China, Russia and Iran began a week of joint naval exercises in South Africa’s waters on Saturday in what the host country described as a BRICS Plus operation to “ensure the safety of shipping and maritime economic activities”.

BRICS Plus is an expansion of a geopolitical bloc originally comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – and seen by members as a counterweight to U.S. and Western economic dominance – to include six other countries.

Though South Africa routinely carries out naval exercises with China and Russia, it comes at a time of heightened tensions between U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and several BRICS Plus countries, including China, Iran, South Africa and Brazil.

The expanded BRICS group also includes Egypt, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates.

Chinese military officials leading the opening ceremony said Brazil, Egypt and Ethiopia participated as observers.

“Exercise WILL FOR PEACE 2026 brings together navies from BRICS Plus countries for … joint maritime safety operations (and) interoperability drills,” South Africa’s military said in a statement.

Lieutenant Colonel Mpho Mathebula, acting spokesperson for joint operations, told Reuters all members had been invited.

Trump has accused the BRICS nations of pursuing “anti-American” polities, and last January threatened all members with a 10% trade tariff on top of duties he was already imposing on countries across the world.

The pro-Western Democratic Alliance, the second largest party in South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s coalition, said the exercises “contradict our stated neutrality” and that BRICS had “rendered South Africa a pawn in the power games being waged by rogue states on the international stage”.

Mathebula rejected that criticism.

“This is not a political arrangement … there is no hostility (towards the U.S.),” Mathebula told Reuters, pointing out that South Africa has also periodically carried out exercises with the U.S. Navy.

“It’s a naval exercise. The intention is for us to improve our capabilities and share information,” she said.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the United States would withdraw from dozens of international and U.N. entities, including a key climate treaty and a U.N. body that promotes gender equality and women’s empowerment, because they “operate contrary to U.S. national interests.”

Among the 35 non-U.N. groups and 31 U.N. entities Trump listed in a memo to senior administration officials is the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change – described by many as the “bedrock” climate treaty which is parent agreement to the 2015 Paris climate deal, Reuters reported.

The United States skipped the annual U.N. international climate summit last year for the first time in three decades.

“The United States would be the first country to walk away from the UNFCCC,” said Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“Every other nation is a member, in part because they recognize that even beyond the moral imperative of addressing climate change, having a seat at the table in those negotiations represents an ability to shape massive economic policy and opportunity,” said Bapna.

The U.S. will also quit UN Women, which works for gender equality and the empowerment of women, and the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), the international body’s agency focused on family planning as well as maternal and child health in more than 150 countries. The U.S. cut its funding for the UNFPA last year.

“For United Nations entities, withdrawal means ceasing participation in or funding to those entities to the extent permitted by law,” reads the memo. Trump has already largely slashed voluntary funding to most U.N. agencies.

A spokesperson for U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

TRUMP WARY OF MULTILATERAL ORGANISATIONS

Trump’s move reflects his long-standing wariness of multilateral institutions, particularly the United Nations. He has repeatedly questioned the effectiveness, cost and accountability of international bodies, arguing they often fail to serve U.S. interests.

Since beginning his second term a year ago, Trump has sought to slash U.S. funding for the United Nations, stopped U.S. engagement with the U.N. Human Rights Council, extended a halt to funding for the Palestinian relief agency UNRWA and quit the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO. He has also announced plans to quit the World Health Organization and the Paris climate agreement.

Other entities on the U.S. list are the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, the International Energy Forum, the U.N. Register of Conventional Arms and the U.N. Peacebuilding Commission.

The White House said the dozens of entities that Washington was seeking to depart as soon as possible promote “radical climate policies, global governance, and ideological programs that conflict with U.S. sovereignty and economic strength.”

It said the move is part of a review of all international intergovernmental organizations, conventions and treaties.

“These withdrawals will end American taxpayer funding and involvement in entities that advance globalist agendas over U.S. priorities, or that address important issues inefficiently or ineffectively such that U.S. taxpayer dollars are best allocated in other ways to support the relevant missions,” the White House said in a statement.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday unveiled a plan to refine and sell up to 50 million barrels of Venezuelan oil that had been stuck in Venezuela under U.S. blockade, in a further sign that Washington is coordinating with the Venezuelan government since capturing President Nicolas Maduro.

Maduro is in a New York jail awaiting drug charges after the Saturday morning raid that the U.S. estimates killed about 75 people, according to a Washington Post report citing officials familiar with the matter, Reuters reported.

The U.S. has yet to report a death toll from an operation that reasserted U.S. willingness to intervene in Latin America with perhaps its most dramatic military operation since the 1989 invasion of Panama that seized Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega.

Nor has Caracas given a number for those killed, but the army posted a list of 23 names of its dead. Venezuelan officials have said a large part of Maduro’s security contingent was killed “in cold blood,” and Cuba has said 32 members of its military and intelligence services in Venezuela were killed. Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez on Tuesday declared a week of mourning for members of the military killed in the raid.

The operation brought condemnation from Russia, China and Venezuela’s leftist allies, while allies of the United States have urged adherence to international law.

Maduro, 63, pleaded not guilty on Monday to narcotics charges. He said he was a “decent man” and still president of Venezuela, while standing in a Manhattan court shackled at the ankles and wearing orange and beige prison garb.

US TO TAKE VENEZUELAN OIL

While Venezuela’s political future remains uncertain amid U.S. claims that it will be running the South American country, for now Trump appears to be working with Rodriguez and other senior officials from Maduro’s government, disappointing the opposition that had hoped to play a larger role.

Trump on social media announced that Venezuela would sell 30 million to 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil that would be shipped directly to the United States under a plan to be executed immediately by Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

“This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!” Trump said. Based on recent prices for Venezuelan oil, the deal could be worth up to $1.9 billion.

U.S. officials have yet to outline a legal framework for seizing Venezuelan oil, though the U.S. has accused Venezuelan tankers of breaking U.S. sanctions to ship Iranian and Venezuelan oil.

Trump has also suggested the U.S. would help rebuild the country’s oil infrastructure to benefit oil majors such as Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips which were affected by a Venezuelan oil nationalization by former President Hugo Chavez, and Chevron Corp which has continued to operate there.

U.S. oil chief executives are expected to visit the White House as early as Thursday to discuss investments in Venezuela, according to three sources familiar with the planning.

VENEZUELA OPPOSITION SEEKS ROLE

With the U.S. as its main ally, Venezuela would become the energy hub of the Americas, restore the rule of law, open markets and bring home exiles, opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado said in an interview on Monday with Fox News.

Trump has, however, been told by the CIA that Rodriguez and other senior officials from Maduro’s government are the best bet to maintain stability, sources said. The classified assessment was one reason why Trump decided to back Rodriguez instead of opposition leader Machado, the sources said.

Machado, who said she wants to return to Venezuela to lead the country, said Rodriguez was “nothing like a moderate,” and had been one of the main architects of Venezuelan repression.

“I think it’s evident the United States has instructed her to take certain actions regarding further dismantling of the criminal structure as a path forward towards a complete transition to democracy in Venezuela,” Machado told CBS News in a separate interview on Tuesday.

The Trump administration has put hardline Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello on notice that he could be at the top of its target list unless he helps Rodriguez meet U.S. demands and keep order, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Cabello, who controls security forces accused of widespread human rights abuses, is one of a handful of Maduro loyalists that Trump has decided to rely on as temporary rulers to maintain stability during a transition period, said one source briefed on the administration’s thinking. Cabello has been on the streets of Venezuela, patrolling with security forces.

“Always loyal, never traitors. Doubt is betrayal!” they chanted in one of several overnight social media posts by the Venezuelan government.

The U.S. is also pressuring the interim Venezuelan government to expel official advisers from China, Russia, Cuba and Iran, the New York Times reported, citing anonymous U.S. officials. Secretary of State Marco Rubio listed the Trump administration’s demands in a classified meeting on Monday with senior congressional leaders, the Times said. Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

Since the seizure of Maduro, Venezuelan authorities have ordered the arrest of anyone who collaborated.

Fourteen media workers were briefly detained covering events in Caracas on Monday, and shots were fired on Monday night into the sky above the city, which a Venezuelan official said came from police to deter unauthorized drones.

“There was no confrontation, the entire country remains completely calm,” Vice Minister of Communications Simon Arrechider told reporters.