WASHINGTON, D.C– In the heavy Caribbean heat, U.S. Navy jets slice across the night sky, their missiles slamming into fast-moving boats far below. What started as quiet, unacknowledged strikes on suspected trafficking vessels has grown into President Donald Trump’s boldest move yet, a broad military and financial campaign against what he brands Venezuela’s narco-state.

Called “Operation Southern Spear”, the mission has sunk more than two dozen boats and killed at least 87 suspected traffickers, according to U.S. officials. The shockwaves are shaking drug networks across the region. Yet behind the dramatic footage of explosions at sea, another target is feeling the squeeze, the global financial system that has long fed off cartel profits.

From the misty lanes around London’s Square Mile to the skyscrapers of Wall Street, top-tier bankers have, for years, helped recycle cartel cash into respectable assets. That pipeline is now under heavy pressure. Trump’s mix of sanctions, asset freezes, and terrorism designations is cutting into the flow of dirty money, triggering a frantic response from many of the same global power-brokers who once mocked him as a loud, unserious populist.

Trump has not softened his language. “We’re going to start doing those strikes on land, too,” he said at a White House cabinet meeting this week. “You know, the land is much easier… We know where the bad ones live.”

As in his first term, he casts Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, as the boss of a “narco-terrorist” empire. He accuses Maduro and his allies of pumping fentanyl-laced drugs into U.S. communities while amassing huge personal fortunes. The Cartel de los Soles, a murky group of senior Venezuelan officers named for the sun badges on their uniforms, has just been labelled a foreign terrorist organisation.

That move opened the floodgates for aggressive U.S. Treasury sanctions. Tren de Aragua, the vicious Venezuelan gang that has spread across Latin America and beyond, is expected to receive the same terrorism label, turning its leaders into internationally hunted fugitives.

The policy is not just bluster. Since September, U.S. aircraft and ships have destroyed 22 boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. Pentagon briefings claim those hits have cut sea-based drug traffic in the region by about 85 per cent. Many of the strikes have been carried out by F/A-18 Super Hornets flying from the USS Gerald R. Ford.

The campaign has sparked anger abroad. Venezuela accuses Washington of “extrajudicial killings”, and human rights groups complain that the U.S. offers little proof that those killed were traffickers or combatants.

Trump, however, sees it as a straightforward calculation. Every destroyed go-fast boat, he argues, weakens Maduro’s grip on power. Every seized account, in his view, cuts deeper into the global money-laundering networks that keep narco fortunes safe.

The Venezuelan Pipeline: From Jungle Coca Fields to Global Bank Vaults

Venezuela has long sat on a key smuggling route. Its coastline and borders make it a natural path for Colombian cocaine heading north to the United States. Under Maduro’s rule, Washington says that role has shifted from transit corridor to something far darker, a state-backed criminal enterprise.

The Cartel de los Soles, according to U.S. indictments and intelligence assessments, includes generals and officials who swapped military uniforms for gold watches and luxury homes. They are accused of controlling coca processing in areas like the Orinoco Basin and running smuggling corridors across the Caribbean and into Central America.

The U.S. Justice Department indicted Maduro himself in 2020 as a “drug kingpin”. Court documents portray a vast network allegedly responsible for sending tonnes of cocaine to the United States, earning billions in illegal revenue for loyalists, officers, and their business partners.

That money does not sit in jungle hideouts. It surges north in waves of bundled banknotes and complex transfers, in search of clean entry points into mainstream finance. At that point, the street dealers step aside, and the respectable players appear. Not payday lenders or backstreet money shops, but well-dressed bankers in London, New York, Miami, and beyond.

These institutions build and maintain the plumbing that turns blood-stained cash into apparently honest capital. Offshore shell companies, trade-invoicing tricks, trust structures, and layers of international accounts help dirty bolivars and pesos re-emerge as crisp dollars, pounds, and euros.

The FinCEN Files, a major leak published in 2020 by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, highlighted how banking giants like JPMorgan Chase and Standard Chartered processed huge amounts of suspicious Venezuelan transactions. Some of that money came from PDVSA, the state oil company that has sat under U.S. sanctions since 2019 and has long been plagued by corruption claims.

The stories behind the figures are stark. The Ceballos family, members of Venezuela’s elite, allegedly stole more than 100 million dollars from anti-poverty schemes such as Misión Che Guevara. Their money moved through a shell company registered in London before arriving at Banco Espírito Santo in Portugal. That bank was later shut down by regulators following money-laundering scandals.

Another case involves Raúl Gorrín, the owner of the TV channel Globovisión. He was indicted in 2018 for allegedly bribing Venezuelan and U.S. officials while moving around 1.2 billion dollars from PDVSA fraud through Florida property deals and Miami bank accounts.

These are not isolated stories of a few corrupt clients slipping past sleepy compliance officers. They reflect a wider pattern in which “boligarchs” (wealthy Chavista insiders) exploit Venezuela’s warped currency markets and weak institutions. Western banks and professionals provide the tools that help them shift their gains abroad.

The numbers are huge. A 2025 United Nations report estimates that drug trafficking worldwide generates about 1.6 trillion dollars in laundered funds each year, with Venezuela accounting for a significant share. Much of this passes through London, often described as the “money-laundering capital of the world”.

A 2020 Politico investigation showed how UK money service businesses, including simple remittance shops on high streets like Oxford Street, have become channels for cartel funds. Those shops move cash into crypto or disguise it as regular transfers, then send it on to banks. This cycle feeds gang violence and drug markets in Britain itself.

In the United States, financial giants have their own scandals. HSBC paid a 1.9 billion fine in 2012 after U.S. authorities said it had laundered money for Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel through local exchange houses. Wachovia, later absorbed by Wells Fargo, was caught processing about 378 billion dollars in suspicious Mexican transfers between 2004 and 2007, much of it linked to drug routes.

Banks and brokers do not simply sit and accept deposits. They help design the routes. Chinese underground banking groups, now central to fentanyl laundering, often rely on U.S. accounts as temporary waystations.

They split deposits into sums below 10,000 dollars, known as structuring, to dodge reporting rules. In 2022, a single bust in San Gabriel, California, uncovered about 50 million dollars in cartel profits channelled through Chinese brokers and American banks.

For many international financiers, from Davos regulars to IMF insiders, this river of illicit money has acted as a hidden support for global markets. During the 2008 financial crisis, former UN drugs chief Antonio Maria Costa remarked that cartel cash had helped keep some banks afloat by feeding their liquidity at a moment of stress.

The Trump Squeeze: Sanctions as Financial Pressure Point

Trump’s offensive against Venezuela runs on two tracks: military action and financial warfare. While jets and warships target physical routes, the U.S. Treasury is targeting the money itself.

Since Trump entered office again, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has put more than 300 Venezuelan-related individuals and entities on its blacklist. Those on the list see their U.S.-based assets frozen, and American citizens and companies are barred from dealing with them.

PDVSA is at the centre of the pressure. Sanctions that Joe Biden eased in 2023 were slapped back on in April, according to administration officials. Venezuela’s oil revenue, which stood at about 4.8 billion dollars in 2018, dropped to just 477 million dollars last year.

The Central Bank of Venezuela, blacklisted in 2019, lost access to dollar clearing. Maduro has since tried to keep the country afloat through barter deals with Russia, Iran, and other partners outside the Western system.

The noose is tightening around the networks that process cartel and corruption funds. OFAC’s December sanctions against Tren de Aragua associates went beyond gang leaders and gunmen. Targets included Venezuelan influencer “Rosita” and her links to nightclubs accused of funnelling drug money through entertainment projects. These measures hit the front companies used to disguise millions in proceeds.

Foreign banks that assist blacklisted individuals or firms now risk “secondary sanctions”. These penalties can cut them off from U.S. markets, dollar clearing, and correspondent banking services. That threat is powerful. Standard Chartered, already hammered in past cases over Iranian and Venezuelan transactions, has closed several high-risk accounts. JPMorgan has tightened screening for any transfers with even a faint Venezuelan link.

In Britain, money service businesses that once moved cash for cartel-linked clients are facing raids and shutdowns. Under “Operation Destabilise”, the National Crime Agency has seized about 25 million pounds in crypto and cash tied to Venezuelan-linked flows.

There are signs of strain on the cartels’ financial arrangements. U.S. intelligence and regulatory reports suggest that long-standing fentanyl routes, which relied on Venezuelan nodes and Chinese chemical suppliers, are being disrupted.

A FinCEN advisory notes that U.S. banks are now “overwhelming” the system with suspicious activity reports related to cartel money, flooding traffickers with extra obstacles and higher costs. Some groups are shifting back to bulk cash smuggling and local laundering, which is slower, less efficient, and easier to detect.

Many of the global elite who push free trade and light-touch regulation spent years arguing that harsh sanctions hurt ordinary people. They warned against isolating PDVSA or freezing Venezuelan gold sales.

Now they are watching as banks in places like the Cayman Islands and Dubai pay growing fines for fraud, misreporting, and sanctions breaches. Wall Street Exchange in Dubai, for example, recently accepted a 9 million penalty over financial misconduct.

Banker Backlash: Global Finance Fights for the Flow

The financial sector is not taking this pressure lying down. In Canary Wharf boardrooms and New York conference rooms, protests and lobbying are quietly picking up pace.

Executives complain to regulators that sanctions have gone too far. The Bank of England and the U.S. Federal Reserve have received repeated warnings that “overcompliance” is strangling legitimate Venezuelan trade. Some banks are so fearful of OFAC punishment that they block even authorised humanitarian transactions, deepening shortages of food, medicine, and fuel.

A leaked memo from a London hedge fund branded Trump’s approach “economic warfare” and blamed it for volatility in emerging market bonds. The firm warned clients that heavy U.S. sanctions on Venezuela could ripple across Latin America and hit commodities, shipping, and regional banks.

In Washington, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has joined the resistance. The powerful business group, often aligned with globalist interests, lobbied Congress last month to re-examine secondary sanctions. It cited estimates of about 200 billion dollars in lost or disrupted trade linked to U.S. measures on Venezuela, Iran, and Russia.

European institutions are also pushing back. Banks stung by EU-aligned sanctions regimes have launched legal challenges against OFAC, arguing that Washington is reaching beyond its legal powers. Lawyers for one group of lenders claim that blocking Venezuelan gold sales, which they value at around 2 billion dollars a year, has hit diaspora communities and refugees harder than cartel bosses.

Political tensions mirror these arguments. In the U.S. Senate, Democrats such as Tim Kaine have condemned Trump’s recent pardon of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández. Hernández is a convicted trafficker accused of allowing Venezuelan and Colombian coke flights to cross his territory. Kaine called the pardon “unconscionable hypocrisy,” given Trump’s rhetoric on drugs.

Republicans like Marco Rubio, by contrast, have embraced the new escalation. Rubio links Maduro’s alleged narco activities directly to the U.S. migration crisis. “Maduro’s narcos fund the invasion at our gates,” he declared on Fox News, without mentioning that banks sanctioned in past years for handling cartel money, such as HSBC, profited from those same flows.

For critics of both Trump and the financial elite, this is the real battlefield. It is less about one Latin American strongman and more about the powerful institutions that profit from instability and smuggling.

“The strikes are theatre,” says Dr Laura Grayson, a Georgetown University economist who studies illicit finance. “The sanctions are the scalpel, cutting out the bankers’ share.”

Grayson cites a 2025 Government Accountability Office report that reviewed U.S. cases of Venezuelan money laundering. The review found 35 convictions over several years, but only after billions had already moved through the system.

A London trader, speaking anonymously, put it in blunt terms. “Trump is not draining the swamp,” he said. “He is dragging our filth into the light and throwing it back at us.”

Collateral Damage: A Region on Edge

The consequences go far beyond executive suites and trading floors. Across Venezuela, sanctions and economic collapse have driven the humanitarian disaster even deeper.

Roughly 7.9 million people now need food or medical aid, according to aid groups. Inflation sits around 200 per cent. Fuel shortages have crippled transport and public services. Hospitals struggle to secure basic supplies.

Maduro, facing both internal dissent and external pressure, has responded with defiance. His government courts Russian and Iranian support and has hinted at seeking advanced missile systems as a deterrent. Officials in Caracas brand the U.S. campaign an “imperialist blockade” and blame it for all of Venezuela’s troubles, ignoring years of mismanagement and corruption.

Nearby Caribbean states feel exposed. Countries like Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Curaçao brace for more refugee arrivals as Venezuelans take to the sea in unsafe boats. Local economies that relied on trade with Venezuela or PDVSA-linked activity are scrambling to adjust.

In the United States, the stakes are measured in lives lost to synthetic drugs. Fentanyl overdoses killed around 100,000 Americans last year. Investigators trace a growing share of the supply chain back to networks that pass through Venezuela and link up with Chinese chemical brokers and Mexican cartels.

If the naval strikes and sanctions keep biting, the volume of poison entering the country may fall. That is the hope among some law enforcement officials and community leaders in struggling areas, from small towns in Ohio to city districts in Los Angeles. Yet no one expects the cartels to give up easily. They constantly test new routes, new chemicals, and new financial workarounds.

As the USS Gerald R. Ford prepares for more sorties and OFAC lawyers draft fresh designation lists, one uncomfortable fact remains. In the global drug economy, the most powerful cartels often sit in corner offices, not jungle camps.

Trump’s offensive may weaken Maduro or even contribute to a change of regime in Caracas. Any lasting shift, however, will depend on whether regulators and prosecutors are willing to hit the financiers who made fortunes from laundering narco profits.

If that happens, the biggest losers in this phase of the drug war may not be the street-level traffickers or even the generals in Caracas. It may be the bankers and brokers who assumed they could profit from dirty money forever, with no real consequences.

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Hegseth Calls WaPo Report on Venezuela Drug Boat Complete “Fake News”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a fierce burst of social media posts that has echoed from Pentagon corridors to cafés in Caracas, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has dismissed a major Washington Post investigation as “fake news”. He is standing by a disputed U.S. military strike on a suspected Venezuelan drug-smuggling speedboat, calling it a lawful act of self-defence against narco-terrorists.

The Post report claims Hegseth gave a verbal order to “kill everybody” on the vessel. The allegation has thrown the Trump administration into a fresh partisan clash. Democrats are talking impeachment, while conservative media figures accuse major outlets of teaming up to destroy Hegseth’s reputation.

As deaths linked to Operation Southern Spear rise past 80, the incident has deepened a bitter divide. Supporters praise the strikes as a hard-hitting move against cartels that flood American cities with cocaine and fentanyl. Opponents call them extrajudicial killings that skirt the line of war crimes.

The storm broke on 29 November, when The Washington Post released a detailed reconstruction of a 2 September strike in international waters off Venezuela. Citing unnamed officials inside Special Operations Command (SOCOM), the story says an initial drone-launched missile barrage tore apart a 40‑foot go-fast boat, killed nine suspected traffickers, and scattered wreckage across the Caribbean.

Drone feeds then showed two survivors clinging to burning debris, with one allegedly calling cartel allies for help over a radio. The Post says SOCOM chief Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley then ordered a second “tap” strike, meant to reflect Hegseth’s reported pre-mission demand to “eliminate all threats without mercy”.

According to the article, the follow-up hit, carried out with precision-guided weapons, wiped out the last survivors and guaranteed there were no witnesses left to recover an estimated 50 million dollars of cocaine bound for the United States.

Hegseth, a former Fox News host turned hard-line cabinet figure, moved quickly to tear into that account. In a flurry of posts on X that drew millions of views, he accused the Post of pushing “fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting” aimed at “discrediting our incredible warriors”.

“The strikes on these narco-boats are in compliance with the law of armed conflict, and approved by the best military and civilian lawyers up and down the chain of command,” Hegseth wrote, attaching grainy drone video of the boat exploding in flames. “The declared intent is to stop lethal drugs, destroy narco-boats, and kill the narco-terrorists who are poisoning the American people. Fake news will not stop us from protecting the homeland.”

President Donald J. Trump then reinforced Hegseth’s defence from the White House podium.

“I believe Pete 100%,” Trump said on 1 December, standing beside a row of stone-faced generals. “These are bad hombres bringing death to our kids. The second strike? I would not have wanted it, but Pete says he did not order it, and that is good enough for me.”

The president’s backing, delivered in his usual mix of swagger and deflection, has only fed claims of a cover-up. A handful of Republicans are now quietly requesting full, unedited footage of the incident.

A Legal Balancing Act: War, Policing, or Assassination?

At the core of the clash sits a knotty legal issue: can U.S. forces legally bomb civilian-flagged vessels in peacetime waters and call it counter-narcotics? The Trump administration says yes, according to a classified Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memo that has been shown to selected congressional staff. The argument rests on a new reading of international law.

By labelling major Venezuelan and Colombian cartels as “foreign terrorist organisations” (FTOs), in an executive order signed by Trump on 20 January, the White House claims the strikes are a form of “collective self-defence” in support of partners like Colombia and Mexico that are fighting those groups.

The OLC opinion, which cites the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Law of War Manual, argues that drug profits bankroll armed attacks by cartels on security forces in the region. This, it says, allows the United States to treat cartel members at sea as “unlawful combatants” and use lethal force against them.

“This is not law enforcement, it is warfare,” a senior Pentagon official told reporters off the record. “We are cutting off their war chest, 50 million dollars per boat, before it hits our streets.”

So far, Operation Southern Spear has destroyed 22 vessels, mostly Venezuelan speedboats packed with cocaine, in a campaign that began quietly in July and ramped up after Trump branded the “Cartel of the Suns”, a Venezuelan military-linked network, as terrorists.

Civil liberties groups and legal academics reject this approach as a “dangerous sweep” that erases the boundary between counterterrorism and the long-running “war on drugs”.

“There is very little public evidence that cartels are running an ‘armed conflict’ funded by cocaine, instead of the drug trade feeding existing criminal violence,” said Sarah Knuckey, a human rights lawyer at Columbia University. “Bombing survivors breaches the Conventions’ protections for the wounded. This is not self-defence, it is summary execution.”

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a long-time Trump adversary, has condemned the strikes as “state terrorism”. He has ordered extra coastal patrols and warned of retaliation against U.S. interests in the region.

Unease has also surfaced inside the U.S. military. In closed sessions on Capitol Hill last week, Adm. Bradley told lawmakers the second strike was aimed at the wreckage to stop cartel reinforcements from recovering cargo or equipment, not at the surviving men as such.

Members of Congress saw an unedited video that showed the two survivors trying to flip floating debris in an effort to right what was left of the vessel. Interpretations split along party lines.

“I saw two narcos trying to stay in the fight,” said Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chair of the House Armed Services Committee. “Hegseth’s hands are clean.”

Big Media on the Attack: Personal Crusade Against Hegseth?

Within hours of the Post story going live, a wave of major outlets joined in, turning Hegseth’s conduct into headline material.

CNN ran a prime-time special, “Targeted: The Hunt for Truth in the Caribbean”, complete with animated reconstructions of the alleged double-tap strike and former Obama officials calling it “a war crime in slow motion”.

The New York Times followed with a front-page article on Hegseth’s “Signalgate” mess, a March incident where he shared details of Yemen airstrikes in a Signal chat that mistakenly included The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg. The piece claimed this fit a wider pattern of “reckless command”.

On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow joked, “If this is Trump’s idea of draining the swamp, he is flooding it with napalm.”

Right-leaning commentators see a plot.

“The MSM is working overtime to take down Pete Hegseth because he dares to fight back against the deep state and the cartels they coddle,” complained Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Fox & Friends.

Hegseth has embraced that narrative. He posted a meme of Franklin the Turtle, the children’s book character, firing an RPG at cartoon drug runners, captioned: “When fake news attacks, we target the terrorists.” Trump liked the post, which gained 2.7 million interactions and kicked off a viral #StandWithHegseth campaign among his base.

Critics say this media surge is less about facts and more about weakening Trump’s national security inner circle as he shifts to a more aggressive foreign policy.

Hegseth, confirmed in January on a narrow 51-49 Senate vote after harsh hearings over his lack of combat service, has long drawn fire. His on-air blasts against “woke” Pentagon policies and his push for a “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) upset many Washington insiders.

Now his supporters say the press is trying to sink him just as the strikes begin to show results. U.S. Customs reports a 15% drop in Caribbean fentanyl seizures, which officials partly credit to Southern Spear. Opponents counter that media scrutiny is overdue for a man they see as reckless.

Impeachment Gambit: Are Democrats Overreaching to Hit Trump?

Democrats were quick to answer with their own move. On 4 December, Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.), an Indian-American businessman turned outspoken progressive, filed two articles of impeachment against Hegseth.

The first accuses him of “murder and conspiracy to murder” in relation to the boat strikes. The second charge, “reckless and unlawful mishandling of classified information” over Signalgate.

“War crimes have been committed,” Thanedar told a crowd at a Union Station rally, standing beside activists holding placards reading “Hegseth = War Criminal”. “He is unfit, putting our troops at risk so he can play cowboy for Trump.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has kept his distance, calling the effort “procedurally hopeless” in a chamber under Republican control. Even so, the move has fired up the party’s left flank.

Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have called for formal hearings. “If Republicans will not act, we must,” Warren wrote on X. “Defending due process is not weakness, it is America.”

Republicans scoff at the charges. They see a stunt aimed at tarnishing Trump by targeting one of his most loyal lieutenants.

“Democrats are willing to shield narco-traffickers if it means taking down the Trump administration,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said. “They blocked serious border security for years, now they are impeaching the guy finally fighting back.”

Republican strategists note that Thanedar once filed an impeachment bid against Trump over immigration enforcement, which went nowhere.

“This is theatre,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). “While kids overdose in Ohio, Democrats defend Venezuelan thugs.”

The impeachment drive is unlikely to move past the committee stage, but it highlights rifts inside the Democratic Party. Grassroots progressives want strong action against what they call war crimes. Moderates fear alienating swing voters worn down by the opioid wave.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll in mid-November found just 29% of Americans support extrajudicial killings of suspected traffickers, with 51% opposed, a clear rejection of Trump’s most aggressive stance. Yet when the issue is framed as “stopping cartels”, support jumps to 58% among Republicans and 42% overall, according to a Politico/Morning Consult survey.

Public Mood: Voters Back Trump’s Crackdown on Cartels

While Washington trades accusations, public opinion appears to lean towards the core goal of the operation, crushing the cartels behind the fentanyl surge that killed 112,000 Americans last year.

A Gallup poll released on 3 December reported 70% approval for Trump’s “aggressive action against drug smugglers”. Among independents, 72% agreed the United States must “do whatever it takes” to limit the flow of hard drugs.

Focus groups in Ohio, West Virginia, Arizona, and other states hit hard by opioids voiced similar views.

“My nephew died from that poison,” said Maria Gonzalez, 52, a nurse from Phoenix. “If bombing boats saves one kid, I am all in.”

This support gives Trump cover for his 2024 promise to treat cartels as terrorists and use the military against them, a pledge he has now acted on through Southern Spear.

Even in Latino-majority districts, backing is stronger than many Democrats expected. A Univision poll found 55% of Hispanic voters favour the operations, up from 48% before the election. Many respondents praised Trump for tackling border chaos without putting U.S. ground troops into large-scale conflicts.

“He is hitting them where it hurts, at sea,” said Javier Ruiz, a Miami lorry driver whose cousin runs a rehab centre. “Democrats talked reform, Trump delivers results.”

Sceptics warn that the picture is more complex. Security experts like Jake Braun, a former Homeland Security counter-fentanyl lead, say most of the targets so far are low-level couriers, not cartel leaders. That could drive prices up and spark more violence.

“We are swatting flies while the elephants roam free in Mexico,” Braun said.

Venezuelan officials report civilian deaths, including fishermen mistaken for smugglers, and threaten to take complaints to the United Nations. For now, though, the numbers help the White House message. Officials highlight a 20% rise in seized cocaine and an 8% drop in overdose-related A&E visits in areas tied to pilot programmes.

Hegseth’s Future: Under Fire, but Digging In

As inquiries gather pace, with the House Armed Services Committee promising a “full accounting” before year-end, Hegseth has gone on the offensive.

In a 5 December Wall Street Journal op-ed, he blasted what he called “elite outrage” from “coastal scribes who sip lattes while our heartland bleeds”.

His allies, including Vice President J.D. Vance, predict he will be cleared. “Pete is the tip of the spear, the media is just angry we are winning,” Vance said.

For Democrats, the impeachment attempt is a risky move. A win could wound Trump and cast doubt on his security record. A loss would feed Republican claims that Democrats care more about the rights of cartel suspects than about families torn apart by overdoses.

As one Capitol Hill aide put it, “They are going after narco strikes to hurt a Fox guy, good luck selling that in swing districts.”

In the end, the Venezuela boat incident is about more than a single strike or one defence secretary. It has become a test of how far America is willing to go in its drug war. Do leaders bomb first and argue law later, or keep the fight inside courts that are already stretched and infiltrated by cartel money?

Trump is already hinting at a broader campaign, with quiet talk of strikes on airfields in Venezuela.

For parents who have buried children lost to fentanyl, Hegseth’s “fake news” blast sounds like justified anger at a press they see as out of touch. For the dead men who clung to wreckage in the Caribbean, and for others caught in the crossfire, it feels like a stark example of unchecked power at sea.

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House Republicans Continue to Back Mike Johnson as Speaker

WASHINGTON D.C. – House Republicans insist that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is secure in his role, at least for now, even after a bruising week of public infighting, stalled bills, and raw internal anger.

Members from across the conference, from moderates to hardliners, are openly criticising their own leadership, launching procedural moves that chip away at the Louisiana Republicans’ already fragile grip on a thin majority.

The rising tension reflects a nervous House GOP, staring at narrow margins and the real risk of losing seats in the next election. That fragile backdrop increases the strain on Johnson, who must deal with a restless conference while trying to manage sensitive talks with the Senate, especially with Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.).

Fading Discipline: Public Bust-Ups And Discharge Petitions

The internal strains in the Republican majority have become impossible to ignore, raising fresh doubts about Johnson’s control over his colleagues. A speaker’s power is usually measured by control over the floor schedule and party message. On both, Johnson appears to be slipping.

One of the most damaging rows featured Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), a member of Johnson’s own leadership team. The dispute was over a national security measure she backed for the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). When the provision was left out, Stefanik went public, using social media and interviews to accuse Johnson of lying and running a “rudderless” operation.

The clause was later reinserted after outside pressure, reportedly following a call involving former President Donald Trump. Even though the policy win was restored, the episode showed that senior Republicans are willing to condemn the Speaker in public and put him on the spot.

Beyond insults and public swipes, the growing use of the discharge petition as a key tactic shows a deeper breakdown in Johnson’s authority. A discharge petition lets a majority of House members (218) force a bill to the floor, going around the Speaker and the committee process. For decades, that move was rare and seen as a blunt act of rebellion against party leaders. Now it is becoming a go-to tool for restless Republicans.

• A high-profile petition to force the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files succeeded and secured a vote.
• Another petition to bar members of Congress from trading stock, led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and backed by lawmakers such as Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), is picking up support.

As Mace has pointed out, relying on discharge petitions signals deep frustration inside the party. It lets individual MPs drive the agenda and robs the Speaker of the usual power to control which bills move, or to protect colleagues from politically risky votes.

Mike Johnson’s Tense Partnership With Senate Majority Leader Thune

While dealing with a rebellious House, Johnson also faces trouble across the Capitol in his dealings with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.). Their clashes show the different pressures on each chamber. The House is pushed by more ideological politics and rapid demands from the base. The Senate puts more weight on process, cross-party alliances, and longer-term stability.

A recent example is the fight over the MEGOBARI Act, a bipartisan House bill that would put sanctions on Georgian government officials. The House backed the measure by a wide margin, but it stalled in the Senate. Johnson personally urged Thune to fold the sanctions into the annual NDAA, a must-pass defence package.

Thune refused and blocked the request. He cited objections from Republican senators who favour a softer, more incentive-based approach with the Georgian government, rather than immediate sanctions.

Aides say Thune responded with a simple “flat no”. That response underlines the limits of Johnson’s reach outside his own chamber. For a Speaker already struggling to keep his conference together, a failure to move House priorities through a Senate run by his own party adds to the image of a weakened leader. It was also the second time Thune had stood in the way of adding the MEGOBARI Act to major legislation, highlighting a clear gap between the two men’s legislative strategies.

Safe For Now, But Far From Secure

Most House Republicans say Johnson’s gavel is safe for now, but their reasons are more about fear than loyalty. The memory of the chaotic, weeks-long scramble to replace former Speaker Kevin McCarthy still haunts the conference. Few members, even among Johnson’s harshest critics, seem ready to repeat that spectacle with an election year fast approaching.

Security, however, is very different from stability. Johnson is boxed in on almost every side. He has to keep conservative hardliners on board, since they can topple his majority and his speakership, while also passing bills to avoid a government shutdown and keeping working ties with the Senate and the White House.

Members continue to air their grievances in public, sign on to discharge petitions, and force blow-up fights over key bills. All of these points point to a majority that struggles to function. Johnson has urged colleagues to bring complaints to him privately, but many now ignore that request. They are more focused on their own campaigns and seats than on presenting a united front.

The Speaker is racing to advance major measures, such as the Pentagon funding bill and a long-promised health care package. Those efforts will be the next big tests of his authority. With his power under constant strain and key legislative routes slipping out of his control, Mike Johnson’s future as Speaker may depend less on affection inside the GOP and more on whether he can keep this fractious majority just steady enough to reach the next election.

For those interested in his wider outlook, there is an interview with Speaker Johnson on threats to the US-led world order here: Speaker Mike Johnson on the Threats to the US-led World Order. The video sheds light on his views on foreign policy and global security, which shape much of his approach to legislation.