By the Associated Press
Weaning Caribbean countries from their dependence on Venezuelan oil and combating illegal immigration will top Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s tour of three Caribbean nations this week, a visit that comes as the Trump administration increasingly focuses its attention on the Western Hemisphere.
The State Department said Rubio will push for the region to diversify their energy supplies when he visits Jamaica, Guyana, and Suriname starting Wednesday, just days after President Trump announced new sanctions on Venezuelan oil exports and threatened tariffs on all goods imported into the United States by other countries that buy oil from Venezuela.
By the Associated Press
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Wednesday will visit the high-security El Salvador prison where Venezuelans who the Trump administration alleges are members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang have been held since their removal from the US.
Noem’s trip to the prison — where inmates are packed into cells and never allowed outside — comes as the Trump administration seeks to show it is deporting people it describes as the “worst of the worst.”
Since taking office, Noem has often been front and center in efforts to highlight the immigration crackdown. She took part in immigration enforcement operations, rode horses with Border Patrol agents and was the face of a television campaign warning people in the country illegally to self-deport.
Noem’s Wednesday visit is part of a three-day trip. She’ll also travel to Colombia and Mexico.
By the Associated Press
President Trump’s top intelligence officials will brief House lawmakers Wednesday on global threats facing the US — though they’ll likely be questioned again over their use of a group text to discuss plans for military strikes in Yemen.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and FBI Director Kash Patel are among those who were asked to testify before the House Intelligence Committee as part of its annual review of threats facing the US.
At a similar hearing on Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Gabbard briefed lawmakers on her office’s threat assessment, noting that China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea continue to pose security challenges to the US, as do drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations.