Welcome again to your remaining 2025 version of International Coverage’s Scenario Report. We’re pausing the e-newsletter for the subsequent two weeks to have a good time the vacations however will probably be again in your inboxes on Thursday, Jan. 8!
Alright, right here’s what’s on faucet for the day: The previous presidents of Colombia and Mexico talk about U.S. actions in Latin America, Dan Bongino is leaving the FBI, and Ukraine urges Europe to offer it frozen Russian property.
The controversial U.S. strikes on alleged drug boats close to Latin America and the Trump administration’s more and more aggressive posture towards Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro’s regime have raised alarm throughout the globe.
SitRep sat down on Tuesday with former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, a Nobel Peace laureate, and former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo to get their ideas on the escalating state of affairs and its affect on Latin America.
The dialog with Santos and Zedillo, who’re a part of the Nelson Mandela-founded group The Elders, occurred shortly earlier than U.S. President Donald Trump introduced a blockade on sanctioned oil tankers to and from Venezuela. Santos and Zedillo weren’t obtainable to touch upon that growth, however that they had already made clear their concern over latest steps that the USA has taken within the area.
Santos and Zedillo additionally mentioned the Gaza peace course of and why they’re pushing for the discharge of Marwan Barghouti, a distinguished Palestinian chief imprisoned in Israel.
This interview has been edited for size and readability.
SitRep: How involved are you concerning the U.S. strikes close to Latin America and Trump probably taking navy motion in Venezuela?
Ernesto Zedillo: Venezuela wants and deserves to have democracy and the rule of regulation return. What’s occurred underneath [former Venezuelan President Hugo] Chávez and Maduro is outrageous. They’ve destroyed Venezuela’s democracy and financial system, and have imposed great ache on the Venezuelan inhabitants, forcing hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans to depart to locations like Colombia. It has been a humanitarian shame. Any cheap human being needs to be offended and anxious concerning the state of affairs in Venezuela.
Having mentioned that, and this is applicable to the U.S. and to others—historical past may be very clear in Latin America that each time there was overseas intervention within the inner affairs of our nations, that has been a catastrophe for our nations and likewise a failure for whoever is intervening. As a result of these interventions have fostered the facility of these opposing human rights, democracy, and freedom.
Juan Manuel Santos: What has been advocated as the primary function of this operation is drug trafficking. This isn’t the best way to successfully struggle drug trafficking.
We’ve fought the drug traffickers for a lot of many years, and it has been a failure, and due to this fact to attempt to replicate methods which have failed so dramatically—the result’s going to be the identical.
SitRep: President Santos, given your expertise with peace negotiations, how involved are you concerning the state of the cease-fire in Gaza and about what occurs subsequent?
JMS: We’re very involved. What we’re seeing and the knowledge that we now have obtained makes us very apprehensive about what’s going to occur. If some of these agreements, and I say this from my very own expertise, will not be applied appropriately they usually don’t observe by, issues may reverse and be worse than in the beginning. What we’re seeing proper now could be the necessity for lots extra stress on Israel and on Hamas to adjust to what was agreed and to enter the second part of the settlement. In any other case, if issues proceed to evolve on this damaging method, we’re going to have a catastrophe there once more.
EZ: We proceed to imagine that on the finish of this tortuous, tough street, there should be a two-state resolution. We want a street map to that state of affairs. With out addressing the basis of this tragedy, they might return to the very tough moments we now have gone by over a few years. Our plea at this level is: Sure, adjust to what has been agreed, however as a part of that, embody explicitly how the settlement to a two-state resolution will come.
JMS: And I want to add that we’d advocate and ask for the discharge of Marwan Barghouti. We’ve talked to his son and spouse. And it’s well-known that he’s an individual with credibility among the many Palestinians—he’s most likely the most well-liked particular person proper now, and he could be a great interlocutor in a peace negotiation. Should you actually need peace, one of many circumstances to have a profitable peace settlement is to take a seat down with the right individuals who can ship peace from the opposite aspect. This can be a primary rule in peacemaking. And if Israel actually desires to indicate the world that they’re keen on peace, releasing Barghouti would ship a really clear sign.
EZ: And we do this on the premise that Mr. Barghouti, way back, acknowledged that he had given up on violence and believes in utilizing politics and diplomacy to deal with the battle. We expect it is going to be a major gesture and likewise a sensible step towards peace if he’s freed.
SitRep: Do you assume Barghouti will probably be launched with out extra stress from the USA, particularly?
JMS: No, we’d like extra stress from the USA. That may be very clear.
Dan Bongino, the previous right-wing media persona who has served as Trump’s deputy director of the FBI for the previous yr, will probably be leaving his place in January, he introduced in a submit on X.
Trump introduced in a Reality Social submit on Tuesday that he had nominated Troy Edgar, presently the deputy secretary of homeland safety, as the USA’ new ambassador to El Salvador.
What needs to be excessive in your radar, if it isn’t already.
Venezuela ready sport. Trump’s Venezuela blockade has ratcheted up the stress on Maduro whereas elevating nonetheless extra questions concerning the Trump administration’s endgame within the nation, a spectrum starting from regime change to recouping “Oil, Land, and different Property” to Trump’s initially acknowledged purpose of stopping the stream of medicine into the USA. The larger query is what comes subsequent. Trump has hinted at land strikes on Venezuela for months, however they’ve but to occur.
Lawmakers—even these near Trump—additionally need solutions. “I wish to know what’s going to occur subsequent,” Sen. Lindsey Graham advised NBC Information after a briefing on the boat strikes by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday that Graham described as “complicated.”
Two Democrat-led resolutions to rein in Trump’s marketing campaign towards Venezuela had been narrowly voted down within the Home of Representatives on Wednesday night regardless of help from some Republican lawmakers. Within the Senate, Sen. Adam Schiff requested unanimous consent for passage of a decision that will pressure the Trump administration to launch the complete video of its controversial Sept. 2 “double-tap” boat strike however was denied by Republicans.
Ukraine’s discount. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky joined a number of European Union leaders in Brussels on Thursday at a vital summit to determine whether or not the greater than $200 billion in frozen Russian property on the continent can be utilized to help Ukraine.
“Similar to authorities confiscate cash from drug-traffickers and seize weapons from terrorists, Russian property should be used to defend towards Russian aggression and rebuild what was destroyed by Russian assaults,” Zelensky mentioned on the assembly. “It’s ethical. It’s honest. It’s authorized.” He additionally met with the prime minister of Belgium, which holds many of the Russian property however has expressed reservations about deploying them attributable to concern of authorized and monetary dangers. “I perceive all of Belgium’s considerations; nevertheless, a choice on the reparations mortgage should be made,” Zelensky wrote on social media.
Efforts to finish the warfare, in the meantime, stay intractable as ever. Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a defiant speech to his Protection Ministry board on Wednesday, indicating that he’s unwilling to compromise on Moscow’s declare to giant swaths of Ukrainian territory or to cease Russian assaults on Ukraine.
“The objectives of the particular navy operation will undoubtedly be achieved,” Putin mentioned, utilizing Russia’s time period for the warfare. “We would favor to perform this and tackle the basis causes of the battle by diplomatic means. Nonetheless, if the opposing aspect and its overseas patrons refuse to have interaction in substantive dialogue, Russia will obtain the liberation of its historic lands by navy means.”
U.S. and Russian officers are reportedly set to satisfy in Miami over the weekend.
Trump arms Taiwan. The Trump administration on Wednesday accepted the USA’ biggest-ever bundle of arms gross sales to Taiwan, totaling roughly $11 billion. The bundle consists of a number of superior weapons programs comparable to HIMARS rocket launchers, Javelin missiles, and autonomous plane. Congress should nonetheless approve the sale for it to go ahead.
The choice has predictably angered China, with a spokesperson for Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Workplace calling on Washington to “instantly stop its coverage of arming Taiwan.”
Trump is anticipated to go to Beijing in April, following a gathering with Chinese language President Xi Jinping in South Korea round six weeks in the past that yielded a tentative pause on commerce hostilities between the world’s two largest economies.
Mourners pay tribute exterior Bondi Pavilion in Sydney on Dec. 18 to honor victims of the Dec. 14 Bondi Seashore taking pictures.David Grey/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
Monday, Dec. 22: International ministers from the Affiliation of Southeast Asian Nations meet to debate Cambodia-Thailand border combating.
Saturday, Dec. 27: Ivory Coast holds parliamentary elections.
Sunday, Dec. 28: Myanmar’s navy junta holds a normal election.
$901 billion—the whole funds of the Nationwide Protection Authorization Act that Trump is ready to signal on Thursday. The laws consists of restrictions on Trump’s potential to cut back the variety of U.S. troops abroad, together with in Europe and South Korea.
“[Trump] has an alcoholic’s persona.”
—White Home Chief of Employees Susie Wiles, in certainly one of many eye-catching quotes to Self-importance Honest over the course of practically a dozen interviews previously yr.
