Trump Says U.S. ‘Hit’ Venezuelan Dock

Welcome back to World Brief: Holiday Edition. As a reminder, today’s newsletter will be an extended version, with special attention to tomorrow’s most impactful trends. World Brief will take a break for the rest of the week.

Now, we’re looking at U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of a U.S. strike on a dock facility in Venezuela, potential U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine, and the United States’ small humanitarian aid pledge to the United Nations.

Trump Confirms Strike on Venezuelan Dock

U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed on Monday that U.S. forces had hit and destroyed a dock facility in Venezuela last week that he said was used by alleged drug traffickers.

“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump said at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. “We hit all the boats, and now we hit the area—it’s the implementation area. … And that is no longer around.”

Such an attack marks the first known land strike on Venezuela since the White House began its pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in September. Details of the operation remain hazy, as Trump refused to comment on potential CIA involvement or give specifics regarding the strike’s exact location.

Trump authorized the CIA to begin planning covert operations inside Venezuela months ago, according to sources familiar with the plans. The ongoing campaign, which the White House has said is aimed at tackling narcotrafficking in Latin America, was reportedly developed to be conducted in two parts—with the second being direct strikes.

Over nearly four months, the U.S. military has launched more than 25 attacks on suspected drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing more than 100 people and eliciting accusations of war crimes.

Alongside a massive military buildup in the region, the designation of Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization, and a “total and complete blockade” on all sanctioned oil tankers carrying Venezuelan crude, the Trump administration has signaled its desire to enact regime change in Caracas.

Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle,” Susie Wiles, the president’s chief of staff, told Vanity Fair in November.

Trump has previously threatened attacks inside Venezuela, and last Friday, he appeared to suggest that one had occurred, telling New York’s WABC radio that U.S. forces had “knocked out” a “big facility” in Venezuela. However, Monday was his first confirmation of such a strike.

Venezuelan officials have yet to publicly respond to the attack, but Maduro has previously said “powerful sectors in the United States” are fabricating a false reality to justify covert intervention.

Today’s Most Read

What We’re Following

Trump-Netanyahu meeting. Trump hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago on Monday to discuss issues concerning the second phase of the Israel-Hamas cease-fire agreement. Although his opening words began with praise, Trump pressured the Israeli leader to stop stonewalling the truce deal.

The White House has accused Israel of slow-walking progress under the guise of waiting for the remains of the final hostage in Gaza to be released. Netanyahu has resisted U.S. efforts to halt an Israeli standoff with isolated Hamas fighters in southern Gaza. Since the cease-fire went into effect in October, Israeli forces have killed more than 400 Palestinians, according to local officials.

The Trump-Netanyahu summit comes at a critical moment for Gaza, where regional leaders warn that the truce is at risk of collapse. It could also influence Israel’s upcoming elections, which polling indicates could result in Netanyahu’s defeat. Still, Netanyahu used Monday’s meeting to push Trump to take more aggressive action against Israel’s enemies—namely, Iran, Lebanon, and Syria.

Security guarantees for Ukraine? The Trump administration has offered to provide Kyiv with security guarantees for a 15-year period, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday, as part of a proposed U.S.-drafted peace plan to end the Russia-Ukraine war. “Without security guarantees, realistically, this war will not end,” Zelensky said, adding that Kyiv would prefer a commitment of up to 50 years.

Trump insisted on Sunday that the two sides were “closer than ever” to a peace settlement. He spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone for more than two hours on Sunday before hosting Zelensky at Mar-a-Lago; Trump spoke with Putin again on Monday. Moscow still remains opposed to the deployment of any NATO troops, leaving U.S. or European security guarantees in contention.

Russia’s continued demands for Ukraine to surrender its territory in the Donbas further complicate negotiations. On Monday, Putin said Russian forces were advancing into Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region while pressing ahead with their offensive in the southern Zaporizhzhia area.

Performative aid. The United States announced a $2 billion humanitarian aid package for the United Nations on Monday, to be used to create a pool of funds for specific crises or countries, such as Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Syria, and Ukraine.

While Washington’s pledge is just a fraction of the amount of funding that it has traditionally provided—with some years seeing upwards of $17 billion given—the White House has painted its offer as generous in an effort to maintain the country’s status as the world’s largest humanitarian donor.

“This humanitarian reset at the United Nations should deliver more aid with fewer tax dollars—providing more focused, results-driven assistance aligned with U.S. foreign policy,” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz said.

However, experts estimate that the support is not enough to reverse the detrimental effects of Western aid cuts, which have driven millions of people toward hunger, displacement, and disease. Under Trump, the United States has shuttered the U.S. Agency for International Development and slashed foreign aid to key organizations. On Monday, the White House warned U.N. agencies to “adapt, shrink, or die” to these new financial constraints.

The World This Week

Live-fire drills. China launched extensive war games near Taiwan on Monday, cutting into Taiwanese maritime territory for the first time since 2022, when then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island. The exercises, including live-fire drills across a record-setting seven zones on Tuesday, aim to demonstrate Beijing’s ability to isolate Taipei from foreign support in the event of a Chinese invasion.

The Chinese drills come less than two weeks after the United States announced its largest-ever arms package for Taiwan, worth $11.1 billion. Taiwan’s foreign ministry denounced the exercises, saying, “Such actions once again challenge the rules-based international order and will unilaterally inflict grave damage to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and the region.”

According to Taiwan’s transport ministry, more than 100,000 airline passengers are expected to be affected by Tuesday’s drills.

Disarmament in doubt. The deadline for Hezbollah to fully disarm expires on Wednesday, per a U.S.-backed cease-fire deal signed between Israel and Lebanon in November 2024. Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has said confiscation of weapons south of the Litani River—the de facto buffer zone—is nearly complete and that Beirut will soon be ready to implement phase two of the deal, focused on disarmament north of the river.

However, Israel remains skeptical as to whether Lebanese authorities will actually force the Iranian-backed proxy group to relinquish all of its armaments, particularly following recent pushback from Hezbollah and its allies.

On Saturday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian declared that Tehran was in a “full-scale war” with Israel, the United States, and Europe. And on Sunday, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem called the disarmament deal an “Israeli-American plan” that was not in Lebanon’s “best interest.”

Keep an Eye On

Wednesday, Dec. 31: Argentine President Javier Milei’s sweeping public emergency declaration, first announced in December 2023, expires.

Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026: Bulgaria adopts the euro currency.

France assumes the rotating G-7 presidency, while Cyprus takes over the six-month leadership of the Council of the European Union.

Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026: Eight OPEC+ countries hold a virtual meeting.

Odds and Ends

German locals are demanding that authorities restore wave-making conditions in the Eisbach river in Munich’s Englischer Garten park. Surfers have long enjoyed the strong current, which creates 3-foot-high waves. But when city workers cleared out the riverbed’s accumulated sediment, gravel, and debris in October, these conditions all but disappeared.

Locals installed a beam across the riverbed last Thursday to re-create the waves, leading to a few days of surfing. On Sunday, though, officials removed the improvised structure, calling the bar “illegal and potentially dangerous” and urging patience as the city asks an engineering expert for advice.