标签： South America

WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio launched a high-stakes three-nation tour of Latin America on Tuesday, centered on deepening ties with newly elected conservative, pro-Washington leaders across the region. The trip comes as the Trump administration ramps up cross-border military operations against drug trafficking, pushes to expand U.S. energy influence in the Western Hemisphere, and pushes for greater coordination to curb illegal migration northward.

The tour comes just one week after the U.S. finalized a major oil agreement with the post-Nicolás Maduro government of Venezuela, following a January U.S. military operation that ousted the longtime leftist leader. Rubio’s first stop is neighboring Colombia, where he will hold talks with new President Abelardo de la Espriella, a right-wing leader who has openly aligned his administration with Donald Trump’s policy agenda across drugs, immigration, and energy.

De la Espriella is among a growing wave of conservative leaders who have won office across Latin America in recent cycles, reversing a decades-long leftward shift in the region and backing the Trump administration’s more aggressive foreign policy approach toward the Americas. When the trip was announced last week, the U.S. State Department confirmed that Rubio would also travel on to Ecuador and Peru after wrapping up engagements in Colombia, with core discussions focusing on “enhanced cooperation in the shared fight against narcoterrorism, which threatens our hemisphere.”

The tour comes just 24 hours after U.S. forces intercepted and sank an Ecuadorian vessel that U.S. officials allege has direct ties to the transnational criminal organization Los Choneros. This action marks the latest in a string of U.S. operations targeting vessels suspected of trafficking drugs across Latin American waters. The expanded maritime campaign in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean launched one year ago, running parallel to the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown on undocumented migrants in the U.S., a large share of whom originate from Latin America.

The sunken vessel is the fifth targeted by U.S. military forces in the region in less than two weeks. In the vast majority of these operations, local conservative governments — including the three Rubio is visiting — have provided either formal cooperation or quiet tacit approval.

A key shift in U.S. tactics was on display in Monday’s operation, however: unlike most strikes on alleged drug-trafficking vessels that began in September 2025, all crew members were removed from the vessel before it was sunk and transferred into the custody of Ecuadorian authorities. This adjustment follows more than a year of offensive strikes that have killed at least 227 people the Trump administration labels “narcoterrorists” — a classification the administration has never supported with public evidence. The U.S. military carried out at least two of these deadly strikes just last month, before shifting focus to intercept floating refueling stations that officials say support illicit maritime drug smuggling networks.

In a pre-trip video statement released Tuesday, Colombian Foreign Minister Omar Bula framed Rubio’s visit as the starting point for “rebuilding a strategic alliance with the United States, our main partner in the region.” Bula confirmed that talks will center on security cooperation, including counternarcotics efforts, bilateral trade, and alignment on what both sides call “shared democratic values.”

Since taking office last month, De la Espriella — nicknamed “El Tigre” for his hardline approach — has made cracking down on drug trafficking and overhauling Colombia’s immigration policy central to his agenda, promising to deport thousands of undocumented migrants, mostly Venezuelan nationals, in a move he says will reduce national crime rates. Shortly after his inauguration, he brought Colombia into the U.S.-backed Americas Counter Cartels Coalition, rebuilding security cooperation with Washington that was badly strained during the 2022-2026 progressive administration of Gustavo Petro. He also formally closed the peace negotiations with illegal armed groups that Petro initiated, calling the process a failed effort that only worsened Colombia’s violence crisis.

In his first month in office, De la Espriella has ordered at least three airstrikes against illicit armed groups and expanded nationwide military counter-narcotics operations. But the new security approach has already drawn sharp criticism: multiple civilian minors were killed in the airstrikes, and opposition leaders and Colombia’s state Ombudsman’s Office condemned the president after he publicly displayed the bodies of alleged criminals wrapped in plastic bags alongside seized ammunition, as part of a public relations push to showcase his administration’s results.

Last week, De la Espriella announced that his government had killed Naín Andrés Pérez Toncel, alias “Bendito Menor,” a top leader of the illegal Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra Nevada armed group in northern Colombia. Perez Toncel was the first high-profile target named after the president labeled dozens of illegal armed group leaders “legitimate military targets” following his election win.

Colombia continues to grapple with ongoing competition between illegal armed groups for control of territory key to drug trafficking and illegal mining, even a decade after the government signed a landmark peace deal with the former FARC rebel movement that demobilized most of the group’s fighters.

After meeting De la Espriella in the Caribbean coastal city of Barranquilla — where the two sides are set to sign a civil nuclear cooperation agreement and a critical minerals trade pact — Rubio will travel to Quito, Ecuador, for a short working visit. There, he will meet President Daniel Noboa, whose administration has steadily expanded joint counternarcotics operations with U.S. military forces over the past two years.

Rubio will wrap up his regional tour in Lima, Peru, where he will hold talks with new President Keiko Fujimori, daughter of former Peruvian leader Alberto Fujimori. Fujimori’s recent election win marks another major rightward shift in Peruvian politics, aligning the country more closely with U.S. regional policy priorities.

Four decades after the 1982 Falklands War, when British forces repelled an Argentine invasion of the remote South Atlantic archipelago, the long-running sovereignty dispute between the United Kingdom and Argentina has reignited, driven by new plans for offshore oil exploration in the resource-rich waters surrounding the islands. In the latest escalation of tensions, the Argentine government under President Javier Milei has confirmed it will pursue criminal charges against Israel-based energy firm Navitas Petroleum and multiple subsidiaries and senior executives tied to the company, over its planned oil operations in waters claimed by Argentina as part of its sovereign territory.

The legal action comes just days after Milei used a high-profile national address to harden his administration’s stance on the territory, which Argentina refers to as Las Malvinas. The announcement has dashed earlier hopes among diplomatic observers that the president’s fiery speech was merely a political gesture, and that he would return to his earlier, more conciliatory approach that prioritized strengthening bilateral ties with the UK.

Prior to his recent shift, Milei faced sustained criticism from Argentine veterans of the 1982 conflict, who accused the leader of being excessively soft on the Falklands sovereignty issue. In his primetime address last Thursday, the president moved to address that criticism, firmly restating Argentina’s long-held claim. “The Malvinas are Argentine, historically and legally… there’s no debate about that,” Milei told the nation, adding that ongoing oil drilling activity in the archipelago’s waters represents a “clear and urgent danger” to Argentine national sovereignty.

Milei also rejected the outcome of a 2013 public referendum held by the Falkland Islands government, in which 99.8% of participating residents voted to retain the territory’s status as a British Overseas Territory. The president argued that the islands were “usurped” by British forces, meaning the resident population “have no legitimate right to self-determination” over the territory’s future.

The British government quickly pushed back against Milei’s remarks, reaffirming what it called its “unwavering” position that the Falkland Islands remain a legitimate British Overseas Territory, with the right of local residents to self-determination fully respected under international law.

Navitas Petroleum, which is publicly traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, holds a controlling 65% stake in the Sea Lion offshore oil development project, scheduled to begin commercial production in the North Falkland Basin by 2028. Located roughly 209 kilometers off the coast of the Falkland Islands, the Sea Lion field holds an estimated 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil, making it one of the largest undeveloped offshore oil reserves in the South Atlantic.

In its official statement released Monday, the Argentine government argued that any resource exploration and extraction activity in the area without explicit authorization from Buenos Aires violates Argentine national sovereignty legislation. “The state will continue to pursue actions deemed necessary to counter any act which breaches the sovereign rights of the Argentine Republic,” the statement read.

As of Tuesday, Navitas had not issued a formal response to the announcement of criminal charges. Last week, shortly after Milei’s national address, the company noted that the president’s comments were “not expected to have a material effect on the development activities of the Sea Lion Project, including the timetable for completion of the Project’s development.” Rockhopper Exploration, which holds a minority stake in the Sea Lion project, has also not yet commented on the latest legal action. Both firms have previously confirmed that their exploration and development rights for the project are covered by valid licenses issued by the Falkland Islands government.

On an upcoming official visit to the United Kingdom, a Jamaican government delegation headed by Culture Minister Olivia Grange will deliver a landmark legal petition on slavery reparations to King Charles III, opening a new formal chapter in the island nation’s decades-long campaign for accountability for historic colonial harm.

As the current head of state of Jamaica, King Charles will be asked to formally refer three critical legal questions to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC), Jamaica’s highest appellate court. The questions center on three core points: whether the transatlantic enslavement of African people in Jamaica was lawful under historic English law, whether the practice violated existing international legal standards, and whether the United Kingdom holds a current legal obligation to provide reparations for the harms endured.

Crucially, the petition itself does not demand immediate financial payments, but instead seeks a formal legal ruling that Grange says could clear the path for a long-overdue resolution for the centuries of violent abuse inflicted on enslaved African ancestors. Unlike popular misconceptions, King Charles has no personal discretionary power to accept or reject the referral request, a fact confirmed by coordination between Buckingham Palace and Jamaica’s Governor General to ensure the petition is properly processed through established constitutional channels.

Grange outlined the stakes of the step in comments to media, noting that once the JCPC delivers its response to the three questions, Jamaican officials will map out the next phase of the campaign. She also highlighted a little-known historic context that strengthens the nation’s case: when the British Empire abolished chattel slavery across most of its territories in 1833, the British government issued £20 million in compensation to enslavers for the loss of their “property” — a debt that the British public only finished paying off in 2015.

“Up to 2015, Britain was paying the slave masters, because we were being considered property,” Grange said. “The question really should be: if in modern times we’re still paying back the slave masters for the property that was our people, our ancestors, for property that was because of the abolition of slavery, then why shouldn’t we be pursuing some remedy at this time?”

Beyond the reparations petition, Grange’s UK agenda includes a high-profile meeting with leadership at the British Museum to advance long-running negotiations over the repatriation of cultural artifacts looted from Jamaica during the colonial era. “They are priceless, they are significant to the story of Jamaica and we are working to bring them home,” Grange said of the contested items.

Buckingham Palace has signaled a cooperative approach to the petition, echoing King Charles’ long-stated public position on addressing the legacy of slavery. A Palace spokesperson noted: “His Majesty has on many occasions expressed his personal and wholehearted commitment to promoting greater understanding around the issue of slavery and finding ways to address historic wrongs for the benefit of communities today.” In a 2024 public address, the King went further, calling on global leaders to commit to “finding creative ways to right inequalities that endure” stemming from colonialism.

The current push for reparations comes nearly a decade after a previous British government led by then-Prime Minister David Cameron rejected all calls for reparations during a 2015 visit to Jamaica. While Cameron described slavery as “abhorrent in all its forms,” he argued that Jamaica should “move on from this painful legacy and continue to build for the future,” a position that drew widespread criticism from reparations campaigners across the Caribbean.

SAO PAULO — Brazil’s highest judicial body has slid deeper into a damaging institutional crisis, after two high-profile Supreme Court justices delivered competing demands for severe disciplinary action against one another this Friday. The public feud has sent shockwaves through Brazil’s political landscape just months ahead of the country’s October general elections, raising urgent questions about the integrity of the nation’s judiciary.

The conflict centers on two justices with starkly different political and ideological backgrounds. Alexandre de Moraes, 57, rose to national prominence last year after leading the high-profile prosecution that resulted in the imprisonment of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro on charges related to the 2022 attempted coup d’état. His adversary on the bench, 53-year-old Andre Mendonca, made history as the Supreme Court’s first self-identified evangelical Christian justice, a direct appointment by Bolsonaro during his presidential term.

The roots of their escalating animosity trace back to a sprawling federal investigation into large-scale financial fraud linked to the collapsed Banco Master, a once-prominent Brazilian financial institution led by disgraced ex-banker Daniel Vorcaro. The sprawling probe has already tangled multiple sitting politicians, making it an especially explosive issue ahead of the upcoming October elections.

The crisis escalated rapidly earlier this week, when Mendonca ordered the unsealing of a portion of federal police intercepted communications between Vorcaro and third parties. The released documents include dozens of private messages from the fallen banker that suggest he repeatedly sought personal guidance from de Moraes. The revelations compound existing suspicions against de Moraes, after federal investigators uncovered that de Moraes’ wife had provided legal consulting services to Banco Master under a 130 million reais (approximately $25 million) contract.

These disclosures have sparked a growing wave of calls for de Moraes’ resignation from across Brazil’s political sphere, media outlets, and leading legal experts. Even Flávio Bolsonaro, a presidential candidate and the son of the former president, who has himself been drawn into the Banco Master scandal over allegations he received roughly $21 million to produce a hagiographic film about his father’s political career, joined the chorus demanding de Moraes step down. In one intercepted message, Vorcaro wrote to a contact, “I am grateful to you for my life,” while in another, he pleaded, “For the love of God, see if you can block all these evil (measures against Banco Master).

But the narrative shifted just as quickly, when Brazilian media outlets reported on Wednesday that Mendonca had held a private, off-the-record meeting with Vorcaro last year. In an official statement, Mendonca defended the gathering, framing it as a routine informational meeting similar to conversations other Supreme Court justices held on the same case. He later confirmed last Thursday that he held a second, more recent meeting with the jailed banker. What makes the encounter controversial is that Mendonca interrogated Vorcaro without the required authorization from the full Supreme Court — a mandatory step when investigating a sitting member of the court — and did not allow any federal police officers or public prosecutors to attend the questioning.

Mendonca has justified his actions by saying Vorcaro claimed he had been subjected to mistreatment while in police custody, a claim that Brazil’s national attorney general has already formally rejected as unsubstantiated.

By late Thursday, de Moraes had responded with swift and unprecedented action: he formally submitted a request to Supreme Court Chief Justice Luiz Edson Fachin to open a full investigation into Mendonca’s conduct. De Moraes blasted his colleague’s actions as politically motivated, and argued that Mendonca’s unauthorized, secretive interrogation of Vorcaro meets the legal standard for an impeachable offense. De Moraes is pushing for the Brazilian Senate to ultimately consider removing Mendonca from the bench.

Brazil’s Senate, which holds the constitutional authority to initiate impeachment proceedings against sitting Supreme Court justices, currently has dozens of pending impeachment requests targeting de Moraes, with only a small handful of similar requests filed against Mendonca to date. By Friday, Brazilian media confirmed that Mendonca had submitted his own counter-request to Chief Justice Fachin, asking that de Moraes be suspended from all Supreme Court duties while the graft allegations against him are adjudicated.

Chief Justice Fachin, speaking Friday morning at an official ceremony held at the presidential palace in the presence of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — who has publicly stated no individual should be exempt from judicial investigation — announced his next steps. Fachin said he will request formal written clarifications from Mendonca, de Moraes, Attorney General Paulo Gonet (who is also mentioned in Vorcaro’s intercepted messages), and Federal Police Director Andrei Rodrigues. Without explicitly naming the public feud between his two colleagues, Fachin said he would “do what is right, in the time and in the shape that the legal order requires.” He added, “The institutions of the Republic must be preserved, overall in moments of the biggest tension.”

Witnesses confirmed that de Moraes and Mendonca did not exchange a single word during two full Supreme Court sessions held Wednesday and Thursday. The two justices, who sit adjacent to one another on the court bench (seating is ordered by the date each justice was appointed), are set to gather again for official business next week.

Long before Argentine President Javier Milei delivered his late-night national address announcing new sanctions earlier this week, tensions over the long-running Falkland Islands dispute had already been rising steadily across Argentina. The high-profile celebration of Argentina’s World Cup victory over England this summer, where jubilant players held up a banner declaring “Las Malvinas son Argentinas” in front of euphoric fans, provided a striking visual of this growing friction – yet this simmering resentment stretches back far deeper into modern history.

Opening his televised address from an Argentine perspective, Milei walked through a condensed narrative of the islands’ dispute, doubling down on the core argument that has anchored Argentina’s position for decades: the territory rightfully belongs to Buenos Aires. He framed the 1833 British presence as a colonial invasion that violently seized the land from Argentine control.

The UK government has pushed back on this framing, pointing to key contextual details Milei omits from his retelling. For centuries leading up to the 1830s, multiple European powers had traded control of the unpopulated island chain. When British forces re-established a presence on the islands in 1833, the small Argentine settlement that had been established there had already been removed two years prior – not by British forces, but by the United States. The USS Lexington destroyed an Argentine outpost in December 1831 during a dispute over fishing and sealing rights in the region.

But even as the U.S. played an unacknowledged role in clearing the way for 19th-century British control, Milei is now betting that Washington will become his strongest ally in advancing Argentina’s 21st-century claim to the islands. That confidence comes directly from former (and current candidate for) U.S. President Donald Trump, who recently announced he is re-evaluating the long-standing U.S. position on the Falklands. In a national address to the Argentine people, Milei declared that “winds of change” are blowing for the dispute.

For decades, the U.S. has officially recognized British sovereignty over the Falklands while framing its policy as neutral. That neutrality has always been qualified, however: during the 1982 Falklands War, President Ronald Reagan provided critical material support to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a move that reinforced the decades-long transatlantic “Special Relationship” between London and Washington.

For Trump, though, that historic alliance has already frayed. He blames current UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s predecessor Keir Starmer for the breakdown, after the UK declined to join the U.S. in its war against Iran. In a recent interview with GB News, Trump made his frustration clear: “You weren’t there to help me.” He also dismissed the Falklands as “a long way away” from the U.K. – a point that Falkland Islanders, who voted 99.8% to remain a British overseas territory in a 2013 referendum, have pushed back on: the distance from London to the Falklands is actually slightly shorter than the distance between Washington, D.C. and the U.S. territory of Guam in the western Pacific.

Regardless of that factual pushback, Trump’s comments have already given a major boost to Milei, who is facing growing political pressure at home ahead of next year’s presidential election. His former vice president, Victoria Villarroel, one of his most prominent challengers, has positioned herself as a far harder-line defender of Argentine national sovereignty, repeatedly attacking Milei’s diplomatic approach to the Falklands as weak and ineffective. To counter that attack, leaning into the Falklands dispute and leaning on Trump’s support has become a key political strategy for the incumbent.

Domestic political calculation is far from the only driver of the renewed tension, however. Milei has framed the dispute as newly urgent, warning of what he calls “a clear and urgent danger.” That urgency stems from upcoming energy exploration work: within the next two years, two energy firms – Israeli-owned Navitas Petroleum and UK-based Rockhopper Exploration – plan to begin drilling operations in the Sea Lion oilfield located off the Falklands coast. Milei has rejected this activity outright, arguing Argentina “cannot allow” the companies to “appropriate the oil reserves under our sea” and vowing that Buenos Aires will “not stand by with our arms folded.” FIFA also fined the Argentine Football Association after the World Cup banner incident, which violated global football rules banning political messaging during matches.

Beyond economic and domestic political concerns, the dispute also ties into a broader ideological realignment in the Western Hemisphere. Milei and Trump share deep ideological and personal ties, and Milei has openly framed Argentina as a reliable, “trustworthy partner” for Washington. The two leaders have aligned behind what Trump has dubbed the “Don-roe Doctrine” – a playful reworking of the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, which established U.S. hegemony across the Americas. The core of this new vision is simple: only ideologically aligned leaders should hold power across the Western Hemisphere.

Within this new framework of reordered spheres of influence, many analysts note it is entirely plausible that Trump will side with his ideological ally Milei over the British Prime Minister, even as the dispute’s implications extend far beyond personal or partisan ties. As the countdown to the U.S. presidential election and Argentine exploration begins, the central question hanging over the coming months is whether this new “Don-roe Doctrine” will outweigh the decades of shared history that define the U.S.-UK Special Relationship.