Trump secretly authorized military force against Latin American drug cartels classified as foreign terrorist organizations
The move is the most aggressive action Trump has yet taken against gangs trafficking drugs like fentanyl across the US-Mexico border, whose activities were previously the purview of federal law enforcement.
The order, first reported Friday by the New York Times, give US forces official permission to engage cartels on land and sea.
'The president is determined to not just dismantle – but completely destroy – [Venezuelan dictator Nicolas] Maduro's Cartel de Los Soles and obliterate their operations in the Western hemisphere,' a source close to the White House said.
The anti-cartel effort is being coordinated among several departments, including the Department of Defense, Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Treasury, the source added.
'President Trump's top priority is protecting the homeland,' deputy White House press secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement, 'which is why he took the bold step to designate several cartels and gangs as foreign terrorist organizations.'
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Chicago Tribune
17 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
A look at colleges with federal money targeted by the Trump administration
Several elite U.S. colleges have made deals with President Donald Trump's administration, offering concessions to his political agenda and financial payments to restore federal money that had been withheld. Ivy League schools Columbia, Brown and the University of Pennsylvania reached agreements to resolve federal investigations. The Republican administration is pressing for more, citing the deal it negotiated with Columbia as a 'road map' for other colleges. There is a freeze on billions of dollars of research money for other colleges including Harvard, which has been negotiating with the White House even as it fights in court over the lost grants. And on Friday, a White House official said the Trump administration is seeking a $1 billion settlement from the the University of California, Los Angeles. Like no other president, Trump has used the government's control over federal research funding to push for changes in higher education, decrying elite colleges as places of extreme liberal ideology and antisemitism. Here's a look at universities pressured by the administration's funding cuts. Columbia said on July 23 that it had agreed to a $200 million fine to restore federal funding. The school was threatened with the potential loss of billions of dollars in government support, including more than $400 million in grants canceled earlier this year. The administration pulled the money because of what it described as Columbia's failure to address antisemitism on campus during the Israel-Hamas war. Columbia agreed to administration demands such as overhauling its student disciplinary process and applying a federally backed definition of antisemitism to teaching and a disciplinary committee investigating students critical of Israel. Federal officials said the fine will go to the Treasury Department and cannot be spent until Congress appropriates it. Columbia also agreed to pay $21 million into a compensation fund for employees who may have faced antisemitism. The deal includes a clause that Columbia says preserves its independence, putting in writing that the government does not have the authority to dictate 'hiring, admission decisions, or the content of academic speech.' An agreement last month calls for Brown to pay $50 million to Rhode Island workforce development organizations. That would restore dozens of lost federal research grants and end investigations into allegations of antisemitism and racial bias in Brown admissions. Among other concessions, Brown agreed to adopt the government's definition of 'male' and 'female' and remove any consideration of race from the admissions process. Like the settlement with Columbia, Brown's does not include a finding of wrongdoing. It includes a provision saying the government does not have authority to dictate Brown's curriculum or 'the content of academic speech.' The Trump administration suspended $584 million in federal grants to UCLA, the university said this week, after the Department of Justice said the college had violated civil rights 'by acting with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students.' On Friday, a White House official said the Trump administration was seeking a $1 billion settlement from the university. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the request and spoke on the condition of anonymity. UCLA is the first public university to have its federal grants targeted by the administration over alleged civil rights violations. Under a July agreement resolving a federal civil rights case, Penn modified three school records set by transgender swimmer Lia Thomas and said it would apologize to female athletes 'disadvantaged' by Thomas' participation on the women's swimming team. The Education Department investigated Penn as part of the administration's broader attempt to remove transgender athletes from girls and women's sports. As part of the case, the administration had suspended $175 million in funding to Penn. The administration has frozen more than $2.6 billion in research grants to Harvard, accusing the nation's oldest and wealthiest university of allowing antisemitism to flourish. Harvard has pushed back with several lawsuits. In negotiations for a possible settlement, the administration is seeking for Harvard to pay an amount far higher than Columbia. The White House announced in April that it froze more than $1 billion of Cornell's federal funding as it investigated allegations of civil rights violations. The Ivy League school was among a group of more than 60 universities that received a letter from the Education Department on March 10 urging them to take steps to protect Jewish students or else face 'potential enforcement actions.' Like Cornell, Northwestern saw a halt in some of its federal funding in April. The amount was about $790 million, according to the administration. The administration this week froze $108 million in federal money for Duke. The hold on funding from the National Institutes of Health came days after the departments of Health and Human Services and Education sent a joint letter alleging racial preferences in Duke's hiring and admissions. Dozens of research grants were suspended at Princeton without a clear rationale, according to an April 1 campus message from the university's president, Christopher Eisgruber. The grants came from federal agencies such as the Department of Energy, NASA and the Pentagon.
The Hill
17 minutes ago
- The Hill
Trump wages war on renewables
The moves are expected to create issues for the renewable energy industry, ones critics argue could raise power prices. President Trump's tax and spending megabill slashed incentives for wind and solar energy that were part of the Democrats' 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which is expected to significantly stifle the build-out of the growing industry. And in recent weeks, his administration has taken further actions to hamper wind and solar power. To catch you up: Shortly after the bill passed, Trump directed the Treasury Department to take a strict approach in limiting which projects are eligible for the remaining tax credits. The Interior Department also recently announced it would subject wind and solar projects to an elevated review process — a move that was expected to slow down their approvals. Last week, Interior said it would try to block projects that take up a lot of room, which is expected to primarily hurt solar and wind projects. The department said last week that it would weigh 'whether to stop onshore wind development on some federal lands and halting future offshore wind lease sales.' It also moved this week to try to cancel an already approved wind project in Idaho. The Environmental Protection Agency separately announced Thursday it would move to claw back funds under a $7 billion rooftop solar program. The Interior Department's elevated review processes are expected to pertain not only to wind and solar farm approvals but also include a wide range of activities such as grants and assessments of endangered species impacts. Ben Norris, vice president of regulatory affairs with the Solar Energy Industry Association, said he expects some of these reviews would not only delay projects on public lands but could have similar effects on projects on private lands. 'We are hearing about dozens, if not hundreds of projects in the aggregate that otherwise are totally sited on private lands, totally permitted by state and local authorities, but that the Interior Department seems to have found a way to put into limbo, at least for a time,' Norris told The Hill.
The Hill
17 minutes ago
- The Hill
EPA dissolves union contract, AFGE says
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has unilaterally dissolved a collective bargaining agreement with members of the union that represents its workers, the union said Friday. 'The Trump administration and EPA's unlawful and authoritarian move to unilaterally strip EPA workers of their collective bargaining agreement and workplace rights is nothing short of an assault on our democracy, the rule of law, and the lives of working people in America,' said Justin Chen, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, which represents 8,000 EPA staffers, in a written statement. 'When you strip the rights of EPA workers, you weaken the EPA's ability to do its job and ensure Americans can drink clean water and breathe clean air – and that's exactly what [President] Trump, [EPA Administrator Lee] Zeldin, and their billionaire supporters want,' Chen added. He also said the union would fight the decision, saying 'AFGE Council 238 is united in our fight to defend our rights, our agency's mission, and to protect the future of our country and planet. We will see the administration in court.' The Hill has reached out to the EPA for comment. The EPA's apparent move comes after a similar decision at the Department of Veterans Affairs this week. Both actions come after a federal court sided with the Trump administration on whether it can rescind such contracts. It also comes amid a broader effort to target the federal workforce, with thousands of people across the government being fired.
