Update: Two federal officers discharged their weapons during the fatal encounter that culminated in the death of an American citizen Saturday in Minneapolis, several news outlets, including the
Associated Press,
reported Tuesday. Bystander videos collected during the confrontation suggested as much, but the detail was formally submitted in accordance with a law mandating congressional notification within 72 hours of a person’s death while in Customs and Border Protection custody.
CBP’s notification does not mention the deceased citizen “attacking officers or threatening them with a weapon—as the administration first described the incident,” NPR reports. This is notable because Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was quick to describe the victim Alex Pretti and his actions Saturday as “domestic terrorism,” and claimed he was “attacking” officers and “brandishing” a weapon before they shot him 10 times. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller also described Pretti as a “would-be-assassin” and a “domestic terrorist.”
Part of a pattern: “In six violent encounters, evidence contradicts Trump immigration officials' narratives,” Reuters reported in a special analysis Tuesday spanning events in Minneapolis, Chicago and Texas.
Why it matters: “Every minor inconsistency adds up, and at some point, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to believe almost anything” immigration officials say, U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis said in November after Homeland Security officials claimed on social media that Border Patrol commander-at-large Gregory Bovino was hit with a rock by a protester. Five days later in court, Bovino admitted it “almost” hit him.
Trump on Bovino: “He's a pretty out-there kind of a guy” and “maybe it wasn't good” to send him to Minneapolis, the president told Will Cain of Fox Tuesday. He also said taking Bovino out of Minneapolis is not a “pull back” of deportation operations there; rather “it's a little bit of a change,” he said.
Trump also claimed “these are paid insurrectionists” in Minneapolis, without providing evidence for the allegation. He also said he was pleased that inflation and affordability are not in the headlines at the moment.
Meanwhile in Minneapolis, a man sprayed a frequent target of Trump’s criticism, Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, with a foul-smelling liquid during a town hall event Tuesday, which did not harm the lawmaker. Police quickly arrested the man and charged him with third-degree assault. Reuters has more.
Trump’s response: “I don't think about her. I think she's a fraud. I really don't think about that. She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her.”
In case you missed it: A Latino congressman from Florida was punched in a “racist attack” in Utah Friday night, the Guardian reports. The attacker shouted, “We are going to deport you” before striking Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost at the Sundance film festival, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.
By the way, the Trump administration’s social-media output echoes white-supremacist messaging, the New York Times reported Tuesday. That includes “a flurry of posts” from the White House, Department of Labor and Department of Homeland Security featuring “images, slogans and even a song used by the white nationalist right.”
- A similar warning was issued by the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention in a statement on Sunday.
An ICE agent tried to enter the Ecuador embassy in Minneapolis on Tuesday, which is not allowed as embassies are viewed as sovereign territory and protected under diplomatic immunity. An eyewitness told Reuters, “I saw the officers going after two people in the street, and then those people went into the consulate and the officers tried to go in after them.” The incident triggered Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry to send a “note of protest” to their U.S. counterparts in Quito.
Developing: The U.S. is sending an ICE unit to Italy for the Winter Olympics, and the decision has already “set off concern and confusion” across the Atlantic, the Associated Press reported Tuesday from Milan.
The opening ceremony is slated for next Friday, Feb. 6. The U.S. forces attending are part of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit, which has often assisted with security at Olympics abroad. “Agents from HSI conduct investigations into anything that has a cross-border nexus from human smuggling to fentanyl trafficking to smuggling of cultural artifacts,” AP explains. Its agents “are stationed in embassies around the world to facilitate their investigations and build relations with local law enforcement in those countries.”
The HSI personnel are separate from ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations forces patrolling American streets and arresting alleged immigrants. “That distinction, however, wasn’t immediately clear to local media Tuesday,” AP reports. That concern followed a “news report that aired Sunday showing an Italian news crew being threatened in Minneapolis by ICE agents.” More, here.
Italy and many of America’s European allies acknowledge they are often in a precarious position when it comes to pushing back against certain unilateral decisions from the Trump administration, as Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni said last week in the wake of Trump’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. At that event, Trump announced he wanted to make Greenland a U.S. territory—but said he won’t use military force to do it—and again criticized many NATO members for not spending 5% of their GDP on their militaries. After discussions with Trump last week, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte seems to have satisfied Trump’s Greenland concerns for now.
Meloni was asked for her opinion about Italians possibly “taking our distance” from Trump’s recent rhetoric of annexation and disdain for European defense spending before she replied rhetorically, “So what should Europe do then—shut down American bases, tear up trade deals, boycott McDonalds?”
To be clear, “The guiding pillars of our foreign policy are the EU and the Atlantic alliance,” Meloni said. “Of course, I don’t always agree with everything my allies say. The interests of nations don’t always perfectly overlap.” Still, “I think international law must be fully defended,” she said, and added, “But I don’t understand what you’re asking when you say Italy must distance itself from the United States.”
Developing: Trump’s tariff threats seem to be motivating Europe to finalize a trade deal with India that began 19 years ago, the Financial Times reported Tuesday. “India and the EU will also unveil a defence pact that Brussels hopes will tilt India away from its close ties to Russia,” though it’s unclear just yet precisely what’s included in the details of that agreement.
For what it’s worth: “The EU is India’s largest trading partner in goods, with bilateral trade worth about $136bn in the year to the end of March 2025,” FT reports, citing statistics from the Indian government.
Bigger picture: The deal “is being finalised at a time of rising protectionism, geopolitical fragmentation and growing use of trade as a strategic tool,” Ajay Srivastava of the Global Trade Research Initiative told FT.
Those points were dominant themes in last week’s address at Davos by Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney. And while he never mentioned Trump by name, the U.S. president took offense to Carney’s message of solidarity for the world’s “middle powers” and issued a thinly-veiled threat the following day, saying, “They should be grateful to us, Canada. Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.”
Carney, on Tuesday: “I meant what I said in Davos,” the prime minister replied when asked if he dialed down his rhetoric from last week in a phone call with Trump on Monday. “Canada was the first country to understand the change in U.S. trade policy that he had initiated, and we’re responding to that,” Carney said.
Related reading:
Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter focused on developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. It’s more important than ever to stay informed, so we’d like to take a moment to thank you for reading. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds into its flight, killing Navy Cmdr. Michael Smith and six other crew members.
Gunboat diplomacy continues
Rubio threatens Venezuelan leaders: “We are prepared to use force to ensure maximum cooperation if other methods fail.” In an opening statement released ahead of his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote, “We will closely monitor the performance of the interim authorities as they cooperate with our stage-based plan to restore stability to Venezuela.”
Delcy Rodríguez “is well aware of the fate of Maduro,” Rubio wrote. “She has committed to opening Venezuela’s energy sector to American companies, providing preferential access to production, and using revenues to purchase American goods. She has pledged to end Venezuela’s oil lifeline to the Cuban regime and to pursue national reconciliation with Venezuelans at home and abroad.”
Rodríguez: The U.S. threatened to kill Venezuelan leaders if they did not cooperate after American troops captured President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3, The Guardian reported Friday after “her remarks appear[ed] in a leaked recording of the nearly two-hour meeting that was held in Venezuela seven days after the US attack.”
ICYMI: The U.S. military conducted another airstrike in another alleged drug-trafficking boat off the coast of Latin America. It happened Friday as “the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” military officials at Southern Command said in a press release.
The strike killed two more people and left one survivor, which it tasked Coast Guard forces with retrieving, SOUTHCOM said.
Update: The U.S. has killed at least 126 people over the course of 36 known strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the waters around Latin America since September. The U.S. attack on Caracas during the Jan. 3 abduction of killed nearly 80 others, including 32 from Cuba and 47 from Venezuela.
And U.S. troops have seized at least seven crude oil tankers allegedly linked to Venezuela since that operation began in December. The latest occurred last Tuesday with the apprehension of Motor Vessel Sagitta, according to SOUTHCOM.
Related reading:
Around the Defense Department
Trump’s national defense strategy is unlike anything that’s come before it, and may not be sustainable, according to experts who spoke to Defense One’s Meghann Myers. “I don't think it will be a lasting change,” said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “Right at the very beginning, they basically say they don't believe in a rules-based international order. And I don't think that there is a consensus in the United States about that.” Indeed, more than half of Americans recently surveyed on U.S. leadership abroad support more engagement rather than less, including more than 60 percent of Republicans. Read on, here.
CSIS’ Mark Cancian has posted his own analysis. “Many changes are indeed substantial, even radical, and reportedly received pushback from military leaders during the drafting process. Others, however, may not be as significant as they first appear, and there is some continuity with previous strategy documents. The document also constitutes a different reading experience, departing from the analytic tone of previous strategy documents and often adopting the tone of a political rally.” Read that, here.
Related reading:
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