National security council investigating after Trump administration accidentally texted journalist top-secret Yemen war plans
Members of Congress and national security staffers have been left stunned after top Trump administration officials, including the vice-president and the defense secretary, discussed war plans on Signal – and mistakenly added a journalist to the group chat.
Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of the Atlantic, wrote:
The world found out shortly before 2pm eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen. I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44am. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing. This is going to require some explaining.
He goes on:
I had very strong doubts that this text group was real, because I could not believe that the national-security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans. I also could not believe that the national security adviser to the president would be so reckless as to include the editor in chief of The Atlantic in such discussions with senior US officials, up to and including the vice president.
The National Security Council confirmed it was real and said it was investigating. Democrats are already demanding hearings as concerns arise about the security of classified communications.
Democratic senator Jack Reed, the ranking member of the senate armed services committee, said in a statement:
If true, this story represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen. Military operations need to be handled with utmost discretion, using approved, secure lines of communication, because American lives are on the line. The carelessness shown by President Trump’s cabinet is stunning and dangerous. I will be seeking answers from the Administration immediately.
Democrat Pat Ryan an Army veteran who also sits on the armed services committee, wrote on X:
Only one word for this: FUBAR.
If House Republicans won’t hold a hearing on how this happened IMMEDIATELY, I’ll do it my damn self. pic.twitter.com/uGihDr5xZa
— Pat Ryan 🇺🇸 (@PatRyanUC) March 24, 2025
Marine veteran and Democratic Arizona senator Ruben Gallego said: “If I handled classified and sensitive information in this way when I was in the Marines … oh boy … ”
Amateur hour. These are the genuises that are also selling out Ukraine and destroying our alliances all around the world. No wonder Putin is embarrassing them at the negotiation table. https://t.co/I8qv0AMV31
— Ruben Gallego (@RubenGallego) March 24, 2025
Key events
Democratic National Committee calls on Pete Hegseth to resign or be fired
Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, has called on Pete Hegseth to resign or be fired from his position as defense secretary over the escalating scandal surrounding the administration’s accidental leak of classified military plans to a journalist.
Martin said in a statement late Monday:
Pete Hegseth was unfit to lead the Defense Department even before he risked our national security through his own sloppy handling of sensitive military information. Just like his boss Donald Trump, Hegseth – and everyone else involved – put on a stunning display of recklessness and disregard for our national security. Hegseth should resign, and if he doesn’t resign, he should be fired. It’s crystal clear that our men and women in uniform deserve better – and that our national security cannot be left in Hegseth’s incompetent and unqualified hands.
Martin’s comments follow a piece from Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of the Atlantic magazine, revealing that he was inadvertently added to a group chat of senior Trump administration officials discussing plans to bomb Houthi targets across Yemen. Goldberg, a prominent US journalist, remained on the chat on Signal, a private messaging app, apparently undetected.
The chat included Hegseth, vice-president JD Vance, secretary of state Marco Rubio and director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Goldberg said he was connected to the group via Michael Waltz, Trump’s national security advisor. The messages included sensitive policy discussions between Rubio and Hegseth. The National Security Council confirmed to the Atlantic that the group was authentic and said it was investigating how an “inadvertent number” was added.
A New York Times columnist also called on Hegseth to resign, and one critic noted that in 2023, Hegseth had sharply criticized Joe Biden for handling classified information “flippantly”, saying there should be “accountability … at the very top”.
A White House spokesperson said Trump “continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team, including national security adviser Mike Waltz”.
Hillary Clinton on leak scandal: ‘You have got to be kidding me’
Hillary Clinton, who faced widespread media scrutiny for using a private email server while serving as secretary of state, has commented on the Trump administration’s extraordinary leak of secretive war plans when officials accidentally included a prominent journalist on a group chat.
“You have got to be kidding me,” the 2016 Democratic nominee for president wrote on X. She shared a link to Atlantic story written by the magazine’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, which revealed he had been added to a group on Signal, a private messaging app, that included vice-president JD Vance, secretary of state Marco Rubio, secretary of defense Pete Hegseth and other major Trump administration figures discussing plans for airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Journalists and pundits have been comparing Clinton’s email scandal, which impacted her 2016 race against Trump, to the current breach. Some have shared 2016 comments by Marco Rubio, then a senator, in which he said Clinton should be “held accountable” and was not “above the law”.
Trump to nominate Susan Monarez for CDC director after abrupt withdrawal of first pick
Donald Trump will nominate Dr Susan Monarez, the acting director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to permanently lead the agency, the White House said on Monday.
The announcement came after the president earlier this month abruptly pulled the nomination for his first choice, David Weldon, a 71-year-old doctor and former Republican Florida congressman who was closely scrutinized for anti-vaccine views. Monarez has been acting director of the CDC since January and previously worked at the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, another federal agency, the AP reported.
The president said in a post on Monday: “As an incredible mother and dedicated public servant, Dr Monarez understands the importance of protecting our children, our communities, and our future … Americans have lost confidence in the CDC due to political bias and disastrous mismanagement.”
Judge blocks Trump’s removal of trans service members in another court victory for LGBTQ+ rights
A federal judge has ruled that the US government cannot remove two transgender men from the Air Force, the latest courtroom victory for LGBTQ+ rights advocates challenging Donald Trump’s executive order banning trans people from military service, the AP reports.
On Monday, Christine O’Hearn, a US judge in New Jersey, issued a two-week restraining order barring the enforcement of Trump’s policy on the impacted plaintiffs. O’Hearn’s ruling comes days after a similar ruling by a federal judge in Washington DC.
O’Hearn said the trans plaintiffs, Master Sgt Logan Ireland and Staff Sgt Nicholas Bear Bade, had shown that their removal from service would cause lasting damage to their careers and reputations, the AP reported. The judge said they were likely to prevail on equal protection grounds as they had been singled out due to their sex, and that the US could not justify the discriminatory treatment. The restraining order said, in part:
The loss of military service under the stigma of a policy that targets gender identity is not merely a loss of employment; it is a profound disruption of personal dignity, medical continuity, and public service.
Last week, Judge Ana Reyes of Washington DC sharply criticized Trump’s executive order, saying the ban on trans service members was “soaked in animus,” adding: “Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact.”
The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, subsequently mocked Reyes and subjected her to personal attacks.
Trump on the White House leak of Yemen plans: ‘I don’t know anything about it’
Donald Trump has now been asked about his cabinet members accidentally leaking war plans to an Atlantic journalist who was mistakenly copied on a Signal group chat.
“I don’t know anything about it,” he responded at a briefing, before criticizing the Atlantic as a magazine “going out of business”. The president reiterated that he was not aware of the story, saying: “You’re telling me about it for the first time.”
The use of Signal, a private commercial app, to discuss highly sensitive national security matters and war plans – and the undetected inclusion of a journalist – has sparked widespread, bipartisan outrage. More on the White House response from the Guardian’s Joseph Gedeon:
The White House confirmed the leak. National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes told the Guardian: ‘This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.’
But the White House attempted to defend the communications, with Hughes describing the messages as an example of ‘deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials’.
‘The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to troops or national security,’ Hughes said.
Outrage after Trump officials accidentally leak war plans to journalist: ‘A crime’
The White House’s shocking leak of secret military plans to a journalist, who was accidentally included in a group chat, has sparked widespread, bipartisan outrage.
The Atlantic magazine’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, revealed in a stunning story today that he had been inadvertently invited into a chat group on Signal, a private messaging app, that included vice-president JD Vance, secretary of state Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz, secretary of defense Pete Hegseth and other high-profile figures in Donald Trump’s administration. Goldberg was apparently undetected in the chat as cabinet members discussed upcoming attacks on the Houthi armed group in Yemen.
Elected officials are expressing disbelief and anger at the extraordinary security blunder, the Guardian’s Joseph Gedeon reports.
Delaware senator Chris Coons said: “Every single one of the government officials on this text chain have now committed a crime – even if accidentally.” Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said: “This administration is playing fast and loose with our nation’s most classified info, and it makes all Americans less safe.”
Republican senator John Cornyn called it “a huge screw-up” and said it was being investigated. New York Republican representative Mike Lawler said: “Classified information should not be transmitted on unsecured channels – and certainly not to those without security clearances. Period.” More reactions here:
State department on White House leak of war plans: ‘No comment’
A spokesperson for the US state department has repeatedly refused to comment on the administration’s extraordinary blunder of discussing secret military plans on a chat that included a prominent journalist.
Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic magazine, revealed today that key figures in Donald Trump’s cabinet – including vice-president JD Vance, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard – used the commercial chat app, Signal, to discuss plans for US attacks on the Houthi armed group in Yemen. The chat inadvertently included Goldberg, who was added by one of its members and apparently was unnoticed by the rest of the group.
At a briefing, a reporter pressed Tammy Bruce, state department spokesperson, about the scandal, asking, “Why was the cabinet … discussing a potential military operation on Signal, which is a public app, and why didn’t they notice a phone number that was not part of their group, and how concerned is the secretary about the implications of this?”
Bruce responded: “We will not comment on the secretary’s deliberative conversations … You should contact the White House.” Bruce continued to refuse to comment as the reporter asked for the perspective of Marco Rubio, the secretary of state. The national security council has said it is investigating the matter.
More background here:
The day so far
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The US treated alleged Nazis better during World War Two than the Trump Administration treated Venezuelan migrants last week, a federal appeals judge told a Justice Department lawyer during a contentious court hearing. “There were plane loads of people. There were no procedures in place to notify people,” US circuit judge Patricia Millett said. “Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than has happened here.
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It came hours after US federal judge James Boasberg ruled that the migrants deserved to have a court hearing before their deportations to determine whether they belonged to the Tren de Aragua gang. He thwarted the Trump administration’s bid to vacate restraining orders protecting Venezuelans accused of gang ties from deportation, instead insisting on due process for those contesting the allegations. “The named Plaintiffs dispute they are members of Tren de Aragua; they may not be deported until a court decides the merits of their challenge,” Boasberg wrote.
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A law firm will present a habeas corpus lawsuit to El Salvador’s supreme court in defense of 30 Venezuelan citizens jailed in the Central American nation’s so-called “mega-prison” after being deported there by the US. The lawsuit, which will seek to question the legality of their detention, comes after the US sent some 238 Venezuelans to El Salvador, accusing them of being members of Tren de Aragua.
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In an extraordinary blunder, the White House accidentally texted top-secret military plans for recent US attacks on the Houthi armed group in Yemen to a journalist. Key figures in the Trump administration – including vice-president JD Vance, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard – used the commercial chat app Signal to convene and discuss plans – while also including a prominent journalist in the group. The breach was revealed by Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of the Atlantic magazine, who discovered that he had been included in the chat. The National Security Council said: “This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”
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Trump announced that any country that buys oil or gas from Venezuela will pay a 25% tariff on trades made with the US. This “secondary tariff” will take effect on 2 April, the president said in a Truth Social post. He cited “numerous reasons” for the move, including his baseless repeated claim that “Venezuela has purposefully and deceitfully sent to the United States, undercover, tens of thousands of high level, and other, criminals, many of whom are murderers and people of a very violent nature”. China is the largest buyer of Venezuelan oil, with Spain, Italy, Cuba and India also consumers.
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On the issue of tariffs, Trump said he will in the very near future announce tariffs on automobiles, aluminum and pharmaceuticals. The president said the US would need all those products if there were problems including wars.
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Greenlandic leaders criticised an upcoming trip by a high-profile American delegation to the semi-autonomous Danish territory that Trump has suggested the US should annex. The delegation, which will visit an American military base and watch a dogsled race, will be led by Usha Vance, wife of vice-president JD Vance, and include White House national security adviser Mike Waltz and energy secretary Chris Wright. Greenland’s outgoing prime minister Mute Egede called this week’s visit a “provocation” and said his caretaker government would not meet with the delegation. “Until recently, we could trust the Americans, who were our allies and friends, and with whom we enjoyed working closely,” Egede said. “But that time is over.”
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The agency responsible for unaccompanied migrant minors will be allowed to share sponsors’ immigration status with law enforcement agencies under a regulatory change, a move critics say could discourage families from claiming their children. The US Office for Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which cares for the children until they can be released, will also scrap regulatory language that had prohibited it from denying release solely based on a sponsor’s immigration status.
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Trump appointed his former lawyer Alina Habba, who was previously sanctioned for filing a frivolous lawsuit, to serve as interim US attorney for the district of New Jersey. Habba represented Trump in the E. Jean Carroll case, which he lost, and again in the civil case against the Trump Organization’s civil fraud case, which he also lost. She said she looks forward to “going after the people we should be going after – not the people that are falsely accused”, but declined to elaborate further.
That’s all from me, Lucy Campbell, for today. But stay tuned, my colleague Sam Levin is here to steer you through the rest of the day’s developments.
Peter Beaumont
Here’s more from my colleague Peter Beaumont on the White House adding a journalist to a top-secret Yemen war group chat by mistake.
Senior members of Donald Trump’s cabinet have been involved in a serious security breach while discussing secret military plans for recent US attacks on the Houthi armed group in Yemen.
In an extraordinary blunder, key figures in the Trump administration – including vice-president JD Vance, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, secretary of state Marco Rubio and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard – used the commercial chat app Signal to convene and discuss plans – while also including a prominent journalist in the group.
Signal is not approved by the US government for sharing sensitive information.
Others in the chat included Trump adviser Stephen Miller, Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles and key Trump envoy Steve Witkoff.
The discussions seen by Jeffrey Goldberg include comments from Vance, who appeared unconvinced of the urgency of attacking Yemen, as well as conversations over what price should be expected of Europeans and other countries for the US removing the threat to a key global shipping route.
Security and intelligence commentators in the US described the breach of operational security as unprecedented – both for the use of a commercial chat service and for the inclusion of Goldberg.
Read the full story here:
National security council investigating after Trump administration accidentally texted journalist top-secret Yemen war plans
Members of Congress and national security staffers have been left stunned after top Trump administration officials, including the vice-president and the defense secretary, discussed war plans on Signal – and mistakenly added a journalist to the group chat.
Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of the Atlantic, wrote:
The world found out shortly before 2pm eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen. I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44am. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing. This is going to require some explaining.
He goes on:
I had very strong doubts that this text group was real, because I could not believe that the national-security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans. I also could not believe that the national security adviser to the president would be so reckless as to include the editor in chief of The Atlantic in such discussions with senior US officials, up to and including the vice president.
The National Security Council confirmed it was real and said it was investigating. Democrats are already demanding hearings as concerns arise about the security of classified communications.
Democratic senator Jack Reed, the ranking member of the senate armed services committee, said in a statement:
If true, this story represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen. Military operations need to be handled with utmost discretion, using approved, secure lines of communication, because American lives are on the line. The carelessness shown by President Trump’s cabinet is stunning and dangerous. I will be seeking answers from the Administration immediately.
Democrat Pat Ryan an Army veteran who also sits on the armed services committee, wrote on X:
Only one word for this: FUBAR.
If House Republicans won’t hold a hearing on how this happened IMMEDIATELY, I’ll do it my damn self. pic.twitter.com/uGihDr5xZa
— Pat Ryan 🇺🇸 (@PatRyanUC) March 24, 2025
Marine veteran and Democratic Arizona senator Ruben Gallego said: “If I handled classified and sensitive information in this way when I was in the Marines … oh boy … ”
Amateur hour. These are the genuises that are also selling out Ukraine and destroying our alliances all around the world. No wonder Putin is embarrassing them at the negotiation table. https://t.co/I8qv0AMV31
— Ruben Gallego (@RubenGallego) March 24, 2025
Nazis got better treatment than Venezuelans deported by Trump administration, says US judge
The US treated alleged Nazis better during World War Two than the Trump Administration treated Venezuelan migrants last week, a federal appeals judge told a Justice Department lawyer during a contentious court hearing on Monday.
“There were plane loads of people. There were no procedures in place to notify people,” US circuit judge Patricia Millett said at the hearing in Washington. “Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than has happened here.”
Judge Millett noted that alleged Nazis were given hearing boards and were subject to established regulations, while the alleged members of Tren De Aragua were given no such rights.
There’s no regulations, and nothing was adopted by the agency officials that were administering this. They people weren’t given notice. They weren’t told where they were going. They were given those people on those planes on that Saturday and had no opportunity to file habeas or any type of action to challenge the removal under the AEA. What’s factually wrong about what I said?
Deputy assistant attorney general Drew Ensign responded: “We certainly dispute the Nazi analogy.” He argued that some of the men were able to file habeas petitions.
Prior to the Trump administration’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, the law had been used just three times in US history, most recently to intern and remove Japanese, German and Italian immigrants during the second world war.
It comes hours after US federal judge James Boasberg ruled that the migrants deserved to have a court hearing before their deportations to determine whether they belonged to the Tren de Aragua gang.
The election to fill a Wisconsin supreme court seat is quickly becoming a referendum on the Trump administration and a test of enthusiasm on both sides, the Associated Press reports.
For national Republicans, the race is all about Donald Trump. But Democrats are trying a new tactic, focusing their fire on Elon Musk, the billionaire who is the race’s biggest donor, by far.
The vote on 1 April will be the first major test of US politics since the president secured a second term in November, serving as an early barometer of how voters feel about the direction Trump is taking the country in one of the most contested battleground states (which Trump won by less than a percentage point).
It’s also a test for Musk himself. His nascent political operation, which spent more than $200m to help Trump win in November, is canvassing and advertising in Wisconsin on behalf of the Republican-backed candidate, Brad Schimel. A win would cement his status as a conservative kingmaker, while a loss could give license to Republicans distancing themselves from his efforts to stymie government functions and eliminate tens of thousands of federal jobs.
The contest will determine the court’s ideological balance for the second time in two years, and likely the future of several issues related to abortion rights, unions and congressional maps.
Musk, the race’s biggest donor by far, has helped make the race the most expensive judicial election in the nation’s history, with nearly $67m spent so far. He held a get-out-the-vote event on his X platform on Saturday, writing:
It might not seem important, but it’s actually really important. And it could determine the fate of the country. This election is going to affect everyone in the United States.
Schimel has openly courted Trump’s endorsement, which he received on Friday night, as he campaigns against Dane county judge Susan Crawford, the Democrat-backed candidate. He attended Trump’s inauguration in January, has said that he would be part of a “support system” for Trump. Earlier this month, he attended a “Mega MAGA rally” where he posed for a picture in front of a giant inflatable version of the president, which had a “Vote Brad Schimel Supreme Court” poster plastered on its chest. Schimel has also resurfaced long-debunked conspiracies about voter fraud that Trump has embraced.
Crawford campaign spokesperson Derrick Honeyman said:
This race is the first real test point in the country on Elon Musk and his influence on our politics, and voters want an opportunity to push back on that and the influence he is trying to make on Wisconsin and the rest of country.
State Democrats have hosted a series of anti-Musk town halls, including one featuring former vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, and featured Musk heavily in ads. Crawford has also seized on Musk, going as far as to refer to her opponent as “Elon Schimel” during a recent debate. “Don’t let Elon buy the Supreme Court,” read billboards paid for the state Democratic party that depict Musk as Schimel’s puppeteer.
“There’s so many people who are desperate for a way to fight back against what Trump and Musk are doing nationally,” said Ben Wikler, the Wisconsin Democratic party chair, and see the race as an “opportunity to punch back”. He said the party had seen an “explosive surge” in grassroots and small-donor fundraising from across the country tied to Musk’s involvement:
Most voters still don’t know who Crawford and and Schimel are, but they have extremely strong feelings about Musk and Trump.
Trump administration rolls back restrictions on sharing migrant minor sponsors’ immigration status
This report is from Reuters:
The agency responsible for unaccompanied migrant minors will be allowed to share sponsors’ immigration status with law enforcement agencies under a regulatory change, a move critics say could discourage families from claiming their children.
The US Office for Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which cares for the children until they can be released, will also scrap regulatory language that had prohibited it from denying release solely based on a sponsor’s immigration status, according to a Federal Register notice due to be published on Tuesday.
From ORR custody, children are released to sponsors – usually parents or relatives – as immigration authorities weigh their cases.
ORR argued that existing regulations put in place under former president Joe Biden conflicted with federal law, which it said prohibited government agencies from withholding any individual’s citizenship or immigration status.
Critics, however, say that sharing sponsors’ information with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) could make parents and other relatives reluctant to come forward to claim their children due to fear they could be detained or deported.
An Ice official in 2018 estimated that 80% of sponsors and family members lacked legal immigration status.
Migrant advocacy groups said the Trump administration last week largely shuttered a federal program that provided legal representation to unaccompanied children in court. They urged the administration to restore it.
“Ending this long-standing program is a direct attack on due process,” Shayna Kessler, a director at Vera Institute of Justice, one of the groups providing legal services to unaccompanied children, said in a statement on Friday.
The Administration for Children and Families, ORR’s parent agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the suspension of the program.
Vladimir Putin has gifted Donald Trump a portrait he commissioned of the US president, the Kremlin confirmed on Monday.
Putin gave the painting to Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, in Moscow earlier this month, the Russian president’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said in a response to a journalist’s question, declining further comment.
The gift was first mentioned last week by Witkoff in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Witkoff told Carlson that Trump “was clearly touched” by the portrait, which he described as “beautiful”.
Witkoff met Putin after talks with Russian officials about trying to end the war in Ukraine. During his interview with Carlson, Witkoff described Putin’s gift as “gracious” and recalled how Putin told him he had prayed for Trump last year when he heard the then-candidate for the US presidency had been shot at a rally in Pennsylvania. “He was praying for his friend,” Witkoff said, recounting Putin’s comments.
It was not immediately known if the portrait Putin gave to Trump had been examined for bugs.
The White House hasn’t commented on the portrait. Let’s hope Trump likes it better than the other one.
Related: ‘Insecure baby’: Trump draws ridicule after throwing fit over Colorado capitol portrait
Lawyers to defend 30 Venezuelans deported from US at El Salvador’s supreme court
A law firm will on Monday present a habeas corpus lawsuit to El Salvador’s supreme court in defense of 30 Venezuelan citizens jailed in the Central American nation’s so-called “mega-prison” after being deported there by the US, according to Reuters.
The lawsuit, which will seek to question the legality of their detention, comes after the US sent some 238 Venezuelans to El Salvador, accusing them of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
The judges in charge of the case are allies of President Nayib Bukele, who has offered to hold US prisoners in its prison system and accepted payment from the US to do so.
Outside the court, lawyer Jaime Ortega told reporters that while 30 Venezuelan nationals had granted them the powers of attorney to represent them, they would request habeas corpus for the rest of the Venezuelans detained in the country.
Some 137 of the group of Venezuelans were deported under an obscure US wartime law targeting “alien enemies” that was quickly blocked by a US federal judge, who ordered the flight carrying the Venezuelan citizens to turn around.
However, the Venezuelan citizens were later received in El Salvador where they were taken into custody in a massive anti-terrorism prison, under a deal in which Washington is paying El Salvador’s government $6m, according to the White House.
Lawyers and family members of many of the migrants deny they are members of Tren de Aragua and the US judge James Boasberg on Monday ruled they must be given the chance to challenge the government’s claim that they are gang members.
The judge also cited accounts of poor prison conditions, including beatings, humiliations, irregular access to food and water and having to sleep standing up because of overcrowding.
El Salvador’s presidential office did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment regarding the prison conditions.
As expected, the US has extended Chevron’s wind-down of oil exports from Venezuela by two months on Monday, after Donald Trump said that any country buying oil or gas from Venezuela will pay a 25% tariff on any trades made with the US.
The Trump administration extended until 27 May the wind-down of a license that the US had granted to Chevron since 2022 to operate in sanctioned Venezuela and export its oil. Chevron is only permitted to export that oil to the US.
Trump had initially given Chevron 30 days from 4 March to wind down that license after he accused President Nicolás Maduro of not making progress on electoral reforms and migrant returns.
Chevron did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Earlier on Monday, Trump announced a “secondary tariff” to take effect on 2 April, in a post on Truth Social. The two moves taken together alleviate some pressure on Chevron while putting more pressure on consumers of Venezuelan oil, though it is uncertain how Trump’s administration will enforce the tariff.
Benchmark crude oil futures jumped nearly 1.5% on the news of the tariff.
China, which already has been the subject of US tariffs, is the largest buyer of Venezuela’s oil, the OPEC member’s main export. In February, China received directly and indirectly some 503,000 barrels per day of Venezuelan crude and fuel, which represented 55% of total exports.
Tariff impositions in China on imports of certain types of Venezuelan oil in past years led to a decline in the volume of Venezuelan crude received by Chinese buyers, which ultimately forced state company PDVSA to widen price discounts to continue selling to its most important market.
Spain, Italy, Cuba and India are other consumers of Venezuelan oil. US imports of the oil are set to end 27 May.
There was no immediate response from Maduro’s government to a request for comment.
Trump’s notice of the tariff occurred days after news that Shell Plc aims to begin producing natural gas at Venezuela’s Dragon gas field and exporting it to neighboring Trinidad and Tobago in 2026, a year ahead of the original 2027 start date.
Donald Trump talked about the Ukraine war at the cabinet meeting. The president said he expected a revenue-sharing agreement with Ukrainian on its critical minerals will be signed soon.
Trump also told reporters as he met his Cabinet that the United States is talking to Ukraine about the potential for American firms owning Ukrainian power plants.
Our dedicated Ukraine blog has all the latest details:
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