The Trump administration announced Thursday it was easing sanctions on the Venezuelan oil industry, as the U.S. aims to ramp up production in the South American country following the capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro earlier this month.

The U.S. Treasury said it is authorizing transactions involving the government of Venezuela and state-owned oil company PdVSA that are ‘ordinarily incident and necessary to the lifting, exportation, reexportation, sale, resale, supply, storage, marketing, purchase, delivery, or transportation of Venezuelan-origin oil, including the refining of such oil, by an established U.S. entity.’

The new license includes significant carve-outs, with sanctions remaining fully intact for persons or entities in Russia, Iran, North Korea or Cuba.

It also excludes transactions with blocked vessels, Chinese-owned or controlled entities operating in Venezuela or the U.S., and debt swaps, gold payments, or cryptocurrency payments, including Venezuela’s petro.

The announcement came as President Donald Trump pushes for the expansion of oil production in Venezuela.

‘We have the major oil companies going to Venezuela now, scouting it out and picking their locations, and they’ll be bringing back tremendous wealth for Venezuela and for the United States and the oil companies will do fine too.’ Trump said during a cabinet meeting Thursday.

Trump also announced during the meeting that commercial airspace over Venezuela would reopen, after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released an emergency notice earlier this month blocking civil flight operations by U.S. aircraft over the South American country.

‘I just spoke to the president of Venezuela and informed her that we’re going to be opening up all commercial airspace over Venezuela,’ Trump said. ‘American citizens will be very shortly able to go to Venezuela, and they’ll be safe there and be safe. It’s under very strong control.’

 Earlier Thursday, Venezuela’s government approved opening the nation’s oil sector to privatization, with Acting President Delcy Rodríguez signing the reform into law — a move that reverses a core principle of the socialist movement that has ruled the country for more than two decades.

Fox News Digital’s Diana Stancy and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump warned the U.K. Thursday against strengthening ties with China, hours after Prime Minister Keir Starmer met President Xi Jinping in Beijing to reset relations after a long period of strain.

Trump’s remarks came as Starmer and Xi had called for a renewed ‘strategic partnership,’ highlighting the pressures facing them amid global instability.

Speaking to Fox News while traveling to Florida for the premiere of first lady Melania Trump’s documentary, Trump was asked about the U.K. ‘getting into business with China.’

‘Well, it’s very dangerous for them to do that,’ Trump said. ‘And it’s even more dangerous, I think, for Canada to get into business with China.’

Trump added that China was not the solution for Western economies despite his personal relationship with Xi. ‘I know China very well. I know President Xi is a friend of mine, and I know him very well, but that’s a big hurdle to get over,’ he said, before joking that Beijing might ban Canada from playing ice hockey. 

‘That’s not good. Canada’s not going to like that,’ he added. 

Trump had previously criticized Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney after Carney’s visit to China and warned then that ‘China will eat Canada alive.’

Trump’s latest comments followed an 80-minute meeting in Beijing between Starmer and Xi in which the leaders sought to thaw relations after several years of diplomatic chill.

The Associated Press reported that neither leader mentioned Trump directly in their discussions Thursday.

‘In the current turbulent and ever-changing international situation, China and the United Kingdom need to strengthen dialogue and cooperation to maintain world peace and stability,’ Xi told Starmer, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

Xi also warned that if major powers failed to uphold international law, the world risked sliding into a ‘jungle.’

Starmer said cooperation on climate change and global stability was ‘precisely what we should be doing,’ The Associated Press also reported.

The outlet also reported that Starmer described the meeting as ‘very productive,’ and mentioned progress on whisky tariffs, visa-free travel to China for British citizens and cooperation on migration.

As previously reported by Fox News Digital, Starmer sought Xi’s help to disrupt the supply of China-made small boat engines that the U.K. leader’s office says are used to smuggle people across the English Channel.

He also raised human rights concerns and the Iran nuclear program.

Starmer is the first British prime minister to visit China in eight years and the fourth U.S.-allied leader to do so this month, signaling a push by Beijing to re-engage Western partners.

The visit also came as the U.K. navigates trade alignment with the U.S., defense cooperation in Arctic regions and negotiations over the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands.

In November, the U.S. and China reached a deal easing some tariffs and export controls, boosting U.S. agricultural exports, curbing fentanyl precursor flows and relieving pressure on American semiconductor and shipping companies.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.

President Donald Trump on Thursday declared a national emergency via an executive order over Cuba, accusing the communist regime of aligning with hostile foreign powers and terrorist groups while moving to punish countries that supply the island nation with oil.

Thursday’s executive order states that the policies and actions of the Cuban government constitute ‘an unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.’

To address that threat, Trump ordered the creation of a tariff mechanism that allows the U.S. to impose additional duties on imports from foreign countries that ‘directly or indirectly sell or otherwise provide any oil to Cuba,’ according to the order.

The White House said the move marks a significant escalation in U.S. pressure on the Cuban government, aimed at protecting American national security and foreign policy interests.

In the order, Trump said Cuba aligns itself with and provides support for ‘numerous hostile countries, transnational terrorist groups, and malign actors adverse to the United States,’ naming Russia, China, Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah.

The administration said Cuba hosts Russia’s largest overseas signals intelligence facility, which the order states attempts to steal sensitive U.S. national security information. The order also says Cuba continues to deepen intelligence and defense cooperation with China.

According to the order, Cuba ‘welcomes transnational terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah and Hamas.’

Trump also cited the Cuban government’s human rights record, accusing the regime of persecuting and torturing political opponents, denying free speech and press freedoms, and retaliating against families of political prisoners who protest peacefully.

‘The United States has zero tolerance for the depredations of the communist Cuban regime,’ Trump said in the order, adding that the administration will act to hold the regime accountable while supporting the Cuban people’s aspirations for a free and democratic society.

Under the order, the Commerce Department will determine whether a foreign country is supplying oil to Cuba, either directly or through intermediaries. The State Department, working with Treasury, Homeland Security, Commerce and the U.S. Trade Representative, will decide whether and how steep the new tariffs should be if so.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is tasked with monitoring the national emergency and reporting to Congress, while the Commerce Department will continue tracking which countries are supplying oil to Cuba.

In a fact sheet, the White House said the order is designed to protect U.S. national security and foreign policy from the Cuban regime’s ‘malign actions and policies,’ and described the move as part of Trump’s broader effort to confront regimes that threaten American interests.

The administration said the action builds on Trump’s first-term Cuba policy, which reversed Obama-era engagement and reinstated tougher measures against the communist government.

The executive order is set to take effect Friday.

The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for additional comment.

President Donald Trump has filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, accusing the agency of unlawfully leaking his confidential tax returns in a politically motivated violation of federal privacy laws.

A spokesman for Trump’s legal team told Fox News ‘a rogue, politically motivated’ IRS employee disclosed private and confidential tax information involving Trump, his family and the Trump Organization to outlets, including The New York Times and ProPublica.

The suit claims the disclosures were illegal and harmed millions by violating federal privacy laws.

That contractor at the heart of the leak, Charles Littlejohn, pleaded guilty in October 2023 to a single felony count of unauthorized disclosure of tax return information and is serving a five-year prison sentence.

Littlejohn admitted to stealing and leaking Trump’s tax records to The New York Times and to disclosing confidential tax data involving wealthy individuals to ProPublica.

According to the lawsuit, Littlejohn testified in a 2024 deposition that the Trump materials he leaked included information on all of Trump’s business holdings.

As previously reported by Fox News Digital, Littlejohn refused to testify before Congress, invoking his Fifth Amendment rights while appealing his sentence.

According to a June 2025 Judiciary Committee press release, DOJ prosecutors said Littlejohn’s disclosures were ‘unprecedented in its scope and scale.’ 

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Last week, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth released the 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS), a Pentagon blueprint that elevates Israel as a ‘model ally’ and translates President Trump’s national security doctrine into concrete military policy.

‘Israel has long demonstrated that it is both willing and able to defend itself with critical but limited support from the United States. Israel is a model ally, and we have an opportunity now to further empower it to defend itself and promote our shared interests, building on President Trump’s historic efforts to secure peace in the Middle East,’ the NDS states.

The document is now influencing parallel debates over the future of U.S. security assistance to Israel and whether the next Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU, should continue delivering traditional U.S. military aid to Israel, amid dissenting voices that portray the alliance as a burden rather than a strategic asset.

According to the strategy, Israel proved its ability and willingness to defend itself following the Oct. 7 attacks, demonstrating that it is not a passive partner but an operational force that supports U.S. interests in the region. The strategy emphasizes empowering capable allies rather than constraining them, building on President Trump’s earlier push for regional integration through the Abraham Accords.

Jonathan Ruhe, director of foreign policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, said the strategy reflects a broader American shift toward partnerships that strengthen both U.S. security and domestic industry.

‘U.S. defense assistance to Israel in the MOU is spent in dollars here in America to support our industry,’ Ruhe told Fox News Digital. ‘And like in the national security strategy, it then enables Israel to go and do more to protect U.S. interests.’

He said a future agreement would likely extend beyond funding alone. ‘A new MOU would also likely be broader and include things that are more 50-50 partnership, like joint research and development, co-production, intelligence sharing and things like that to reflect the changing partnership going forward,’ Ruhe said.

The strategy also highlights the importance of revitalizing the American defense industrial base, noting that allies purchasing U.S. systems help strengthen domestic production while enabling partners to shoulder greater responsibility for regional security.

Avner Golov, vice president of the Israeli think tank Mind Israel, said the document makes clear that Israel is viewed not merely as a recipient of aid, ‘Israel is in the fight. We are protecting ourselves by ourselves. We just need the tools to do that. And by doing so, we enhance not only America’s standing in the Middle East, but also worldwide and contribute to the American economy.’

That framing comes as Israel and the United States prepare for negotiations over the next 10-year MOU, which governs U.S. military assistance to Israel. The current agreement, signed in 2016, provides $3.3 billion annually in foreign military financing, along with $500 million a year for missile defense cooperation.

The debate follows tensions during the Biden administration, when the White House paused the delivery of certain U.S. weapons to Israel in May 2024, including a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs. At the time, Netanyahu warned that Israel ‘will stand alone’ if Washington halted weapons deliveries, reflecting concern that limits or delays in U.S. military support could undermine Israel’s readiness and deterrence. 

Experts have noted that U.S. leaders have not always approved every Israeli weapons request and that roughly 70% of Israel’s military imports come from the United States, underscoring the strategic calculus behind Prime Minister Netanyahu’s recent push for greater independent production.

Golov criticized that approach, arguing it risks prioritizing optics over readiness. ‘I believe that is a short-term vision,’ Golov said. ‘In the long term, Israel must first be prepared for the next round of escalation. If we are not ready, we will face another war. If we are prepared, perhaps we can deter it.’

‘Israel must remain the strongest army in the region, and that is also a fundamental American interest,’ Golov said.

Ruhe said the debate reflects lessons learned from nearly two years of war. ‘You’ve got this sort of topsy-turvy world now where the Israelis are saying we don’t want to take any more U.S. money, and the Americans are saying, no, you’re going to take our money,’ he said.

According to Ruhe, the conflict exposed vulnerabilities created by heavy dependence on U.S. supply chains and political delays.

‘The war of the last two years showed that Israel can’t afford to be as dependent on the U.S. or continue to maintain the same defense partnership that it has because that creates a dependence,’ he said. ‘Israel becomes vulnerable to U.S. shortages in weapons output or politically motivated embargoes and holdups that can impact Israel’s readiness.’

At the same time, Ruhe noted that Israel remains reliant on the United States for major platforms.

‘Even Israel will say we’re utterly dependent on the U.S. for those big-ticket platforms,’ he said, pointing to aircraft such as the F-15 and F-35 that Israel has already committed to purchasing.

For that reason, Ruhe argued that maintaining stable funding under the next MOU may be the most practical path forward.

‘It’s actually much easier for Congress just to go ahead and approve that money,’ he said, explaining that predictable funding reduces annual political battles on Capitol Hill.

Golov said Israel’s long-term objective should not be reducing ties with Washington, but deepening them. ‘I don’t want to reduce dependency,’ he said. ‘I want to increase contribution to America.’

He described the emerging vision as a fundamental shift in how the alliance is structured. ‘We are moving from a 20th-century aid model to a 21st-century strategic merger,’ Golov said. ‘Israel is the only partner that delivers a 400% return on investment without asking for a single American soldier.’

Golov said the proposed framework is built around three pillars: an industrial defense ecosystem, a joint technology ecosystem and a regional ecosystem connecting Israeli innovation, Gulf infrastructure and American power.

He emphasized that maintaining U.S. security assistance during the transition period is critical.

‘We need a final ten-year ‘bridge’ with the current security aid MOU,’ Golov said. ‘A sudden cut would be a dangerous signal of American retreat to our enemies and may hinder IDF preparedness.’

‘I don’t know who the next president of the United States will be,’ he added. ‘This is where our enemies can read it in a very dangerous way.’