Page 2 - Donald Trump Administration

US used secret weapon to disable Venezuelan equipment in Maduro raid: Trump

President Donald Trump said the US used a secret weapon he called "The Discombobulator" to disable Venezuelan equipment when the US captured Nicolas Maduro. Trump also renewed his threat to conduct military strikes on land against drug cartels, including in Mexico. Trump made the comments in an interview Friday with the New York Post. The Republican president was commenting on reports that the US had a pulsed energy weapon and said, "The Discombobulator. I'm not allowed to talk about it." He said the weapon made Venezuelan equipment "not work." "They never got their rockets off. They had Russian and Chinese rockets, and they never got one off," Trump said in the interview. "We came in, they pressed buttons and nothing worked. They were all set for us." Trump had previously said when describing the raid on Maduro's compound that the US had turned off "almost all of the lights in Caracas," but he didn't detail how they accomplished that. The president also indicated the US will con

Trump admin's defence strategy softens tone on China, focuses on deterrence

The department's long-awaited National Defence Strategy, released Friday evening, directs the Defence Department to 'maintain a favourable balance of military power in the Indo-Pacific'

Trump warns China could 'eat up' Canada for opposing Greenland Golden Dome

Trump's outburst comes amid escalating tensions between the US and its northern neighbour, following recent remarks by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at the WEF

Trump admin pushes out official whose unit banned Chinese vehicles

The office, which falls under the department's Bureau of Industry and Security, also has not issued expected restrictions to address concerns about medium and heavy-duty truck imports

Trump should apologise for remarks on Nato troops in Afghanistan: Starmer

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has signalled that US President Donald Trump should apologise for his false assertion that troops from non-US NATO countries avoided the front line during the Afghanistan war, describing Trump's remarks as "insulting" and "appalling." Trump said that he wasn't sure NATO would be there to support the United States if and when requested, provoking outrage and distress across the United Kingdom on Friday, regardless of individuals' political persuasion. "We've never needed them, we have never really asked anything of them," Trump said of non-US troops in an interview with Fox News in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday. "You know, they'll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, or this or that, and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines." In October 2001, nearly a month after the September 11 attacks, the US led an international coalition in Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaida, which had used the country as its base, and the ...

TikTok's new CEO Presser brings Hollywood connections, ByteDance loyalty

While Presser is unknown in many tech circles, he's been near the pinnacle of the company leading operations for several years, and was widely seen as the most influential US-based leader at TikTok

Thousands rally in subzero Minnesota temperatures against ICE crackdown

Police arrested about 100 clergy demonstrating against immigration enforcement at Minnesota's largest airport Friday, and thousands gathered in downtown Minneapolis despite Arctic temperatures to protest the Trump administration's crackdown. The protests are part of a broader movement against President Donald Trump's increased immigration enforcement across the state, with labour unions, progressive organizations and clergy urging Minnesotans to stay away from work, school and even shops. Metropolitan Airports Commission spokesman Jeff Lea said the clergy were issued misdemeanour citations of trespassing and failure to comply with a peace officer and were then released. They were arrested outside the main terminal at the Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport because they went beyond the reach of their permit for demonstrating and disrupted airline operations, he said. Rev Mariah Furness Tollgaard of Hamline Church in St Paul said police ordered them to leave but she and others .

Icebreakers, key to unlock Greenland, built only by US allies or rivals

The cold, hard reality facing any US, NATO or European plans for Greenland is the ice. It chokes harbours, entombs minerals, and freezes shorelines into minefields of white and blue shards that threaten ships all year. And the only way to break through all that is, well, with icebreakers: enormous ships with burly engines, reinforced hulls, and heavy bows that can crush and cleave ice. But the United States has only three such vessels, one of which is so decrepit as to be barely usable. It has entered agreements to obtain 11 more, but can only source additional ships from adversaries - or allies it has recently rebuffed. The key technology in the Arctic ----------------------------------- Despite toning down his rhetoric, US President Donald Trump seems set on the US owning Greenland for security and economic reasons: to keep what he calls "the big, beautiful piece of ice" out of the hands of Moscow and Beijing, to secure a strategic Arctic location for US assets, and to extract t

Putin meets Trump's envoys as Kremlin links Ukraine settlement to territory

Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the settlement in Ukraine with US President Donald Trump's envoys during marathon overnight talks, and the Kremlin insisted that the territorial issue needs to be resolved to reach a peace deal. The Kremlin meeting, which lasted past 3 a.m. Friday, came hours after Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sharply criticized his European allies Thursday for what he cast as their slow and fragmented response to Russia's nearly four-year full-scale invasion that he said has left Ukraine at the mercy of Putin amid an ongoing U.S. push for a peace settlement. Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov, who participated in Putin's meeting with Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, said "it was reaffirmed that reaching a long-term settlement can't be expected without solving the territorial issue," a reference to Moscow's demand that Kyiv withdraws its troops from the areas in the east that Russia illegally annexed but never fully ...

US moves to rewrite defence pact to expand military presence in Greenland

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said that if the deal goes through, the US would achieve all its strategic goals in Greenland 'at very little cost, forever,' adding that Trump is hopeful about it

Trump says Federal Reserve chair interviews done, has pick in mind

Trump's shortlist includes National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, BlackRock executive Rick Rieder, current Fed Governor Christopher Waller and a former governor, Kevin Warsh

US walks away from WHO leaving behind $260 million in unpaid dues

The withdrawal notice left the health organisation without its top donor. Between 2022 and 2023, the US contributed nearly $1.3 billion to the WHO

Trump calls for UN to work with new Board of Peace on Gaza, other conflicts

The reaction came after Trump formally launched the Board of Peace at the WEF, signing its charter and describing the move as a major step towards global conflict resolution

What happens to Greenland 'not our concern': Russian President Putin

Commenting on Denmark's treatment of Greenland, Putin said Denmark has treated Greenland like a colony for many years and has often been harsh towards it

US Army issues standby orders for a possible Minneapolis deployment

The US Army has ordered several dozen additional active-duty soldiers to prepare for a possible deployment to Minneapolis if needed, a defense official said Wednesday, amid protests over the Trump administration's immigration enforcement crackdown. The defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive plans, confirmed that members of an Army military police brigade who are stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina have been given prepare-to-deploy orders. If deployed, the troops would likely offer support to civil authorities in Minneapolis, according to the official, who stressed that such standby orders are issued regularly and they do not necessarily mean that the troops would end up going. About 1,500 active-duty soldiers from the Army's 11th Airborne Division based in Alaska also have received similar standby orders. President Donald Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, a rarely used 19th century law that would allow him to use active-du

Trump's 'Board of Peace' adds to US challenges against UN authority

US President Donald Trump's ambition for the 'Board of Peace' to play a role in global conflicts beyond Gaza appears to be the latest US attempt to sidestep the UN Security Council, raising new questions about the relevance of the 80-year-old world body and uncertainty about its future as a primary force in brokering peace worldwide. Trump is establishing the board, to be composed largely of invited heads of state, as the UN has embarked on major reforms intended to modernise an organisation founded on the ashes of World War II and make it a more viable global player in the 21st century. A decades-long reform effort gained new impetus after the Trump administration last year set out to eliminate billions of dollars in funding to international organisations and humanitarian assistance at large. Cutting life-saving humanitarian efforts, consolidating major agencies and moving personnel out of New York headquarters are just a few of the changes the UN has made as it courts continued ..

Immigration crackdown reaches Maine as court freezes curbs on protest limit

Maine became the latest target of the Trump administration's immigration enforcement crackdown, while a federal appeals court on Wednesday suspended a decision that prohibited federal officers from using tear gas or pepper spray against peaceful protesters in Minnesota. The 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals was persuaded to freeze a judge's ruling that bars retaliation against the public in Minnesota, including detaining people who follow agents in cars, while the government pursues an appeal. Operation Metro Surge, an immigration enforcement operation in the Twin Cities, has been underway for weeks. Attorney General Pam Bondi praised the appeals court on X, saying the Justice Department "will protect federal law enforcement agents from criminals in the streets AND activist judges in the courtroom." After the stay was issued, Greg Bovino of US Border Patrol, who has commanded the administration's big-city immigration campaign, was seen on video repeatedly warning protesters on a snow

Elizabeth Holmes asks Trump to shorten prison sentence for Theranos fraud

White House is sifting through thousands of clemency requests, including a pardon bid by Archegos Capital Management founder Bill Hwang, who was convicted over the collapse of his $36 bn family office

Trump backs lower loan rates, investor ban to make homes more affordable

President Donald Trump 's plans for bringing homeownership within reach of more Americans involve pushing for lower interest rates on home loans and credit cards, and banning large institutional investors from buying single-family homes. In his address Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump outlined four policies his administration is pursuing in a bid to make homeownership more affordable. Each had been previously mentioned by him or his administration in recent weeks, part of a broader push to address affordability generally, a hot-button issue with voters heading into the midterms. The US housing market has been in a sales slump dating back to 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. The combination of higher mortgage rates, years of skyrocketing home prices and a chronic shortage of homes nationally following more than a decade of below-average home construction have left many aspiring homeowners priced out of the market. Sales

Can't rule out US military invasion; be prepared: Greenland PM to citizens

Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen has warned of possible risks amid Trump's takeover remarks and said the government will form a task force and advise people to store essential supplies