President Donald Trump pushed back on Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Sunday after Petro’s regime refused to allow U.S. deportation flights to land in his country.

The U.S. had sent two flights of Colombian illegal aliens from the U.S. this weekend as part of Trump’s burgeoning deportation program. Petro argued on X that the U.S. cannot ‘treat Colombian migrants as criminals,’ leading to backlash from Trump.

‘I was just informed that two repatriation flights from the United States, with a large number of Illegal Criminals, were not allowed to land in Colombia. This order was given by Colombia’s Socialist President Gustavo Petro, who is already very unpopular amongst his people,’ Trump wrote on social media.

‘Petro’s denial of these flights has jeopardized the National Security and Public Safety of the United States, so I have directed my Administration to immediately take the following urgent and decisive retaliatory measures,’ Trump continued.

Trump’s says he has ordered a 25% tariff on all goods coming into the U.S. from Colombia, a tariff that will rise to 50% after one week. He also ordered a travel ban and Visa revocations for all Colombian government officials, including their ‘allies and supporters.’

He also ordered enhanced Customs and Border Protection (CBP) inspections of ‘all Colombian nationals and cargo.’

 
‘These measures are just the beginning. We will not allow the Colombian Government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the Criminals they forced into the United States!’ Trump warned.

A senior Trump administration official told Fox News Digital that the orders were a ‘clear message’ that countries have ‘an obligation to accept repatriation flights.’

Petro has yet to respond directly to Trump’s retaliation on Sunday. He initially condemned the migrant flights, however.

‘The US cannot treat Colombian migrants as criminals. I deny the entry of American planes carrying Colombian migrants into our territory. The United States must establish a protocol for the dignified treatment of migrants before we receive them,’ Petro wrote.

Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, has warned that the administration’s deportation program is just getting started. Officials are currently targeting illegal aliens who have committed violent crimes, but Homan says everyone who has entered the country illegally will soon be ‘on the table.’

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday announced the release of a U.S. citizen who had been imprisoned in Belarus as controversy looms over the Eastern European nation’s ongoing election. 

Crediting President Donald Trump’s leadership, Rubio said in a post on X that ‘Belarus just unilaterally released an innocent American, ANASTASSIA Nuhfer, who was taken under JOE BIDEN!’ 

Rubio added that Christopher Smith, State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for Eastern Europe and Policy and Regional Affairs, ‘from our team did a great job on this.’  

‘PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH,’ Rubio, who served 14 years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before he was sworn in as Trump’s new Secretary of State last week, wrote. 

No further information was immediately released about Nuhfer or her release, as some social media users marveled about not knowing an American had been jailed in Belarus during former President Joe Biden’s administration. 

Meanwhile, Belarus is holding its national election on Sunday. President Alexander Lukashenko, a loyalist of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, only faces token opposition and is expected to get another term on top of his three decades in power. 

Lukashenko’s more consequential opponents, many of whom are imprisoned or exiled abroad by his unrelenting crackdown on dissent and free speech, are calling the election a sham – much like the last one in 2020 that triggered months of protests that were unprecedented in the history of the country of 9 million people.

The crackdown saw more than 65,000 arrests, with thousands beaten, bringing condemnation and sanctions from the West, according to the Associated Press. 

The country holds nearly 1,300 political prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, founder of the Viasna Human Rights Center.

Since July, Lukashenko has pardoned more than 250 people. At the same time, authorities have sought to uproot dissent by arresting hundreds more in raids targeting relatives and friends of political prisoners.

Authorities detained 188 people last month alone, Viasna said. Activists and those who donated money to opposition groups have been summoned by police and forced to sign papers saying they were warned against participating in unsanctioned demonstrations, rights advocates said, according to the AP.

Opposition leader-in-exile Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled Belarus under government pressure after challenging the president in 2020, told the AP that Sunday’s election was ‘a senseless farce, a Lukashenko ritual.’

Voters should cross off everyone on the ballot, she said, and world leaders shouldn’t recognize the result from a country ‘where all independent media and opposition parties have been destroyed and prisons are filled by political prisoners.’

‘The repressions have become even more brutal as this vote without choice has approached, but Lukashenko acts as though hundreds of thousands of people are still standing outside his palace,’ she said.

The European Parliament urged the European Union to reject the election outcome. EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas called the vote ‘a blatant affront to democracy.’

Shortly after voting in Minsk on Sunday, Lukashenko told journalists that he did not seek recognition or approval from the EU.

‘The main thing for me is that Belarusians recognize these elections and that they end peacefully, as they began,’ he said.

Media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders filed a complaint against Lukashenko with the International Criminal Court over his crackdown on free speech that saw 397 journalists arrested since 2020. It said that 43 are in prison.

Two years after the demise of the Soviet Union, Lukashenko took office in 1994 and has earned the nickname of ‘Europe’s Last Dictator.’ His iron-fisted rule had been cemented through subsidies and political support from Russia, a close ally. 

He let Moscow use his territory to invade Ukraine in 2022, and even hosts some of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons, but he still campaigned with the slogan ‘Peace and security,’ arguing he has saved Belarus from being drawn into war.

‘It’s better to have a dictatorship like in Belarus than a democracy like Ukraine,’ Lukashenko said. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Two of President Donald Trump’s most vulnerable administration picks will get back-to-back confirmation hearings in the Senate this week. 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who Trump nominated to be Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), and former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, whom he selected to be Director of National Intelligence (DNI), will have committee confirmation hearings on Wednesday and Thursday. 

On Wednesday, Kennedy will have his first hearing with the Senate Finance Committee, who will eventually vote on whether to advance his nomination to the full Senate. He will have an additional hearing on Thursday with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), but that committee will not have a vote on the nomination. 

Gabbard’s hearing with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will take place Thursday morning. 

The two Trump picks were some of the more controversial administration selections. Both Kennedy and Gabbard are former Democrats with histories of policy positions that clash with what many Republican senators believe. 

At issue for lawmakers on both sides is Kennedy’s history of significant criticism of vaccines and vaccination programs. For some Republicans whose states have a large farming constituency, his positions on further regulating agriculture and food production have been cause for concern. 

Gabbard’s past policy stances as they relate to national security have given bipartisan lawmakers some reason for pause, since the role she is nominated for is critical to the nation’s safety and defense. 

Both of the nominees have taken steps to moderate themselves amid the confirmation process. Kennedy has pushed back on suggestions that he is ‘anti-vaccine’ and explained, ‘If vaccines are working for somebody, I’m not going to take them away.’

‘People ought to have choice, and that choice ought to be informed by the best information,’ he said in an interview with NBC News. ‘So I’m going to make sure scientific safety studies and efficacy are out there, and people can make individual assessments about whether that product is going to be good for them.’

Gabbard recently made a remarkable reversal on a controversial intelligence tool used by the government. And her choice to change her position on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s (FISA) section 702 managed to win her the backing of a Republican senator on the intel committee that she will need to advance out of. 

Recently asked whether her change of heart on section 702 had earned his vote, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said, ‘Yeah, I am, and that was a very important piece for me.’

While both nominees have gotten some necessary Republican backing in the relevant committees, not everyone has said whether they will vote to advance the selections. And even if they are voted out of the committees, they could still face an uphill battle to be confirmed by the full Senate. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio paused all U.S. foreign assistance funded by or through the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to allow the Trump administration to review if the money puts ‘America First.’

On Sunday, the State Department released a statement about falling in step with President Donald Trump’s executive order to reevaluate and realign foreign aid from the U.S.

‘Consistent with President Trump’s Executive Order on Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid, Secretary [Marco] Rubio has paused all U.S. foreign assistance funded by or through the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for review,’ the statement read. ‘He is initiating a review of all foreign assistance programs to ensure they are efficient and consistent with U.S. foreign policy under the America First agenda. President Trump stated clearly that the United States is no longer going to blindly dole out money with no return for the American people.’

The statement continued, saying the review and alignment of foreign assistance on behalf of taxpayers is a ‘moral imperative,’ adding that Rubio is proud to protect America’s investment ‘with a deliberate and judicious review’ of how the money is spent on aiding foreign countries overseas.

‘The implementation of this Executive Order and the Secretary’s direction furthers that mission,’ the statement read. ‘As Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said, ‘Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?’’

The announcement comes after the Trump administration ordered staffers with USAID to stop providing foreign aid worldwide or face ‘disciplinary action’ for not complying.

Reuters reported that the Trump administration sent a sharply-worded memo to more than 10,000 staff members at USAID on Saturday, offering a ‘stop-work’ directive from Friday that put a freeze on U.S. foreign aid around the world.

The wire service reviewed the memo and said it laid out expectations for the workforce on how to achieve Trump’s goals to put ‘America First.’

‘We have a responsibility to support the President in achieving his vision,’ Ken Jackson, assistant to the administrator for management and resources wrote in the internal memo, titled ‘Message and Expectation to the Workforce.’

‘The President has given us a tremendous opportunity to transform the way we approach foreign assistance for decades to come,’ the memo added. Reuters reported that it confirmed the authenticity of the memo with several sources.

Trump ordered a 90-day pause in foreign aid just hours after taking office, to review if the funding was in line with his foreign policy priorities.

On Friday, the State Department issued a pause on aid worldwide.

The U.S. is the largest donor of aid globally. During fiscal year 2023, the U.S. dispersed $72 billion in assistance. It also provided 42% of all humanitarian aid tracked by the United Nations in 2024.

Fox News Digital has reached out to USAID for comment.

Reuters contributed to this report.

House Republicans are flying down to South Florida this week for their annual issues conference, where President Donald Trump is expected to speak with lawmakers hashing out the GOP agenda for the next two years.

It’s another sign of the House GOP conference’s push for unity with Trump that the conference is being held at Trump National Doral, his golf course and resort near Miami.

‘He’s going to come and address the Republicans there, and we’re looking forward to that,’ Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., confirmed to reporters last week.

Trump has made no secret of his intent to keep a close eye on the Republican majorities in the House and Senate this year, particularly as they discuss how to use their numbers to pass a massive conservative policy overhaul via the budget reconciliation process.

By reducing the threshold for Senate passage from 60 votes to a 51-seat simple majority, reconciliation allows a party in control of both congressional chambers to enact sweeping changes, provided they’re relevant to budgetary and fiscal policy.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are also contending with the debt ceiling being reinstated this month after it was temporarily suspended in a bipartisan deal during the Trump administration.

And coming on March 14 is the deadline to avert a partial government shutdown, which Congress has extended twice since the end of the previous fiscal year on Oct. 1.

‘I think obviously everyone is ready to get to work,’ Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., told Fox News Digital. ‘With President Trump’s inauguration behind us, now we’re focused on the task at hand – everything from the border to the tax package, energy and defense and national security, and our debt. What we need to do over the next two years to really fulfill the agenda that we laid out for the American people.’

Lawler said he anticipated reconciliation would be a key focus of Trump’s remarks.

With razor-thin margins in the House and Senate, Republicans can afford few dissenters if they are going to get to the finish line. 

Lawler is one of several Republicans who have drawn red lines in the discussions, vowing not to vote for a reconciliation bill that does not lift state and local tax (SALT) deduction caps – limits that have put a strain on suburban districts outside major cities.

He was realistic about setting expectations for their short Florida trip but was optimistic Republicans would eventually come together.

‘I think we’re in the middle of the process and, you know, this is obviously not going to be resolved over these three days,’ Lawler said. ‘But this is, I think, an important opportunity for everyone to really sit down and spend their time going through a lot of these issues.’