Now that Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire and hostage deal, the White House is shifting focus to its next diplomatic goal: expanding the landmark Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states.

‘There’s a lot of positive momentum that will pick up,’ a senior administration official told reporters Thursday evening after the deal was signed. ‘Hopefully this will lead to much better sentiment and the opportunity to expand the Abraham Accords — to really just change the tone in the region.’

During President Donald Trump’s first administration, the accords brought the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco into normal relations with Israel. Saudi Arabia had been next on the list.

‘We passed on to the Biden administration that Saudi was ready to go if they engaged,’ said the official. ‘A deal could have been done in six months. We outlined the parameters of their interests and wished them luck. But they didn’t focus on that for a couple of years. Then a lot happened in the region — October 7 and the war in Gaza created a black cloud and shifted sentiment. The mood today is certainly better than it was even a few days ago.’

An official pointed to a range of countries that could be next in line for normalization. ‘I think there’s a lot of opportunity to get back to work on Saudi-Israel normalization, and on Indonesia-Israel,’ the official said. ‘We were talking with Mauritania last time. You’ve got Algeria, Syria, Lebanon. There’s a whole host of countries — and now there are more formal relations with Qatar. We’re going to start that trilateral mechanism very soon.’

Israel began drawing down its troop presence in Gaza on Friday under phase one of the agreement but will continue to occupy roughly 53% of the territory until the next phase. Hamas has 72 hours to release the remaining hostages, living and dead.

Roughly 200 U.S. troops already stationed in the Middle East will be sent to Israel to oversee the ceasefire and ensure humanitarian aid flows into Gaza. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt emphasized ‘Up to 200 U.S. personnel, who are already stationed at CENTCOM, will be tasked with monitoring the peace agreement in Israel, and they will work with other international forces on the ground.’

Saudi Arabia has long insisted that normalization with Israel must be tied to tangible progress toward Palestinian statehood — though that condition has never been clearly defined. The kingdom is also seeking a formal U.S. defense assurance as part of any broader regional deal.

The U.S.-brokered 20-point ceasefire proposal stops short of guaranteeing Palestinian statehood but suggests that, as Gaza reconstruction proceeds and the Palestinian Authority reasserts control in the enclave, ‘the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.’

An administration official acknowledged that the agreement remains fragile and that deep mistrust persists between Israel, Hamas and other Arab governments.

‘It was important for [Trump] to send another message to the Arab mediators — and through them to Hamas,’ the official said. ‘He wanted them to know he was standing behind every principle and aspect of the Trump 20-point plan for peace, guaranteeing that everyone involved would act in good faith and keep their commitments.’

‘There’s just a lot of mistrust between the Israelis and Hamas, and also among some of the other Arab governments,’ the official added. ‘For all the obvious reasons.’

President Donald Trump has called off efforts to arrange a meeting with President Xi Jinping after China tightened export controls on rare earth minerals this week. 

‘Some very strange things are happening in China!’ Trump wrote on Truth Social. ‘They are becoming very hostile, and sending letters to Countries throughout the World, that they want to impose Export Controls on each and every element of production having to do with Rare Earths, and virtually anything else they can think of, even if it’s not manufactured in China.’

‘We’ve never seen anything like this,’ Trump added. 

‘One of the Policies that we are calculating at this moment is a massive increase of Tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States of America. There are many other countermeasures that are, likewise, under serious consideration.’

The president said his relationship with China over the past six months has been ‘very good’ and called the crackdown on exports ‘surprising.’ 

‘I have always felt that they’ve been lying in wait, and now, as usual, I have been proven right!’ he added. 

The administration had suggested Trump might meet Xi at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit later this month in South Korea, but ‘now there seems to be no reason to do so,’ he said.

Over the past few decades, China has captured a dominant position in the rare earth minerals and magnets industry and now uses that control — vital for electronics worldwide — as political leverage.

‘There is no way that China should be allowed to hold the World ‘captive,’ but that seems to have been their plan for quite some time, starting with the ‘Magnets’ and, other Elements that they have quietly amassed into somewhat of a Monopoly position, a rather sinister and hostile move, to say the least,’ Trump added. 

The world’s two largest economies have been locked in trade negotiations for months, imposing tit-for-tat tariffs on each other.

China announced Thursday it is expanding export controls on five additional rare earth metals — holmium, erbium, thulium, europium and ytterbium — adding to the seven restricted in April.

China also restricted exports of technology used to refine rare earth minerals.

China cited national security concerns for the restrictions. ‘Rare-earth-related items have dual-use properties for both civilian and military applications. Implementing export controls on them is an international practice,’ a Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesperson said.

Rare earth metals are essential for both commercial goods — including electric cars, household appliances, lithium batteries and camera lenses — and critical to the U.S. defense industry.

Rare earths are also used to produce semiconductors vital for artificial intelligence processing.

As of 2024, China mines about 60 percent of the world’s rare earth minerals and processes nearly 90 percent, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Trump administration has invested heavily in domestic rare earth mining and processing to reduce U.S. dependence on China.

Publicly, the White House says the latest strikes in the Caribbean are aimed at cartel infrastructure. Privately, some analysts suspect the campaign is calibrated to do something else: weaken longtime U.S. foe Nicolás Maduro’s grip on power.

President Donald Trump is ramping up pressure on the Venezuelan regime, striking four boats in the Caribbean Sea linked to drug trafficking networks tied to Caracas over the past month. Alongside those strikes, the U.S. has repositioned three destroyers, an amphibious assault ship, a nuclear-powered attack submarine and a squadron of F-35s to Puerto Rico — a deployment that has prompted one question in Washington and across the region: is the United States preparing for all-out war on Caracas?

So far, defense analysts say that seems unlikely. A ground invasion would require far more troops than are currently in the theater — between 50,000 and 150,000 by some estimates.

Somewhere around 10,000 troops have been repositioned in Latin America, a senior defense official told The New York Times.

‘The U.S. just doesn’t have enough forces there,’ said Mark Cancian, a senior defense adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. ‘What I think they’ve put in place is the capability to launch strikes at either the cartels or the Maduro regime. If I had to bet, it’s probably against the cartels — but I wouldn’t rule out something against the regime.’

That limited but flexible posture reflects what some experts call a modern form of coercive diplomacy.

‘It sort of looks like we’re in the throes of a 21st-century version of gunboat diplomacy,’ said Brandan Buck, a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute. ‘The Trump administration is doing what it can to force some sort of transition [of] power — out of Maduro’s hands and into someone else’s — without a classic invasion.’

The pressure campaign has accelerated this year. The administration raised the bounty on Maduro — Venezuela’s kleptocratic leader for more than a decade — to $50 million, and officials familiar with internal discussions say Trump has grown frustrated with the dictator’s refusal to step aside. Diplomatic outreach to Caracas was reportedly suspended this week.

While the Pentagon continues to frame the campaign as counter-narcotics, the U.S. military’s posture now allows for much more. Ryan Berg, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Washington’s evolving approach reflects a growing willingness to confront the regime directly.

‘There appears to be growing appetite to confront Maduro’s regime directly — including potentially land-based strikes within Venezuela,’ Berg said. ‘The force posture currently in the southern Caribbean is consonant with the potential for precision strikes using Tomahawk missiles or other weapons, but without risking the lives of U.S. service personnel.’

Behind the scenes, Berg noted, the administration has taken steps to prepare the legal ground for such action.

‘The clearest signal yet is the legal justification for a non-international armed conflict,’ he said. ‘That tells us several departments’ Office of Legal Counsel were tasked with building the case for potential strikes.’

The White House continues to describe the operation as homeland defense — stopping drug and fentanyl shipments before they reach U.S. shores — but analysts say Venezuela’s unique role in the drug trade blurs that line.

‘Under Maduro, Venezuela is a criminal regime,’ Berg said. ‘What makes the threat unique is that the regime controls the institutions of the state — and its military — to move drug shipments and participate in other illicit economies.’

That dynamic means targeting cartels could also destabilize the regime that depends on them. Brent Sadler, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and retired Navy officer, said striking cartel networks could ultimately make Maduro’s rule unsustainable.

‘The Maduro regime is reliant on the cartels to maintain its bottom line and stay in power,’ Sadler said. ‘If you weaken the cartel backing of the regime, then the regime itself becomes unsustainable. You don’t have to go in guns blazing — you let it crumble under its own weight.’

Cancian said the expanding U.S. presence at sea and in the air ‘indicates this thing may end up being larger or go on longer than expected.’ Any strikes against cartel production facilities inland, he added, risk bleeding into regime targets such as intelligence or defense ministries.

‘They could easily strike the intelligence service or the Ministry of Defense,’ Cancian said. ‘That’s where things could start to blur.’

But Democrats have accused Trump officials of trying to get the U.S. roped into another war. Republican senators on Thursday blocked an effort led by Senate Democrats to curb Trump’s war powers with a resolution stating Trump does not have the power to authorize strikes without approval from Congress.

The potential for retaliation remains a wild card. Venezuela’s conventional forces are weak, but analysts warn that the regime could rely on its cartel allies or proxy networks to strike back indirectly.

‘Maduro could facilitate their retaliation,’ Cancian said. ‘That could mean attacks on DEA agents or American citizens in the Caribbean. The cartels have the ability to do that.’

So far, few regional actors appear willing to come to Maduro’s defense. Berg said even many of the regime’s neighbors would quietly welcome his fall.

‘Many would be secretly happy to see him go,’ he said. ‘But you’d expect a few voices —  [President Gustavo] Petro in Colombia, [President Inacio] Lula in Brazil — to object to the use of force.’

Erik Suarez, a Venezuelan-born political activist, said the hemisphere is already dividing over the issue.

‘We can divide South America [into] two sides,’ he said. ‘Lula in Brazil and Petro in Colombia are aligned with Maduro, but many others — Ecuador, Peru, Guyana, and Caribbean states — see Venezuela as a major threat because of mass migration and the spread of drug traffickers and terrorists.’

Suarez said the Maduro regime’s alliances with armed groups and terror networks make it not just a domestic problem but a direct threat to U.S. security.

‘Venezuela represents a huge national security threat — not only ideologically, but to homeland security,’ he said. ‘They’ve issued passports to Hezbollah members and targeted dissidents abroad. Keeping Maduro in power is a long-term danger to the U.S.’

That view is shared by Venezuelan opposition leaders in the U.S. and many Latin Americans who fled communist dictatorships and their descendants, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Even if Washington succeeds in toppling Maduro, rebuilding Venezuela would be a monumental challenge. The country’s opposition — led by María Corina Machado and 2024 President-elect Edmundo González Urrutia — has legitimacy but faces the task of stabilizing a shattered state.

‘The opposition has had months to prepare for governing,’ Berg said. ‘They’re full of plans to get Venezuela back on a path of development and greater security.’

Senate Republicans are taking a hands-off approach to threats from White House budget chief Russ Vought, arguing that his pressure on Senate Democrats to reopen the government, for now, is warranted.

Away from the gridlock on Capitol Hill, Vought, who is the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), has made moves to pressure Senate Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to reopen the government.

Before the shutdown started earlier this month, the OMB released a memo to government agencies instructing mass firings beyond the typical furloughs of nonessential employees during government shutdowns. He has since withheld nearly $30 billion in infrastructure funding to blue states and cities.

And earlier this week, a memo circulated around the White House that suggested that furloughed employees would not receive back pay when the government reopened — a move that runs counter to a law signed by President Donald Trump in 2019.

‘We heard earlier, right at the beginning of the shutdown, that we may see some terminations, some firings within the department,’ Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told Fox News Digital. ‘We saw a lot of big numbers kind of thrown around, and they haven’t materialized, which I think is good, but certainly what it does, it’s very unsettling.’

The administration’s latest actions come as conversations on a path out of the shutdown have been ongoing. For now, Republicans don’t believe that Vought’s moves are undercutting those talks.

Sen. John Hoeven. R-N.D., told Fox News Digital that Vought was what Vought ‘thinks probably helps push Democrats to come to the table and open the government back up.’

‘I mean, that’s for him to decide,’ he said. ‘What I’m looking to do is to try to talk to enough Democrats, and I hope that between reaching out to them and pressure they get from back home, we can get the government open and back to work on these things.’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told Fox News Digital that the administration was ‘going to do what they’re going to do, and they’ve got to manage this, and they’re going to manage it according to their priorities.’

‘I think they’re trying to be sensitive to discussions up here that might be productive,’ Thune said. ‘But, you know, as of right now, it’s like I said before, all this stuff is just kind of window dressing until we fundamentally get down to the issue about, are we going to open up the government or not?

‘And I think when all those issues go away, these guys, the things that the White House is talking about doing or hinting that they might do, become unnecessary,’ he continued.

Senate Democrats are demanding a deal extending expiring Obamacare subsidies, and won’t provide the votes needed to reopen the government unless they get more than a guarantee to tackle the issue.

Thune and Senate Republicans are adamant that they will negotiate on extending the tax credits, with reforms baked in, only after the government reopens. And so far, as the stalemate has dragged on, neither Vought nor the administration have taken action on their threats of mass firings or back pay.  

‘Right now it’s fine,’ Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told Fox News Digital. ‘If he starts taking Draconian sorts of actions, then I think it creates a more difficult scenario for us. It puts us further away from what he wants to get accomplished, too.’

Still, Senate Democrats have not taken kindly to his overtures.

Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., told Fox News Digital that there was ‘no question’ Vought was hurting ongoing talks between the parties.

‘Russ Vought is basically acting like a bomb thrower, and bomb throwers are never helpful in negotiations,’ he said. 

The Senate is set to leave town on Friday until early next week as neither side is ready to give in the ongoing government shutdown stalemate.

Lawmakers voted deep into the night on Thursday on the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, which advanced on a largely bipartisan vote. But the $925 billion package, which authorizes funding for the Pentagon, was effectively the last hurrah for the week in the upper chamber.

While there was discussion of putting the House GOP’s continuing resolution (CR), along with congressional Democrats’ counter-proposal, on the floor for one last vote, the plan never came to fruition. Both would likely have failed for an eighth consecutive time.

Senate Republicans and Democrats will instead return on Tuesday next week, after observing Columbus Day, to continue the ongoing back and forth on the GOP’s CR following a week of trying and failing to pass the bill and reopen the government.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., plans to continue bringing the Republicans’ bill to the floor in an effort to fragment Senate Democrats. So far, only three Democratic caucus members have consistently split from their largely unified party.

Talks have continued in the background behind closed-doors, but nothing has quite yet materialized into full-blown negotiations on expiring Obamacare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA), tax credits to find an off-ramp as the government shutdown barrels into a third week.

‘The ACA issue is important to a lot of us, not just to Democrats,’ Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said. ‘The tax subsidies were enhanced during COVID. They do need to be reformed, but they do need to be extended as well.’

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., is one of a handful of Republicans consistently meeting with Democrats. He said he’s not meeting with lawmakers ‘so dug in that they can’t get off their position,’ but still, no movement across the aisle has happened.

Mullin and other Republicans want to pass their short-term CR until Nov. 21, while Senate Democrats are adamant that, unless there is a deal on the ACA subsidies, they won’t provide GOP with the votes to reopen the government.

‘Well, if it continues, the way it’s gone, the longer we go, the harder it is,’ Mullin said. ‘It’s a big task. Anything to do with ACA or healthcare, you get a lot of moving parts. I think that gets very difficult the longer this thing [goes on]. You get into next week. I mean, we’ve got four and a half weeks left, right, and so that timeframe keeps getting shorter.’

Their return next week also all but guarantees that members of the military will not receive their paychecks on time, given that the date to have payroll locked in and processed falls on Monday.

‘Certainly, if folks miss a paycheck, the intensity will go up,’ Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.V., said.

The continued gridlock has most in the Senate GOP unwilling to consider turning to the ‘nuclear option,’ a move they made last month when they unilaterally changed the Senate’s rules for confirmations on nominations to break through Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and his caucus’ blockade of President Donald Trump’s nominees, to change the filibuster.

‘There’s always a lot of swirl out there, as you know, from, you know, social media, etc., but no, we’re not having that conversation,’ Thune said.

But not every Republican wants to ignore nuking the 60-vote filibuster as, day in and day out, the GOP’s plan to reopen the government falls five votes short.

Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, said that if the shutdown continues, it’s an option that should be considered.

‘Look, 50%, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck,’ he said. ‘We’re going to trip that wire next week. Now if there’s another paycheck — that’s probably 80% of Americans that can’t go without two paychecks in a row. I think at that point we have to look at it and say ‘the Democrats are still doing political stunts.’’

Republicans also found a new point of attack against Democrats. Schumer told Punchbowl News in an interview that ‘Every day gets better for us,’ in his assessment of Senate Democrats’ political momentum as the shutdown marches onward.

‘Who is ‘us?’ Not better for the American people,’ Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said. ‘Who does he mean by ‘us?’ Not the military who is not getting paid. Not the Border Patrol who are not getting paid. Not the air traffic controllers who are not getting paid. Who is ‘us?’ He’s playing a game!’

But Senate Democrats are largely shrugging off the issue. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, contended that it was Republicans’ latest attempt to ‘change the topic from 114% increase in premiums,’ a point Democrats have argued could happen if the Obamacare tax credits aren’t extended.

‘They’re a little desperate to change the news cycle, and this is their latest attempt,’ Schatz said.