Colombian, U.S. presidents hold "surprisingly friendly" meeting

Colombia's President Gustavo Petro, a former Marxist, met with the Republican U.S. President Donald J. Trump in the White House on 3 February, in a cordial meeting that seemed to dissipate months of mutual animosity. CNN listed a history of spats and incidents in the first year of the second Trump presidency, including Trump calling Petro sick, a thug and a "bad guy," having his U.S. visa revoked and threatening to move against Colombia as the United States did with Venezuela in January. Colombia was for decades a key strategic ally of the United States, until Petro and Trump coincided as leaders. Trump has repeatedly accused Colombia - and Mexico - of making paltry efforts to fight drug trafficking into the United States. Drugs were one issue discussed at the private meeting, attended by senior officials of both countries, with Petro observing that key drug kingpins were not in Colombia but abroad, in places like Madrid or Dubai where they should be sought. Petro presented some highlights of what his country had done in this field between 2022 and 2026, Colombia's Blu Radio reported on 4 February. This included confiscating over 3,100 tonnes of cocaine in various forms to deprive the cartels of U.S. $92 billion's worth of revenues, destroying over 18,500 drug laboratories and numerous police and military operations against criminal targets. The cost to law enforcement included 360 Colombian agents being injured or killed in those years. Trump now said Petro was terrific.

Trump administration to cut off Cuba's oil supplies

The administration of U.S. President Donald J. Trump threatened tariffs on 29 January on imports of any country selling oil to Cuba, in a move likely designed to hasten the demise of the island's communist regime. Trump signed an executive order to that effect, though he told reporters in Washington D.C. he was not trying to "choke off" Cuba and its rundown economy, AP reported. Cuba, an ally of all the United States' villain states including Islamic Iran and Russia, was no longer receiving oil aid from Venezuela following U.S. intervention there in early January, while another supplier, Mexico run by a socialist president, may also have to curb shipments sent to Cuba as a lifeline. Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum said on 27 January that her country sent oil for humanitarian reasons, though stopping this was a decision for the state oil firm Pemex, CNN reported. On 29 January, the United States declared Cuba to be "an unusual and extraordinary threat" to its national security.

Venezuelan leader says she's not under Washington's thumb..

Venezuela's interim president Delcy Rodríguez appeared in late January to play a double game of talking tough at an overbearing United States while collaborating in private, amid U.S. pressures on her government to serve U.S. commercial and diplomatic interests. The Trump administration briefly bombed the country before capturing its president, Nicolás Maduro, in early January, and was now insisting Rodríguez was being collaborative as interim leader. Yet she has declared several times that it was her government, not the United States, that was running Venezuela. On 25 January, she told a gathering in Caracas that only domestic politics "with a capital P" could resolve differences between Venezuelans, so "that's enough orders from Washington." Days before, she called for a national dialogue but "without foreign orders," according to the broadcaster NTN24. Observers separately told CNN on 27 January that such talk was aimed at a domestic audience, as Rodríguez was "walking a tight rope" between Washington and regime hardliners. The immediate reaction from U.S. President Donald J. Trump was that he hadn't heard her comments. The Reuters news agency reported that day on the skepticism of U.S. intelligence over the Rodríguez presidency's readiness to align itself with U.S. interests, notably in opposing powers like China, Islamic Iran and Russia.

Venezuelan officials, critics differ over release of opponents..

Venezuela's interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, said in Caracas on 26 January that 808 detainees - presumably including regime opponents - had been freed since December 2025 as a conciliatory gesture toward society, amid skepticism over how many and which detainees were really being released. The regime said it would free a considerable number on 8 January, though the process has been laborious and conditional. The country's interim presidency has insisted opponents were not being freed under pressure from the United States but on the orders of the last president, Nicolás Maduro, given in December before his capture in January by U.S. forces. The rights group Foro Penal believed the regime had so far freed just 266 politicial detainees since January 8, according to CNN. Cabello insisted UN officials could come and check, as "we have nothing to hide." One hundred or 104 dissidents were reportedly freed on 25 January.

Venezuelan regime says it is freeing opponents

Venezuela's interim presidency announced on 8 January that it would release an "important number" of political detainees in a gesture of appeasement it insisted was unrelated to any U.S. pressure. The announcement was made by the Speaker of parliament Jorge Rodríguez (the interim president's brother), who also thanked three intermediaries - Brazil's president, a former Spanish prime minister and the state of Qatar - presumably for their role in the release of foreign detainees. Numbers however were scarce nor was there any loosening of the regime's police-state tactics on the streets. The rights group Foro Penal had counted 806 such prisoners as of 5 January, CNN reported on 8 January, while the few released early on appeared to be foreigners and some politicians. U.S. President Donald J. Trump wrote online on 9 January that the regime was freeing "large numbers of political prisoners," with a collaborative attitude that had avoided further U.S. strikes on the country. 

Mexican authorities see steady drop in daily murders, nationwide

Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo declared in Mexico City on 8 January that criminal killings or murders (homicidios dolosos) dropped 40% in daily average terms between September 2024 and December 2025. Sheinbaum told her morning press conference that this was due to better security policies and coordination between national and local authorities through the SNSP or National System of Public Security, Once Noticias reported. "This means 34 homicides less a day, and that is the lowest figure since 2016," she said, adding, "it is the result of a security strategy that is giving results and very tight coordination in all areas of security, justice and with state governors." The head of the SNSP, Marcela Figueroa Franco, also spoke, saying Mexico saw an average of 86.9 homicides a day in September 2024 drop to 52.4 in December 2025. That month, she said, the country had a murder rate of 17.5/100,000 residents, compared to "a peak" of 29.1/100,000 in 2018. The announcements broadly coincided with threats by the U.S. President Donald J. Trump to start striking the drug cartels that "are running Mexico."

Venezuelan hardliners seek tighter control at home amid U.S. threats..

The Miami Herald reported on 5 January on the Venezuelan interior minister's public defiance toward the United States following its recent capture of the country's former leader, Nicolás Maduro. Diosdado Cabello Rondón, himself a wanted figure in the United States for suspected involvement in large-scale drug trafficking, was cited as urging regime elements to patrol the streets and vowing revenge on those who aided the U.S. raid on 3 January. These faced possible arrest, CNN reported. "I'm in the street... let's go onto the streets, whatever we can (do)," Miami's El Nuevo Herald cited Cabello as saying in unspecified voice messages. He said of U.S. forces, "these rats attacked and will regret it the rest of their lives." It wasn't clear in that case if he would obstruct the acting president's bid to work with the Trump administration, which had threatened further punitive raids. Media reported on 6 January that the administration expected the interim presidency of Delcy Rodriguez to expel agents of Cuba and the Islamic Republic of Iran, stop selling oil to powers hostile to the United States and boost efforts to fight drug trafficking. Her government's relationship with U.S. officials picked to help run the country for at least a month, remained unclear.

Venezuelan vice-president becomes acting president.. amid uncertainties

Venezuela's Supreme Court of Justice appointed the country's vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, as acting president on 3 January even as the former president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife Cilia Flores were to face drug trafficking and organized crime charges in a New York court. The two were nabbed by U.S. forces in a ligthning, pre-dawn operation in Caracas that day. U.S. President Donald J. Trump later announced his administration would run Venezuela through an unspecified transition period, apparently dismissing any idea of handing the country over to opposition politicians. While Delcy Rodríguez was reportedly talking to U.S. officials in private, in public she immediately formed a national Defence Council and demanded her predecessor's immediate release as, she insisted, he remained the "legitimate president." Trump told a press conference in Florida that day that it would be "very tough" for Venezuela's leading opponent and Nobel Peace laureate María Corina Machado to lead the country's transition back to democracy, as she lacked the "support... or respect" needed to do so. Machado did receive an early expression of support for her role in the form of a phone call from the French president. Separately in Colombia, a former conservative vice-president, Francisco Santos, suggested, speaking to the private Colombian broadcaster NTN24, that Rodriguez appeared to be a more docile option for the United States at present, adding "I am absolutely certain Delcy handed Maduro" over to the Americans. "It's going to be harder now for María Corina," he added, commenting on the United States' own objectives and business interests in Venezuela.

Trump reports Nicolás Maduro's arrest..

U.S. President Donald J. Trump wrote online on 3 January that U.S. forces working with U.S. Law Enforcement had captured Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and flown them out of the country, following air strikes carried out before dawn that day on sites in Venezuela. The announcement became an immediate headline on news websites.

United States strikes targets in Venezuela

Venezuela's socialist government accused the United States of bombing Venezuelan territory early on 3 January in bid to topple the regime and nab the country's minerals and oil. The charges followed explosions heard and seen in and around the capital Caracas and other states, some of them evidently relating to military installations. The Reuters news agency and U.S. media cited unnamed U.S. officials as confirming that President Donald J. Trump had ordered the strikes. Colombia's President Gustavo Petro listed on X (Twitter) the sites that may have been struck, also reposting the Venezuelan government's statement denouncing the attack as a colonial-style power grab and bid to force regime change. The government declared a state of emergency even as the U.S. military declared Venezuela's airspace a no-flight zone, Miami's El Nuevo Herald reported. The strikes were part of the Trump administration's policy of squeezing the Venezuelan regime though without officially declaring a goal of regime change. 

Trump administration to blockade Venezuelan oil

U.S. President Donald J. Trump ordered a "total blockade" of Venezuelan oil exports using "sanctioned oil tankers" on 16 December, further tightening the screws on the already sanctioned regime of the socialist President Nicolás Maduro. Trump accused "the illegitimate Maduro regime" of stealing "oil, land and other assets" belonging to the United States to finance a range of criminal activities, and declared the regime "a foreign terrorist organization." The United States had in recent months undertaken selective strikes on boats identified as drug-trafficking vessels, but the latest decision, which Venezuela denounced as a "grotesque threat," was being seen as intended to topple Maduro. Practically no Western state recognized his controversial reelection in 2024, and the European Union recently prolonged its own sanctions on the regime over its rights violations and suspected hijacking of the 2024 presidential elections.

Trump pardons jailed former Honduran leader

U.S. President Donald J. Trump issued a "full and complete pardon" on 1 December for the jailed former Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving time in the United States following a drug trafficking conviction. Hernández, a "tough on crime" conservative who was president from 2014 to 2022, was extradited that year by the Democratic Biden administration and convicted in 2024 of conniving in large-scale drug trafficking toward the United States. Trump wrote online on 28 November that he had been treated "very harshly and unfairly." Observers including media outlets and some U.S. lawmakers immediately derided the pardon as contradicting Trump's current war on drugs and specifically, pressures being exerted on Venezuela's socialist president, Nicolás Maduro, precisely for aiding drug trafficking into the United States. Colombia's President Gustavo Petro wrote on X (Twitter) that it was "demoralizing" to all those risking their lives to fight trafficking to see a "drug trafficker pardoned." Another critic was the Liberal Party presidential candidate in Honduras, Salvador Nasralla, who was awaiting a recount of votes cast in the general election of 30 November. He said Hernández could expect to be tried in Honduras should he return. Hernández and his wife thanked Trump for the pardon but were not planning an immediate return home due to security concerns, according to the Agence France-Presse.