
Colombian President Gustavo Petro said his first face-to-face meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington went better than expected, pointing to a tentative thaw after months of public insults and policy clashes that had pushed the bilateral relationship toward open confrontation.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro will meet U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday, Feb. 3, in what both capitals frame as an attempt to steady a relationship under pressure from disputes over counternarcotics policy, regional security and trade.

China’s President Xi Jinping has called for the renminbi to achieve global reserve currency status, “a powerful currency” according to remarks published on Saturday in Qiushi, the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship ideology journal.

US President Donald Trump said his administration is talking with “the highest people” in Cuba and voiced confidence that a deal could be reached, even as Washington tightens economic pressure aimed at restricting the island’s fuel lifeline.

Donald Trump said on Friday he will nominate Kevin Warsh, a former Federal Reserve governor, to become the next chair of the U.S. central bank, replacing Jerome Powell when Powell’s term as chair expires in May. The announcement, delivered via Truth Social, follows months of speculation over who would inherit the world’s most consequential monetary-policy job.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order that opens the door to imposing tariffs on imports from countries deemed to be supplying crude oil to Cuba, a move designed to raise the external cost of keeping Havana’s energy lifeline open and further constrain fuel flows to the island.

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro has revived his sharpest anti-Trump rhetoric days before a planned meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, calling on Washington to “return” Nicolás Maduro so he can be tried in Venezuela rather than in U.S. courts.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that Washington is not considering “any military action” in Venezuela, as he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to outline the Trump administration’s strategy following the capture of former president Nicolás Maduro earlier this month.

The landing in Ushuaia of a U.S. Air Force aircraft carrying a bipartisan delegation of U.S. lawmakers has reignited political controversy in Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego province and sharpened attention on the country’s strategic footprint in the South Atlantic and Antarctica, amid deepening ties between President Javier Milei and U.S. President Donald Trump.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva held a phone call on Monday with U.S. President Donald Trump, in a nearly hour-long conversation that blended global governance issues with the bilateral agenda. Brazilian media, citing Planalto Palace sources, reported that Lula argued Trump’s proposed “Peace Board” should be restricted exclusively to the future governance of the Gaza Strip and should also contemplate the creation of a Palestinian state—an approach those sources said Trump does not share.