Iranian Threat’ Campaign to Latin America

“Trump administration officials have had preliminary discussions about how to carry out an attack on Iran if needed to follow through on Trump’s threats, including what sites might be targeted,” anonymous US officials told the Wall Street Journal(WSJ) on 10 January.

“One option being discussed is a large-scale aerial strike on multiple Iranian military targets. There wasn’t a consensus on what course of action to take, and no military equipment or personnel had been moved in preparation for a strike,” the sources added.

Iran has vowed a harsh response to any attack, and has signaled that it may take preemptive action against Israel.

(The Cradle)

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According to the official Festitim program, the festival will feature a range of cultural activities and will, exceptionally, award the Pelusin del Monte Prize to the best performance that promotes the native values ​​of any nation or universal human and social values.

  Focused on encouraging professional theater groups, both national and international, participating in the festival to present puppet theater productions for audiences of all ages, Festitim 2026 seeks to reach out to local communities.

The program also specifies that the Hermanos Camejo and Pepe Carrill Awards will be presented to recognize the careers of national and international figures in the world of puppetry.

Furthermore, the Playwriting Competition “A Retablo for Traditional Heroes” will be announced, in which authors can write texts not only about Pelusin del Monte, Cuba’s National Puppet, but also about the most traditional puppets from other participating countries.

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During the inauguration of a school in Catia La Mar, La Guaira state, accompanied by Education Minister Hector Rodriguez and the state governor, Alejandro Teran, the president noted that more than six million children “are enrolled in school in the country.”

Rodriguezz commented on the progress of the school infrastructure recovery process through the Military Community Brigades for Education and Health, and pointed out that 11 more schools were added to the 1,725 ​​already recovered on Monday.

The Education Minister informed that Venezuela has reached just over 97 percent school enrollment and noted that the remaining percentage is associated with families facing greater difficulties due to extreme poverty, addiction, or illness.

She stated that in the case of the Communal Circuits and Communes, the challenge was to ensure that no child is left out of the school system.

She also highlighted that about two million children profit from the School Feeding Program, which has seen a 36 percent increase nationwide.

The acting president emphasized that, despite being a country under blockade, two million children receive meals in schools every day, and added that thse are figures that must be known because “the falsehood that attempts to justify intervention in Venezuela is completely unacceptable.”

She insisted that there is a government in power, an acting president, and “a president held hostage in the United States.”

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On his Facebook profile Morales stated that “throughout Cuba and among its patriots extends the will to not allow the sacred soil of this land to be occupied with impunity.”

The statement comes in the context of the commemoration in Cuba of January 12, 1869, when, during the Ten Years’ War, the Mambises decided to burn the first capital of the Republic of Cuba in Arms rather than surrender it to Spanish colonial power.

The high-ranking party leader praised the qualities of the Cuban people, peaceful and supportive, but completely resistant to blackmail, impositions, and threats.

“We have not renounced the Marti-inspired, Fidel-inspired, and Mambi-inspired essence that beats in our history,” he remarked.

The member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Cuba asserted that his country will never negotiate its principles and sovereignty, and then emphasized that “dialogue with impositions is impossible when dignity is our main banner.”

Morales also remembered another event in national history, known as the “Protest of Baragua” and that, as on that occasion, the response will be one of “definite non-compliance when it comes to endangering independence,” he declared.

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The organization’s director, Yasel Toledo, received the award from the rector of the university, Luis Antonio Barranco, with whom he discussed scholarships, awards, and activities, as well as plans for this year, future partnerships, and the celebration of the young creators’ association’s 40th anniversary.

Representatives from the university and prominent AHS artists, such as Marcos David Fernandez (nicknamed El Kikiri de Cisneros) and Anicia Castanedo, participated in the ceremony.

With this recognition, UCLV reaffirms its commitment to youth culture and artistic creation as pillars of university life, the academic institution stated on its social media.

Recently, the university hosted the opening concert of the Longina Sings to Corona Trova Encounter, the main event dedicated to this musical genre organized by the AHS.

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  In his traditional Monday press conference, the political leader commented on the events of January 3, including the bombings that left more than 100 Venezuelan civilians and military personnel and 32 Cubans dead, and the kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. Cabello stated that this caused outrage among Venezuelans and “immense pain.”

  He emphasized that many of the dead were civilians who had nothing to do with any conflict and “were caught in a terrible explosion that took their lives.”

Commenting on the reopening of embassies in Washington and Caracas, the PSUV Political Bureau member explained that “it will allow us to have consular representation to continue looking after the health of Nicolas and Cilia.”

  Days earlier, it was reported that a US delegation arrived in Caracas and a Venezuelan delegation traveled to the United States to explore avenues for reopening their respective embassies.

The PSUV leader reaffirmed the Party’s support for the decisions of acting president Delcy Rodriguez.

  “The United Socialist Party of Venezuela fully supports the administration and the decisions that Comrade Delcy has to make,” he emphasized.

  The PSUV secretary general asserted that his country will remain mobilized and firmly determined to “continue moving forward the Revolution with Bolivar as our guiding principle, where the reason for everything lies, because the struggles of that time are the reason for today’s fight against those who seek to seize our natural resources.”

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This article by Aníbal García Fernández originally appeared in the January 10, 2026 edition of Revista Contralínea.

At the end of November 2025, as mandated by US legislation, the Donald Trump administration published the National Security Strategy (NSS), an important document that outlines the national interest of the elite in power, because, despite its decline, the United States continues to establish its global hegemony, increasingly through greater methods of coercion.

Unfortunately, the media, columnists, and a few analysts focused on the most sensational aspect: the Trump Corollary, instead of analyzing the true scope of this expansionist policy. By concentrating on this—which, moreover, is part of the US president’s strategy, imprinting his style and signature on his administrations—the trap lies in the fact that the conclusions say nothing about the true and dangerous objectives. For example, they end up stating: “return of the Monroe Doctrine,” “US revives the Monroe Doctrine,” “The return of the Monroe Doctrine in the 21st century.”

In 2023, the bicentennial of this doctrine was commemorated. It serves as a guiding principle for the manifest destiny of the US elite in the Americas, leaving behind colonialism, territorial dispossession, military interventionism with invasions and military bases, the acquisition of vast territories with their extensive strategic and critical mineral resources, and market dominance for US companies that establish monopolies over the most dynamic sectors of Latin American economies. This, in turn, allows for the extraction of surplus value through the exploitation of a highly skilled but low-wage Latin American and Caribbean working class. In short, it represents US possession of the continent, whether by military or commercial means. This is Nicholas Spykman’s vision in the 21st century. What else is the struggle for raw materials, the division of the world among powers, militarism and militarization, and the establishment of monopolies dominated by financial capital, if not imperialism?

Energy, Minerals & Infrastructure: the Power Struggle

As discussed previously, Southern Command had already made it clear in 2025 that Latin America and the Caribbean “are on the front lines of a decisive and urgent contest to define the future of our world.” The 2025 National Security Strategy confirms this and allows for an analysis of Trump’s actions this year.

For example, the National Security Strategy mentions that it will deny non-hemispheric competitors—such as China—”the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to possess or control strategically vital assets,” as well as “reconsider their military presence,” control maritime routes and thwart illegal migration, establish “targeted [military] deployments to secure the border and defeat cartels, including, when necessary, the use of lethal force.” And finally, expand access to strategically important locations.

What does this imply? It means considering Greenland’s resources and Trump’s intentions to buy it (the imperial division of the world in the 21st century); it means remembering why there’s such interest in regaining control of the Panama Canal, which ultimately masks the fact that a Chinese company owns two ports at each end of the canal and that they tried to sell them to BlackRock’s enormous financial capital—which holds shares in pharmaceutical, energy, technology, and food companies; it means paying attention to “the key to empire,” that is, maritime control of the Caribbean, with its various tributaries between islands, but also the Galapagos Islands, which project imperial influence into the Pacific, with a view to containing China, as Dr. Tamara Lajtman mentioned to Contralínea.

At the heart of the dispute are minerals; this became clear at the G7 meeting [in Canada, in 2025] —which President Claudia Sheinbaum attended. Beyond the national security interests of the US elite, it is clear that the capital behind this strategy is primarily financial capital, as well as technological and fossil fuel capital.

The G7 meeting in 2025 established the following lines of action: “building energy security and accelerating the digital transition”, “strengthening supply chains for critical minerals”, “boosting the adoption of AI in the public and private sectors”.

The National Security Strategy shows that the Donald Trump administration – as in the first time – is strengthening spaces for private capital that will work in tandem with the Departments of State, War and Energy; the Small Business Administration; the International Development Finance Corporation – previously restructured by Trump in his first administration –; the Export-Import Bank, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation.

Which minerals are critical for the United States? To answer this, we need to look at the U.S. Geological Survey and understand its enormous mineral dependence on a dozen countries. These include China, Brazil, Russia, Mexico, Canada, South Africa, Germany, Australia, India, South Korea, Peru, Bolivia, and at least Chile.

Among the minerals on which it is 100% dependent are: arsenic, asbestos, cesium, fluorine, graphite, indium, manganese, mica, niobium, rubidium, scandium, strontium, tantalum, and yttrium. And a long list follows, reaching 50% dependence, where Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Canada, China, India, and South Africa continue to appear.

Thinking about that mineral dependence implies two aspects: control of the extraction-production-transformation chain and, therefore, of the trade routes; several of them, centered in the geopolitically relevant area that is the Indo-Pacific, in which the United States has had a security strategy since the first Trump administration, with clear security precedents with Australia.

On the other hand, it involves considering the industries that require these types of minerals. This is where the military-industrial complex and manufacturing come into play, as well as high technology, particularly focused on semiconductors, chips, and new renewable energy technologies. The latter has been an economic sector where the dispute with China has been intense since 2017, when the trade war between the two powers began. However, as the Financial Times suggests, trade relations for certain types of chips between the two countries are likely to be re-established, despite ongoing geopolitical conflicts with China over semiconductors, the automotive and military sectors, and, of course, the Taiwan factor.

Finally, there is energy and infrastructure. The National Security Strategy emphasizes the need to build a “scalable and resilient energy infrastructure, invest in access to critical minerals, and strengthen existing and future cyber communications networks that take full advantage of the U.S. encryption and security potential.”

In his first administration, Trump established the Energy Resource Governance Initiative (ERG) in 2019 and the Clean Grid Initiative in 2020 to exclude Chinese companies from 5G infrastructure. In 2025, the National Energy Strategy (NES) is revisiting this approach to strengthen the private sector’s presence in Latin America. This establishes a continuity between the last four US administrations, which, as Dr. Rocío Vargas suggests, have been characterized by a geostrategic repositioning of hegemony through energy, structuring a series of long-term strategies.

As we realized months ago, when reviewing Trump’s first hundred days, some of those strategies are: Connecting the Americas 2022, established since 2012; Energy Protection Strategy with Europe; EU-Caribbean Strategy 2020; Atlantic Cooperation 2024; and the AUKUS strategy, which protects the main maritime routes through which several strategic goods circulate, including oil and gas.

Therefore, it is extremely important to consider Trump’s actions in the Caribbean against Venezuela, which possesses the world’s largest oil and gas reserves; but also the energy importance of Brazil and, to a lesser extent, Colombia and Mexico. And of course, there is Argentina’s massive unconventional gas field, Vaca Muerta. This is why Latin America is at the center of international disputes, because no other region possesses these strategic resources.

But also because we are already facing an energy crisis : the world’s remaining oil and gas reserves are dwindling. The era of large oil wells and low prices per barrel is over, and there are now signs that the United States, which became the world’s leading oil and gas producer, is reaching peak oil. Furthermore, it is one of the world’s largest oil consumers and requires a secure supply of crude oil and gas to fuel its economy and industry.

Two more facts: The United States has the world’s leading energy infrastructure and gas pipeline network. Second, it’s crucial to note that Mexico is its main trading partner and primary market: we account for 30 percent of gas exports, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. This gas covered 74 percent of Mexico’s national demand in 2024. This gas is primarily used as a primary energy source to supply the national electricity grid.

Therefore, Mexico is facing a race against time to strengthen not only energy sovereignty, but also energy security, which implies at least considering affordability, economic accessibility, resilience, and physical availability, including both infrastructure and supply. In this context, it is crucial to recognize the importance of strengthening Pemex and CFE, companies that were dismantled during the neoliberal period and that still face adverse provisions under the USMCA, which will necessarily have to be reviewed in the treaty’s update, in light of the reforms to Articles 25, 27, and 28 of the Constitution.

And regarding infrastructure, it takes us back to 2019 and the BUILD Act, which was promoted by Trump to expel companies from other continents from the region, primarily Chinese, but also other Asian companies. The BUILD Act aimed to “modernize U.S. development finance capabilities,” and the institution chosen for this purpose was none other than the International Development Finance Corporation (OPIC). Therefore, we will see various OPIC projects in the areas of infrastructure, energy, and mining.

In 2021, the Joe Biden administration launched the “ Build Back Better World ” (B3W) initiative. It aimed to strengthen the United States’ multilateral presence with G-7 organizations, NATO, and others such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), to curb the advance of China and Russia in infrastructure projects, trade, and military power.

Now, Trump, in his National Security Strategy, mentions that agreements with countries that “depend on us” —including Mexico, and several Caribbean and Latin American nations— must include sole supplier contracts for our companies and that we must “do everything possible to expel foreign companies that build infrastructure in the region.” Clearly, this targets companies from China, Russia, and even, to a lesser extent, some European companies.

Such is the scale of the USMCA negotiations that Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum is facing. Are they negotiating the possibility of awarding “sole supplier” contracts to US companies under the USMCA? That will become clear in 2026. We will also find out if the US government manages to achieve this objective in the countries with which it has trade agreements, including Mexico, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic. And there is the possibility of a trade agreement with Argentina and perhaps Ecuador.

Military sales, another area of ​​US interest that has demonstrated its power, will be analyzed on another occasion. This is exemplified by Argentina, which purchased obsolete aircraft for millions of dollars. However, countries like Colombia and Mexico have reduced their purchases from US companies.

In the case of our country, as was made clear by the now War Department in the midst of the pandemic in 2020: “ the most serious impacts for the Department of Defense of Covid-19 related industrial shutdowns at the national level are in the aviation supply chain, shipbuilding and small space launch […] in a Pentagon press conference, Ellen M Lord said that internationally, several hotspots of industrial base closures are affecting the Department of Defense, particularly in Mexico.”

It must be made clear the strategic place that Mexico has in the US military-industrial complex, as well as in financial capital, another element of power highlighted by the new ESN 2025.

From Monroe To Trump

Two years ago at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), an international seminar led to the publication of a book that arrives at a crucial moment: From Monroe to Trump: From Early US Expansionism to Late Imperialism, coordinated by Dr. José Guadalupe Gandarilla. The text comprises nine chapters that demonstrate precisely the opposite of what several Latin American newspapers have headlined: the Monroe Doctrine never disappeared and is more alive than ever, despite Democratic and Republican administrations. Of course, the logical question is: if it never disappeared, has it always been the same, or have there been changes?

As Silvina Romano, Tamara Lajtman, and Marcelo Maisonnave point out , there is a key change: “it diminishes the importance assigned to the Middle East and stops placing China as the main threat. The bad news is that it shifts its focus to the Western Hemisphere [Latin America and the Caribbean], explicitly returning to the premises of the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary.”

Such is the scale of this intensified imperialism, and, dialectically, such is the magnitude of its hegemonic decline, in which, through military presence, economic sanctions, and soft power wielded through alliances with right-wing groups and political puppets, it attempts to control what, in theory, was meant to be the new American century. This is summarized in the phrase found in the National Security Strategy 2025 itself: “ The days when the United States propped up the world order like Atlas are over .

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  Analysis

  Under the National Security Strategy, Trump Pushes for Latin America’s Minerals, Energy & Infrastructure

  January 12, 2026January 12, 2026

  Mexico is facing a race against time to strengthen not only energy sovereignty, but also energy security in a period of intensified US imperialism.

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  Mañanera

  People’s Mañanera January 12

  January 12, 2026

  President Sheinbaum’s daily press conference, with comments on Mexico-US dialogue and electoral reform.

• 

  News Briefs

  Mineros leader Gómez Urrutia says There are Those Who Want to Eliminate Unions

  January 12, 2026January 12, 2026

  The trade unionist, who lived in forced exile in Canada for 12 years, discussed the necessity of international working class solidarity in defense of unions.

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“Mexico is in the best condition, in the best position to do so, but obviously, it has to be accepted by both sides. But on this occasion, we didn’t discuss this issue,” she said in response to a question about whether she had spoken about the island with her US counterpart, Donald Trump.

The president held a call with the Republican on Monday, after the magnate declared in recent days that he would begin ground attacks against the cartels, in a context marked by Washington’s recent aggression against Venezuela and the threat to other countries, including Cuba.

Sheinbaum highlighted on December 22 the historical ties between her nation and Cuba. “The Mexico-Cuba relationship is historic. Mexico was the only country that opposed the blockade (imposed by the United States) from the outset.

Therefore, regardless of the political party in power, there has always been a Mexico-Cuba relationship,” she emphasized.

In this way, the head of the Executive Branch responded to a question about oil shipments to Cuba, a nation besieged for more than 60 years by an economic, commercial, and financial embargo imposed by Washington, which experts consider the main obstacle to the island’s development.

Mentioning energy cooperation and the visits of Cuban leaders to Mexico and vice versa over decades, regardless of the political affiliation of the leaders in the United States, Sheinbaum stressed that the ties with the Caribbean nation are not new.

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Every day, President Claudia Sheinbaum gives a morning presidential press conference and Mexico Solidarity Media posts English language summaries, translated by Mexico Solidarity’s Pedro Gellert Frank. Previous press conference summaries are available here.

Mexico–United States: Dialogue, results, and respect

President Claudia Sheinbaum held a 15-minute call with Donald Trump. The conversation was cordial and marked by mutual recognition. They reviewed the results of bilateral security cooperation:

• 50% less fentanyl crossing into the US thanks to seizures in Mexico.
• 43% fewer fentanyl deaths in the United States.
• In Mexico, 40% fewer homicides, more arrests, and greater quantities of drugs being seized.

Trump acknowledged the progress and said more can be done, offering the participation of U.S. troops in security tasks in Mexico. Sheinbaum responded that any US intervention in Mexico is completely ruled out and that work is proceeding and yielding results.

Sovereignty and non-intervention: Mexico’s firm stance

Sheinbaum made it clear that Mexico rejects any US intervention in Venezuela and that its foreign policy is governed by the principles of national self-determination and non-intervention. The issue was addressed with political clarity and without confrontation.

Electoral Reform: Reviewing timelines, not content

The President will meet with the coordinators of Morena’s parliamentary caucuses. The goal is to see when the electoral reform bill will be presented, the approval process, and what legislative calendar will be followed, not the substance of the proposal.

Permanent dialogue with the US government

Sheinbaum spoke with the US Ambassador to Mexico before and after the call with Trump, in a cordial tone and following up on the issues discussed, thus confirming that the bilateral relationship is based on open channels of communication and institutional efforts.

Oil to Cuba: Not discussed in the call

It was clarified that the issue of oil sent to Cuba was not addressed during the conversation, but it could be touched on in future calls. President Sheinbaum made it clear that if Mexico can serve as a bridge for dialogue between Cuba and the US, she would be willing to do so within the framework of the country’s foreign policy.

Principles and firmness in the relationship with the United States

Sheinbaum reaffirmed that the relationship with the US is governed by four pillars: respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, shared and differentiated responsibility, mutual respect and trust, and cooperation without subordination.

Dialogue will always be prioritized, but if necessary, Mexico would resort to social mobilization to defend its interests. She recalled the deep economic integration between the two countries and expressed confidence that negotiations on the Trade Agreement will be resolved positively, based on the logic of respect and mutual benefit.

Mexicans sustain the US economy

In her meeting with Mexican ambassadors and consuls, the President highlighted the key role of the Mexican community in the US economy, emphasized that diplomatic and consular work is being steadily strengthened. She reiterated that the Mexican government will continue defending its citizens living and working inside the United States.

• 

  Mañanera

  People’s Mañanera January 12

  January 12, 2026

  President Sheinbaum’s daily press conference, with comments on Mexico-US dialogue and electoral reform.

• 

  News Briefs

  Mineros leader Gómez Urrutia says There are Those Who Want to Eliminate Unions

  January 12, 2026January 12, 2026

  The trade unionist, who lived in forced exile in Canada for 12 years, discussed the necessity of international working class solidarity in defense of unions.

• 

  News Briefs

  Supreme Court’s Aguilar: Reversing Judicial Reform is “just wishful thinking”

  January 12, 2026

  Mexico’s Chief Justice of the Supreme Court indicated that the people of Mexico are unlikely to want to return to a “justice system behind closed doors.”

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Mérida, January 12, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan government has launched a “diplomatic exploratory process” with the United States, marking the most significant formal engagement since bilateral ties were severed in 2019.

The initiative follows the arrival of a US State Department delegation in Caracas on January 9, 2026 to conduct technical and logistical assessments aimed at a potential reopening of the US embassy in Caracas.

According to CNN, the US delegation included personnel from the Colombia-based Venezuela Affairs Unit and acting US ambassador to Colombia John McNamara.

The diplomatic overtures came days after US forces launched a military attack against Venezuela that killed over 100 people and kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.

A Friday communiqué issued by Foreign Minister Yván Gil reiterated Caracas’ condemnation of the “criminal and illegitimate attack” against the Caribbean nation but justified the diplomatic rapprochement as a mechanism to “address the consequences of the aggression and the kidnapping” of Maduro and Flores.

“Venezuela will face this aggression through diplomatic means, convinced that Bolivarian Peace Diplomacy is the path to defend sovereignty, reestablish international law, and preserve peace,” the statement read. Caracas added that a Venezuelan delegation would likewise travel to the US to advance the “reestablishment” of Venezuela’s diplomatic mission.

Acting President Delcy Rodríguez underscored that the government will defend the nation’s “sacred and inalienable sovereignty” through direct diplomacy. Rodríguez has urged the Trump administration to cease the attacks against the South American country and establish an “agenda of cooperation.”

“We will face each other in diplomacy, and we will use our Bolivarian diplomacy of peace to defend Venezuela’s peace, stability, future, and independence,” she declared during a televised broadcast on Friday.

The Nicolás Maduro government severed diplomatic ties with the first Trump administration in January 2019 after the latter “recognized” the self-proclaimed “interim government” headed by Juan Guaidó as the country’s legitimate authority.

The Rodríguez administration’s diplomatic statements have also included a reaffirmation of the “historic ties” with Cuba. On Sunday, Caracas issued a statement underscoring the long-term ties with Havana rooted in “solidarity and cooperation.”

“Venezuela reaffirms its historical position within the framework of relations with Cuba, in accordance with the United Nations Charter and International Law, regarding the free exercise of self-determination and national sovereignty,” read the official communiqué.

The Venezuelan government’s position came in the wake of new Trump threats against Cuba. In a January 11 social media message, the US president vowed that “there will be no more oil or money going to Cuba,” in reference to regular Venezuelan oil shipments to its Caribbean ally. He urged Cuban authorities to “make a deal before it’s too late.”

In response, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel reaffirmed the island’s “independence and sovereignty” and stated that any talks with Washington would need to be based on “sovereign equality” and “mutual respect.”

Caracas and Havana have enjoyed strong bilateral ties since the beginning of the century, with cooperation in multiple areas including education, healthcare and security. Both nations have been heavily targeted by US economic coercive measures.

Since the January 3 strikes and Maduro kidnapping, Trump and other administration officials have claimed that the US government will take over Venezuelan oil sales for an “indefinite” period. Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA has confirmed “negotiations” with US authorities.

On Friday, the White House issued a “fact sheet” announcing that funds from Venezuelan oil sales deposited in US government accounts will be shielded from creditors looking to collect on debts owed by the Venezuelan state. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced an impending flexibilization of sanctions to facilitate oil transactions.

Venezuelan authorities report prisoner releases

On Monday, Venezuela’s Ministry for Penitentiary Affairs informed that 116 people detained in the unrest following the July 2024 presidential elections had been released. A further 187 detainees had been released in December 2025.

“These measures have benefited individuals arrested for acts related to disrupting the constitutional order and threatening the stability of the nation,” the ministry’s statement affirmed. “The process of reviewing cases will continue in strict adherence to the existing legal order.”

National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez first announced the release process on January 8, calling it a “unilateral gesture” aimed at preserving peace and national unity. Rodríguez acknowledged the mediation roles played by Brazilian President Lula da Silva, former Spanish President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and the Qatari government.

Venezuelan authorities have yet to disclose a list of the people freed. It is not known whether their charges have been dropped or if they will still face trial.

Former presidential candidate Enrique Márquez was among those released in recent days. Márquez had been detained in January 2025. It is not known whether he was formally charged, while relatives denounced that they had been unable to visit him for several months.

Likewise liberated was opposition activist and NGO operator Rocío San Miguel. Venezuelan authorities arrested her in February 2024, accusing her of involvement in an alleged plot to storm military units and kill government officials. San Miguel has reportedly flown to Spain alongside four released Spanish nationals.

Edited and with additional reporting by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

The post Venezuela Moves to Reestablish US Diplomatic Ties, Reaffirms ‘Historic’ Cuba Relationship appeared first on Venezuelanalysis.

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In its statement, the organization emphasized its “strong” rejection of the declarations that seek to undermine the self-determination of Cuba by the US government, whose actions it described as “fascist.”

The Movement also expressed its support for the call made by the Cuban Chapter of the Network of Intellectuals and Artists in Defense of Humanity regarding the threats, while reaffirming its “steadfastness in defending Cuba’s sovereignty.”

Furthermore, the statement called upon social, labor, artistic, and student organizations, as well as the entire Colombian society, to unite in defense of Cuba, a nation to which the solidarity platform reiterated its gratitude “for its tireless struggle to achieve peace” in Colombia.

“In the centennial year of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro, who bequeathed to us his absolute conviction and faith in victory, we remember the victory at Giron (Bay of Pigs), which is our inspiration not to surrender to the barbarity that surrounds us,” the statement concluded.

Earlier, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel condemned the statements made by the United States government against Cuba as immoral and reaffirmed Cuba’s readiness to defend its country.

Referring to the remarks made by U.S. President Donald Trump, the Cuban leader emphasized on social media that “those who turn everything into a business, even human lives, have no moral authority to point the finger at Cuba in any way, absolutely in any way.”

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“The slightest space cannot be granted to imperialism and fascism,” the publication warns, asserting that these are not the ravings of “a madman.”

“There is enough evidence gathered in recent weeks proving that, to conceal his country’s domestic crisis, the Epstein scandal, the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) killings, the irreversible advent of a multipolar world, and the loss of credibility of the United States on the international stage, the American emperor is willing to act like Hitler.”

Cuba has the right to make its own sovereign decisions, and we have already seen that the current US administration, the Trump-Rubio duo, cares little for international law, it points out.

The text adds that “for many years we have learned that Imperialism acts like a predatory dog: at the slightest sign of weakness, it does not hesitate to attack with brutal rage.”

“We also know that, from its arrogant perspective, the peoples of the Third World, the poor of the planet, are expendable,” it notes.

Faced with the current genocidal and aggressive course of the Trump administration, the Cuban chapter of the REDH calls on intellectuals, artists, and social movements to join forces and close ranks in defense of our sovereignty.

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A statement signed by the writer highlights, in particular, the support for the Bolivarian nation from the World Poetry Movement, following the US attack that kidnapped President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and caused serious human and material losses.

The statement values ​​the support shown by the international poetry community, “which has directly witnessed the peaceful, hospitable, and democratic nature of the Venezuelan people.”

The Venezuelan author reaffirmed that Venezuela “is a participatory and direct democracy, governed by a Constitution approved by a large popular majority in 1999, with a solid electoral record and mechanisms for community participation reactivated in recent years.”

He maintained that the stigmatization and aggression against Venezuela are driven by economic interests, especially those linked to its vast natural resources, and are unrelated to ideological reasons.

He also recalled the historical pattern of interference that has affected Venezuelan presidents of various political persuasions, as well as the defense of national sovereignty championed in recent decades.

The Venezuelan writer asserted that, despite the threats and aggressions to which this nation is subjected, “the constitutional continuity of the Venezuelan state exists, with the assumption of the interim presidency.”

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In a statement, the institution point out that it is reinforcing its prevention efforts and urged citizens to stay informed through official channels.

According to the National Meteorological Service, cold front number 27 will extend with stationary characteristics over the Yucatan Peninsula and the southeast, where it will cause heavy to intense rainfall, as well as isolated torrential downpours in Veracruz (Los Tuxtlas and Olmeca).

The polar air mass associated with the front will maintain cold to very cold conditions over the central, eastern, and southeastern parts of the country, as well as a strong to intense “Norte” wind event along the Gulf of Mexico coast and the Isthmus and Gulf of Tehuantepec.

Simultaneously, experts added, the second winter storm of the season (affecting the country since the weekend) will bring very cold to freezing conditions, strong winds, rain, and showers to northern Mexico.

Snow or sleet is possible in the states of Chihuahua, Durango, Sinaloa (mountainous areas), Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Zacatecas, and freezing rain is expected in Chihuahua, Durango, Zacatecas, and Nuevo Leon too.

Authorities warned that heavy to torrential rainfall could cause rivers and streams to rise, leading to flooding, landslides, and waterlogging in low-lying areas, while wind gusts could topple trees and billboards.

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Currently, this Caribbean island shows a degree of aging that surpasses many European countries, such as Italy (24.1%), Bulgaria (23.8%), Finland (23.4%), Greece (23.3%), and Croatia (23.0%), according to the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI).

By province, Villa Clara in the central region has a rate of 29.1 percent, and Havana 28.1 percent, while Guantanamo, in the east, has the lowest rate of aging at 22.5 percent.

The municipality of Plaza de la Revolucion in Havana has the oldest population at 36.8 percent, while Yateras, in Guantanamo province, has the youngest at 17.1 percent.

The National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI), in its recent report “Population Aging, Cuba and its Territories 2024,” highlighted that for this edition, the data is based on the calculation of the effective population.

That is, “the entire population born in the country during a calendar year, plus those with permanent residence who have accumulated 180 days or more of stay in the country in the last 365 days and have not died.”

Another significant data point is the ratio of the population aged 60 and over to the population under 15 at the end of 2024, which shows an increase of 247 equal to last year, showing 1,625 older adults for every 1,000 children and young people aged 0 to 14.

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“Following instructions from President Claudia Sheinbaum (@Claudiashein), Foreign Minister Juan Ramon de la Fuente spoke with Secretary of State (@StateDept) Marco Rubio today,” the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs informed on its X profile last night.

This, the Secretariat added, aimed “to follow up on the Border Security and Law Enforcement Cooperation Program, under the principles of unrestricted respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, shared responsibility, mutual trust, and collaboration without subordination.”

Sheinbaum affirmed that Mexico would strengthen communication with the United States and De la Fuente would contact Rubio, following the statements made by US President Donald Trump that he would attack drug cartels on the ground.

Responding to a question about the Republican’s comments, the head of the Executive also mentioned the possibility of speaking with Trump “to strengthen coordination within the framework we have already repeatedly explained.”

The US magnate’s statements came almost a week after Washington’s aggression against Venezuela in an operation during which President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were kidnapped and taken to US soil to face trial on alleged narcoterrorism charges.

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Upon arrival at Ahmedabad airport, Merz was warmly received by Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat, External Ministry Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal confirmed on social media.

Jaiswal also noted that the German leader and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet in the coming hours.

According to a previous statement from the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the two officials will review the progress made in several aspects of the Strategic Partnership between India and Germany, which celebrated its 25th anniversary last year.

Talks will also focus on enhancing cooperation in trade and investment, technology, education, vocational training, and mobility.

Additionally, they will explore ways to enhance collaboration in defense and security, science, innovation and research, green and sustainable development, and people-to-people relations.

Modi and Merz will also meet with business and industry leaders and exchange views on issues of regional and global importance.

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