Trump Officials

• President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order imposing targeted sanctions on several Cuban regime officials and entities the administration alleges have supported repression and human‑rights abuses. • The White House says the action sends a message of solidarity with Cuban dissidents and complements broader efforts to pressure authoritarian regimes in Latin America. • Critics in Congress, including some Democrats and even a few Republicans, argue the move could backfire by tightening U.S. leverage ahead of upcoming negotiations on migration and regional security.

Discussions reportedly come after Trump’s decision to stop initiative that allowed group to apply to resettle in the USThe Trump administration is in discussions to potentially send up to 1,100 Afghans who helped US forces during the war in Afghanistan to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a non-profit confirmed on Tuesday.The resettlement talks, first reported by the New York Times, come after Donald Trump’s decision to stop an initiative that allowed Afghans who assisted US war efforts to apply to resettle in the US. Continue reading...

US calls free-market capitalism ‘surest path to prosperity’ and seeks to forgo direct aid to developing countriesMiddle East crisis – live updatesThe Trump administration has moved to formally enlist foreign governments in a sweeping reorientation of global development policy, directing American diplomats worldwide to seek official support for a “trade over aid” declaration before its introduction at the United Nations later this month. This would mean a move away from direct aid to poor nations in favor of increased trade, led by private companies.Principal deputy spokesperson at the state department Tommy Pigott confirmed the initiative on Wednesday, framing it as a rejection of what he called a failed aid model. “The idea that trade and free market capitalism is the surest path to prosperity has been proven by the facts and by history,” Pigott said, adding that those calling for “aid not trade” were “really arguing for lining the pockets of a corrupt NGO industrial complex”. Continue reading...

US National Park Service lawyers cite materials that will be installed to make ‘heavily fortified’ facilityDonald Trump’s administration is arguing that a judge’s order to halt construction of a $400m White House ballroom creates a security risk for the US president as his team asks a federal appeals court to pause the ruling.In a motion filed on Friday, US National Park Service (NPS) lawyers say that the federal judge’s order to suspend construction of the new facility is “threatening grave national-security harms to the White House, the president and his family, and the president’s staff”. Continue reading...

Removal of Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez after arrest during green-card appointment decried as ‘flagrant violation’ of legal rightsA federal judge ordered the Trump administration to return a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) to the United States, ruling that her deportation to Mexico last month was a “flagrant violation” of the legal protections afforded to immigrants who arrived in the country as children.Judge Dena Coggins said in her Monday ruling the administration must return Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez, a Daca recipient, to the United States within seven days. She was arrested on 18 February in Sacramento during her green-card appointment, and was deported to Mexico the next day. Continue reading...

Alexandria airport center would hold migrant families and children inside converted barracks before deportationThe Trump administration is poised to expand immigration detention operations at a controversial site inside a rural Louisiana airport, the Guardian has learned.The administration is seeking to establish a “first of its kind” short-term facility that would hold migrant families and unaccompanied children next to a runway that has become a central node for the White House’s mass deportation agenda. Continue reading...

Negotiations aimed to ‘find solutions to the bilateral differences’ between the countries, Miguel Díaz-Canel saidCuban officials have held talks with the US government, the country’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, confirmed on Friday, amid growing pain inflicted by a punishing US fuel blockade and frequent power failures.“These talks have been aimed at finding solutions through dialogue to the bilateral differences we have between the two nations,” Díaz-Canel said in a prerecorded statement to senior Communist officials. Continue reading...