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Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics. We’ll be bringing you the latest updates as Donald Trump begins the second week of his second term in office.
On Sunday, the US and Colombia have pulled back from brink of a trade war after Colombia agreed to accept flights carrying migrants deported from the US.
Trump had threatened to impose trade tariffs and sanctions on Colombia after it initially refused to accept the flights.
In a statement late on Sunday, the White House said Colombia had agreed to accept the flights and that the threatened penalties would not go ahead.
Stay with us throughout the day for all the latest developments.
Show key events only
Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature
Lauren Aratani
Over the weekend, the Senate voted to confirm Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary, putting the South Dakota governor in charge of a sprawling agency that is essential to national security and Donald Trump’s plans to clamp down on illegal immigration during his second presidency.
Republicans unanimously voted to confirm Noem and got support from seven Democrats, including John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Andy Kim of New Jersey, Gary Peters of Michigan, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Margaret Hassan of New Hampshire and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan. The final vote was 59-34.
Noem, who held her state’s lone House seat for eight years before becoming governor in 2019, has risen in the Republican party by tacking closely with Trump. At one point, she was even under consideration to be his running mate.
Her political stock took a momentary dip, however, when she released a book last year containing an account of her killing her hunting dog, as well as a false claim that she once met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Kristi Noem before the inauguration of Donald Trump in Washington DC on 20 January 2025. Photograph: Kenny Holston/Reuters
Noem does not have any experience in law enforcement but has pledged to faithfully execute the president’s orders and copied his talk of an “invasion” at the US border with Mexico.
On Friday night, defense secretary Pete Hegseth was also confirmed in a dramatic tie-breaking Senate vote by JD Vance, joining the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the CIA director, John Ratcliffe.
The Senate is expected on Monday to vote on the confirmation of the billionaire hedge fund manager, Scott Bessent, as treasury secretary.
On Saturday, the Senate voted 67-23 to advance Bessent’s nomination. A final vote is scheduled to take place this evening at 5.30pm ET.
The treasury secretary job is one of the most powerful in Washington, with huge influence over America’s gigantic economy and financial markets.
One of the main focuses and controversies of the role will be to deal with Donald Trump’s high-profile and oft-repeated promises to pursue a policy of aggressive new US tariffs in foreign trade – something that is widely feared by many other countries across the globe.
Scott Bessent looks on next to his husband, John Freeman, and son Cole, on the day he testifies during a Senate hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Bessent, 62, has advocated for tax reform and deregulation, particularly to spur more bank lending and energy production.
If Bessent is confirmed, he would be the first out gay Senate-approved cabinet official in a Republican cabinet.
In a statement late on Sunday, the White House claimed victory in its showdown with Colombia over deportation flights and said it had agreed to accept the migrants.
A statement from the White House last night reads:
The government of Colombia has agreed to all of President Trump’s terms, including the unrestricted acceptance of all illegal aliens from Colombia returned from the United States, including on US military aircraft, without limitation or delay.
As a result, the tariffs and sanctions that Donald Trump had threatened would be “held in reserve, and not signed”, it said.
Other penalties, such as visa sanctions, will remain in effect until the first planeload of deportees has arrived in Colombia, the statement said.
Here’s more on the back-and-forth between Donald Trump and his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, amid rising tensions between Latin American governments and Washington over US deportation flights.
Petro had earlier said he would only take back citizens “with dignity”, such as on civilian planes, and had turned back two US military aircraft with repatriated Colombians.
Trump responded fiercely, threatening to take the following “urgent and decisive retaliatory measures” including doubling tariffs on Colombian exports to the US to 50%; a ban and visa revocations on Colombian government officials “and all allies and supporters”; and enhanced inspections of all Colombian nationals and cargo entering the US on what he called “national security grounds”.
In response, Petro ordered an increase of import tariffs on goods from the US. Petro said he ordered the “foreign trade minister to raise import tariffs from the U.S. by 25%”.
Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, issued a statement saying: “Colombian President Petro had authorized flights and provided all needed authorizations and then canceled his authorization when the planes were in the air.
“President Trump has made it clear that under his administration, America will no longer be lied to nor taken advantage of.”
The sight of Donald Trump signing a flurry of executive orders with his black Sharpie in front of the Maga faithful after his inauguration inspired envy and concern in equal measure inside the UK government.
Cabinet ministers have been impressed by the new US president “cracking on” with bold – and often controversial – election promises. “We could do with a bit more of that here,” one told the Guardian.
Trump’s recent praise of Keir Starmer has settled some nerves inside No 10. Composite: Erik S Lesser/EPA/ Jaimi Joy/PA
Yet the flood of announcements over Trump’s first week in power and the potential for the UK to be caught up in the global diplomatic and economic maelstrom – or worse still, a direct target of it – has also caused anxiety.
So the newly inaugurated president’s first public utterance about Keir Starmer since re-entering the White House – that the prime minister had “done a very good job” and they “get along well” despite their divergent political views – was met with some relief inside Downing Street.
Read the full piece from our political editor, Pippa Crerar, here:
Vice-president JD Vance has defended some of Donald Trump’s controversial cabinet nominations ahead of further confirmation hearings this week.
Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation, Vance was asked about Pete Hegseth, the former soldier and Fox News host who was confirmed as defense secretary last week following a narrow vote in the Senate.
“I think Pete is a disrupter,” he said. “If you think about all of those bipartisan, massive votes [from past confirmations], we have to ask ourselves, what did they get us?
“They got us a country where we fought many wars over the last 40 years, but haven’t won a war about as long as I’ve been alive. They’ve got us a military with a major recruitment crisis, a procurement price crisis that’s totally dysfunctional, where we [have] terrible cost overruns. So we need a big change.”
Vance was also asked about Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who has faced criticism for her views on Edward Snowden, previous meetings with now deposed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, and comments on the Russia-Ukraine war.
He said Gabbard, also a former soldier, who will appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, had an “impeccable character, impeccable record of service, and she also is a person who I think is going to bring some trust back to the intelligence services”.
Donald Trump has issued an executive order directing federal government to override California’s water management practices if they are found to be ineffective.
It comes two days after Trump visited Los Angeles to see the damage done by a series of wildfires that have burned more than 35,000 acres and killed at least 28 people.
Trump has falsely claimed that California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, and other officials refused to provide water from the northern part of the state to fight the fires.
California Governor Gavin Newsom and President Donald Trump speak to reporters after Trump’s arrival in Los Angeles last week. Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein/AP
Demand at the height of the fires caused some hydrants in LA to run dry, but local officials said that was because the system was not designed for such large fires, while Newsom has said no amount of water could have contained brush fires whipped by 100mph winds.
Trump’s order told federal agencies to “immediately take actions to override existing activities that unduly burden efforts to maximize water deliveries”.
It also orders the White House budget office to see whether it can attach conditions to federal aid to the state to ensure cooperation.
Read the full story here:
All countries “should be on notice” that they will face sanctions if they do not cooperate with US deportation efforts, the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has said.
It comes after Colombia agreed to accept repatriated citizens having initially refused to take two planes of deportees.
“Colombia and all nations should be on notice – Congress is fully prepared to pass sanctions and other measures against those that do not fully cooperate or follow through on requirements to accept their citizens who are illegally in the United States,” Johnson wrote on X.
“President Trump is putting America first, just like he said he would. And Congress will implement policies that reinforce his agenda.”
US federal authorities have begun immigration raids in Chicago, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) statement confirmed on Sunday.
It comes after the White House border czar, Tom Homan, said officials were “reconsidering” the raids to ensure officers’ safety after details were leaked into the press.
Ice said its agents, along with the FBI, ATF, DEA, CBP, and the US Marshals Service, had begun conducting “enhanced targeted operations” in Chicago “to enforce US immigration law and preserve public safety and national security by keeping potentially dangerous criminal aliens out of our communities”.
Homan previously said Chicago would be “ground zero” for immigration enforcement actions.
The Washington Post reports that the Trump administration has directed Ice officials to increase daily arrests from a few hundred to 1,200 to 1,500.
More now on that news that Colombia has agreed to accept flights carrying migrants deported from the US, narrowly averting a trade war between the two countries.
In a statement late on Sunday, the White House said: “The government of Colombia has agreed to all of President Trump’s terms, including the unrestricted acceptance of all illegal aliens from Colombia returned from the United States, including on US military aircraft, without limitation or delay.”
The Colombian foreign minister, Luis Gilberto Murillo, said in his own statement that “we have overcome the impasse with the US government”, adding: “We will continue receiving Colombians who return as deportees.”
Trump had threatened to impose 25% tariffs “on all goods” exported from Colombia to the US, rising to 50% after a week, after Colombia refused to accept two military planes carrying deportees.
In response, Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, announced retaliatory tariffs and said he would only take back citizens “with dignity”, such as on civilian planes.
Murillo’s statement did not specifically say that the agreement included military flights, but it did not contradict the White House announcement.
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics. We’ll be bringing you the latest updates as Donald Trump begins the second week of his second term in office.
On Sunday, the US and Colombia have pulled back from brink of a trade war after Colombia agreed to accept flights carrying migrants deported from the US.
Trump had threatened to impose trade tariffs and sanctions on Colombia after it initially refused to accept the flights.
In a statement late on Sunday, the White House said Colombia had agreed to accept the flights and that the threatened penalties would not go ahead.
Stay with us throughout the day for all the latest developments.
