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Iran strikes could signal limits of Beijing, Moscow’s power as US flexes strength
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President Donald Trump is weighing whether to pull the trigger and launch strikes against Iran — a move that could potentially expose the weaknesses of both Russia and China, according to experts.
While Russia and China have sought to make inroads in areas of Africa and Latin America — presenting themselves as partners for infrastructure and military equipment — neither Russia nor China intervened to defend their ally Venezuela when the U.S. took action Jan. 3 to topple dictator Nicolás Maduro’s regime.
Potential strikes in Iran, coupled with the strikes in Venezuela to overthrow Maduro, would drive home just how formidable the U.S. is and even near-peer adversaries like Beijing can’t compete, according to experts.
President Donald Trump is weighing whether to pull the trigger and launch strikes against Iran. (Maxine Wallace/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
«Beijing would likely respond with familiar condemnations and calls for restraint, but the deeper takeaway would be uncomfortable: China’s partnerships offer little protection when the United States decides to act,» Craig Singleton, a senior China fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said in a statement Wednesday. «Venezuela made that clear regionally; Iran would underscore it globally. Chinese officials will brand Washington reckless or rogue, but privately this episode would validate long-standing Chinese views about how power is actually exercised and that the U.S. is the only country willing and able to project force across multiple theaters on short notice.»
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«Two complex military operations in two regions just two weeks apart would reinforce a core assessment inside China’s system: America’s military might remains unmatched, and Washington is willing to use it when it judges the risks manageable,» Singleton said. «That combination commands professional respect even as it sharpens Chinese unease.»
Mark Cancian, a senior advisor with the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ defense and security department, voiced similar sentiments and said that countries like Iran and Venezuela who’ve cozied up to Russia and Beijing are likely realizing the pitfalls of those ties.
Iranians gather while blocking a street during a protest in Tehran, Jan. 9, 2026. (MAHSA/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
For example, Venezuela has had long-standing ties to Russia and has purchased Russian military equipment — yet Russia was not there to safeguard Caracas from U.S. strikes or prevent the U.S. from capturing Maduro, Cancian said. Another military strike in Iran would only expose Russia and China’s limitations further, Cancian said.
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«I think many countries are seeing that Russia and China can’t protect them, that those alliances have severe limitations,» Cancian told Fox News Digital Friday.
«I think that a strike on Iran would make the same point,» Cancian said.
According to Cancian, the reason Moscow and Beijing can’t defend their allies and partners is because neither maintains a global military like the U.S. does.
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«The United States does maintain United bases all over the world,» Cancian said. «It has a Navy that deploys all over the world. The Chinese don’t have that. The Russians don’t have that. So although they have powerful militaries, they don’t have the global capability to protect allies and partners.»
President Donald Trump and War Secretary Pete Hegseth listen as Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Oct. 9, 2025. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters )
Meanwhile, Trump is still weighing whether he’ll conduct strikes on Iran again. The president told reporters Jan. 11 on Air Force One that the administration was «looking at some very strong options,» and Tuesday said that all meetings with the Iranian regime were scrapped until «the senseless killing of protesters STOPS.» He said that those who’ve killed anti-regime demonstrators will face consequences.
On Wednesday, Trump told reporters that even though «killing in Iran is stopping,» he wouldn’t rule out military action and that the U.S. would «watch and see» what happens. Meanwhile, Trump said Friday that he had held off on strikes for now because Iran had canceled executions for more than 800 people.
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Protests broke out across Iran in December 2025 in response to economic hardships facing the country, as well as a referendum against Iran’s theocratic regime.
More than 2,000 people — including at least nine children — have died in the recent protests, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported Tuesday.
Trump authorized several major military operations in recent months, on top of the strikes in Venezuela. For example, he also signed off on strikes in Nigeria and Syria in December targeting those affiliated with the Islamic State.
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This also wouldn’t be the first time Trump has conducted strikes against Iran — should he choose to go through with them. In June, he signed off on strikes targeting Iran’s nuclear sites Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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INTERNACIONAL
Trump administration puts key Biden-era immigration policy on notice: ‘Unsustainable cycle’
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The Trump administration on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to allow it to terminate the protected legal status of hundreds of thousands of Haitian migrants living in the U.S.
It’s the latest effort by the administration to unwind Biden-era protections of hundreds of thousands of migrants living in the U.S. as part of the president’s hard-line immigration enforcement agenda.
U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the high court Wednesday to immediately intervene and overturn a lower court order that blocked the administration’s effort to immediately revoke the temporary protected status designation for some 350,000 Haitian migrants living in the U.S.
A majority of judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit also blocked the Trump administration’s bid to end the program, citing the «substantial» and «well-documented harms» the migrants would likely face as a result, clearing the way for the administration to appeal the case to the high court.
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The Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
In his filing Wednesday, Sauer urged the Supreme Court to review more broadly the issue of whether the Trump administration can revoke TPS protections for other migrants living in the U.S.
«Unless the court resolves the merits of these challenges — issues that have now been ventilated in courts nationwide — this unsustainable cycle will repeat again and again, spawning more competing rulings and competing views of what to make of this court’s interim orders,» Sauer said Wednesday. «This court should break that cycle.»
The TPS program in question allows individuals from certain countries to live and work in the U.S. legally if they cannot work safely in their home country due to a disaster, armed conflict or other «extraordinary and temporary conditions.»
Haitians were first granted TPS status in 2010 after the devastating earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people and left some 1.5 million in the country homeless.
The protections were extended several times, including under the Biden administration in 2021 after the July assassination of Jovenel Moïse, Haiti’s last democratically elected president.
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DHS Secretary Kristi Noem speaks from a podium as assembled DHS staff watch. (Al Drago/Getty Images)
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced in November that the U.S. would be ending TPS protections for Haitians in the U.S., prompting a group of individuals living in the U.S. with protected status to file suit.
The Trump administration’s Supreme Court filing marks the second time this year the administration has asked the high court to immediately intervene and allow it to strip TPS protections for certain migrants.
Lawyers for the Justice Department also asked the Supreme Court last month to allow it to revoke TPS designations for Syrian migrants in the U.S., though the high court has yet to rule on that request.
The appeal comes just weeks after U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes blocked the Department of Homeland Security from immediately revoking the TPS designations for Haitians in the U.S.
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D. John Sauer, nominee to be solicitor general, testifies during his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing in Dirksen building Feb. 26, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Reyes described the administration’s effort to abruptly wind down the designation as «arbitrary and capricious» and accused DHS Secretary Kristi Noem of failing to consider the «overwhelming evidence of present danger» in Haiti, which she noted had prompted the Biden administration to extend TPS protections for Haitians in the first place.
«The government cannot name a single concrete harm from maintaining the status quo,» Reyes said. «And so instead it argues that the court’s decision is ‘an improper intrusion by a federal court into the workings of a coordinate branch of the government.’»
The appeal comes as the Trump administration has sought to wind down most TPS designations, arguing the programs have been extended for too long under Democratic presidents.
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Trump officials have also taken aim at lower courts that have sought to block or pause their efforts to wind down TPS protections, accusing the lower court judges of exceeding their authority and unlawfully intruding on the executive branch’s authority on immigration policy.
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INTERNACIONAL
Guerra en Medio Oriente: más de 30 países liberan 400 millones de barriles de petróleo para contener la suba de precios
Más de 30 países acordaron por unanimidad liberar 400 millones de barriles de petróleo, que tenían en sus reservas, en un intento por frenar la escalada de precios originada por la guerra en Medio Oriente.
Así lo decidieron los 32 países miembros de la Agencia Internacional de la Energía (AIE), en lo que la entidad catalogó como el mayor desbloqueo de reservas de emergencia en su historia.
Este miércoles, el precio del petróleo Brent subía 4,7% y se acercaba a los US$92 por barril. Horas atrás de la medida de la AIE, Irán amenazó que el valor del crudo internacional rondaría los US$200.
Leé también: Irán se adjudicó el ataque a los barcos comerciales en el estrecho de Ormuz y envió otra advertencia: “Esperen un barril de petróleo a 200 dólares”
“Los países de la AIE pondrán 400 millones de barriles de petróleo (…) a disposición del mercado para compensar la pérdida de suministro por el cierre efectivo del estrecho de Ormuz”, anunció el director ejecutivo de la agencia, Fatih Birol.
“Se trata de una acción de gran envergadura que tiene como objetivo mitigar los efectos inmediatos de la perturbación de los mercados. Pero, para que quede claro, lo más importante para el retorno a unos flujos estables de petróleo y gas es la reanudación del tránsito por el estrecho de Ormuz”, afirmó el directivo.
Según Birol, las reservas de emergencia se pondrán a disposición del mercado según un calendario adaptado a la situación de cada país miembro y se complementarán con medidas de emergencia adicionales en algunas naciones. Nuevos recortes en la producción mundial de crudo (Foto: Reuters)
La guerra en Oriente Medio, que comenzó el 28 de febrero, afecta el comercio de petróleo a través del estrecho de Ormuz, un punto de paso crucial por el que transitan cada día 15 millones de barriles de petróleo y otros 5 millones de barriles diarios de productos petrolíferos, lo que representa aproximadamente el 25% del transporte mundial de petróleo por vía marítima.
Los miembros de la AIE poseen más de 1200 millones de barriles en sus reservas de emergencia, a los que se suman 600 millones de barriles de reservas en manos de la industria en virtud de obligaciones gubernamentales.
El anuncio de la AIE llegó mientras los líderes del G7, de las economías más avanzadas del mundo, estudian medidas para frenar las consecuencias económicas de la guerra entre Estados Unidos e Israel con Irán.
Leé también: Pese a la advertencia de Trump, Irán atacó barcos comerciales en el estrecho de Ormuz y crece la tensión
Los dirigentes del G7 tienen previsto reunirse por videoconferencia este miércoles para “tratar seguramente” el tema de las reservas energéticas, según el ministro francés de Economía, Roland Lescure.
En ese marco, Japón -cuyas reservas estratégicas de petróleo se encuentran entre las mayores del mundo- y Alemania afirmaron que también recurrirían a sus reservas de crudo.
La liberación coordinada de reservas de la AIE es la sexta en la historia de la institución, creada en 1974.
En 1991, antes de la guerra del Golfo, ya se llevaron a cabo acciones colectivas similares, así como en 2005, tras los huracanes Katrina y Rita, en 2011, con motivo de la guerra civil libia, y en dos ocasiones tras la invasión de Ucrania por parte de Rusia en 2022.
Nueva advertencia de Irán: “Esperen un barril de petróleo a US$200”
Irán advirtió este miércoles que no será posible bajar el precio del petróleo mediante “medidas artificiales” y que se puede esperar, por la presión que han impuesto en el estrecho de Ormuz, que el precio del barril suba a 200 dólares. Hoy, el barril Brent se ubicaba por encima de US$90.
“Deben saber que no podrán bajar el precio del petróleo y de la energía mediante medidas artificiales. Con la expansión de la guerra en la región, ya advertimos que pueden esperar un barril de petróleo de 200 dólares, porque el precio del petróleo depende de la seguridad en la región, y ustedes son la fuente de esa inseguridad», afirmó el portavoz del Cuartel General Central de Jatam al-Anbia, Ebrahim Zolfagari.
Petróleo, g7, Guerra en Medio Oriente
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After deliberating and assessing the global oil market situation in the face of Middle Eastern conflicts stemming from the United States’ attack on Iran, a cohort of 32 different developed nations agreed to make an «unprecedented» move to help address «oil market challenges.»
The International Energy Agency (IEA) held an emergency meeting at its Paris headquarters Tuesday, with energy representatives from the cohort of G7 countries, to «assess market conditions,» which IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol says «have been significantly affected by the conflict in the Middle East.»
Following that meeting on Thursday, the 32 member countries of the IEA unanimously agreed to collectively release the largest quantity of emergency oil reserves they ever have as a coalition, amounting to 400 million barrels.
«The oil market challenges we are facing are unprecedented in scale, therefore, I am very glad that IEA Member countries have responded with an emergency collective action of unprecedented size,» Birol said following the announcement about the release of the emergency oil reserves. «Oil markets are global, so the response to major disruptions needs to be global too.»
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International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director Fatih Birol in Paris on March 10, 2026. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP via Getty Images)
President Donald Trump touted the IEA agreement during remarks in Kentucky Wednesday afternoon, saying the move «will substantially reduce oil prices.»
Before the outbreak of war with Iran, oil was trading in the range of $60 to $70 a barrel, but prices soared after the conflict began, with crude oil futures reaching upward of $115 a barrel on Monday – the highest level since 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. However, some experts suggest that the market is correcting itself already from an initial scare that the conflict in the Middle East would have a major impact on oil prices.
«The market realized that maybe things aren’t that bad – the U.S. is having incredible military victories, President Trump is saying, ‘Hey, you know what, the war is probably not going to be going on that long.’ And even some signals that the world doesn’t have to just sit and stand and take it,» said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at the Price Futures Group and a FOX Business contributor.
The members of the IEA hold emergency stockpiles of over 1.2 billion barrels, and a further 600 million barrels of oil industry stocks. This coordinated release of an unprecedented amount of oil will be the sixth in its roughly half-century history. Previous collective action was taken in 1991, 2005, 2011 and twice in 2022.
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The previous record for the largest collective action was the latest release of emergency oil stocks following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In combination, the two actions, which took place in March and April 2022, respectively, amounted to a release of 182.7 million barrels, according to the IEA.
House Republicans are pushing the U.S. to keep a close eye on Russian oil giant Lukoil’s international divestments as the conflict in Iran drives up U.S. gas prices. Russia and Iran are close allies. (Atta Kenare / AFP via Getty Images; Gabby Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
President Trump said repeatedly this week during remarks to the press that the war in Iran would be over shortly, but stopped short of providing an exact timeline.
In his comments to the press Wednesday, President Trump quipped that «We don’t want to leave early, do we?»
«We gotta finish the job, right? Over the past 11 days, our military has virtually destroyed Iran,» Trump said. «It’s a tough country.»
Iran’s ongoing retaliatory attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical maritime choke point for oil transportation, has led to questions about what they will do to prices at the pump. Trump Cabinet official, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, scoffed this week at claims that the Trump administration was caught off guard by how much Trump’s military actions have impacted the oil market and responded to questions about the impact of attacks on the Strait of Hormuz.
A screenshot of a marine traffic terminal showing vessels in the Strait of Hormuz on March 4, 2026. (Kpler/Marine Traffic)
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«As you know better than anybody else, it’s a global market, so we could be producing more, or other countries could be producing more, but it all goes into one vat where we get the prices from,» said Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade. «So if the Strait of Hormuz presents a challenge, how could you circumvent that challenge?»
In response, Burgum slammed Iran for «holding the entire world hostage economically by threatening to close the strait.»
«President Trump has made it very clear the consequences if they try to do that,» he continued. «There’s a lot of options between ourselves and our allies in the region, including our Arab friends in the region, to make sure that those straits remain open and energy keeps flowing through the global economy.»
Fox Business’ Eric Revell contributed to this report.
war with iran,middle east,middle east foreign policy,g8 global economy,economy,energy,energy in america
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