President Trump said Wednesday that "we are very close" to a deal to end the war in Gaza and he may travel to Egypt on Saturday or Sunday if one is agreed.
The intrigue: After Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave him a note during an event at the White House on Wednesday evening, Trump said: "I was just told we are close to a deal in the Middle East and they will need me soon."
Colombia President Gustavo Petro accused the U.S. of bombing a Colombian boat "with Colombian citizens inside" as part of its recent campaign of striking alleged drug smugglers off of Venezuela.
Why it matters: The Trump administration has conducted a series of deadly strikes in the Caribbean Sea without identifying who it's actually killing, beyond its claim they're all "narco-terrorists."
Democrats have decried the strikes as illegal, and Petro is now claiming the strikes have killed Colombian citizens, alongside others.
The United States is promising to treat Qatar's security like its own.
That single Trump administration decision sets in motion a geopolitical cluster. There's confusion and jealousy among Gulf states; questions of burden-sharing among NATO allies amid Trump's push for them to spend more money; and a political meltdown in Israel, among other drama.
Why it matters: There now exists a diet version of NATO's cornerstone Article 5 agreement between Washington and Doha — an arrangement several Middle East watchers described to Axios as unprecedented.
"The Trump administration may well have intended it one way, and the region could interpret it in another. It could take on a life of its own, in a sense," Mona Yacoubian at the Center for Strategic and International Studies told Axios.
President Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Sharm el-Sheikh on Wednesday morning to join the negotiations over the deal to release the remaining hostages held by Hamas and end the war in Gaza that has now crossed the two-year mark.
Why it matters: Trump and his team are pushing hard for both Israel and Hamas to conclude their negotiations within days and reach a deal.
President Trump met Tuesday with his top national security team to discuss the progress of the Gaza negotiations before his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner departed for Egypt, two sources with knowledge tell Axios.
Why it matters: Trump and his team are pushing hard for both Israel and Hamas to conclude their negotiations within days and agree on a deal that would free the remaining hostages and end a war that has now crossed the two-year mark.
Foreign adversaries are increasingly using multiple AI tools to power hacking and influence operations, according to a new OpenAI report released Tuesday.
Why it matters: In the cases OpenAI discovered, the adversaries typically turned to ChatGPT to help plan their schemes, then used other models to carry them out — reflecting the range of applications for AI tools in such operations.
Two years after Hamas' Oct. 7 attacks, the war in Gaza is closer than ever to its end, and the region will never be the same.
Why it matters: The war started with the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and continued with the worst killing and displacement of Palestinians since the Nakba of 1948.
President Trump announced the U.S. will take a 10% stake in Canadian minerals explorer Trilogy Metals and ordered the approval of a permit for a mining road in northwest Alaska.
Why it matters: Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told reporters the moves will unlock "all of the minerals that we need to win the AI arms race against China," which dominates in the processing of metals.
