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Christie’s has launched its first-ever sale dedicated to artworks created with artificial intelligence, riding the AI revolution wave — a move by the famed auction house that has sparked anger among some artists.The sale, titled “Augmented Intelligence,” features about 20 pieces and runs online until March 5.Christie’s, like its competitor Sotheby’s, has previously offered AI-created items but had never devoted an entire sale to this medium.”AI has become more prolific in everybody’s daily lives,” said Nicole Sales Giles, Christie’s head of digital art sales.”More people understand the process and the technology behind AI and so are more readily able to appreciate AI also in creative fields,” she said.The launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 transformed public perceptions of generative artificial intelligence and opened new possibilities for its widespread use.The market is now crowded with AI models that allow users to generate drawings, animated images or photo-realistic images through simple natural language requests.The use of algorithms in the art world, it turns out, is almost as old as modern computing itself. Christie’s is offering a work by American artist Charles Csuri (1922-2022) dating from 1966.As a pioneer of computer art, he distinguished himself by using software to distort one of his hand-drawn sketches.”All artists in the fine art sense, and particularly the artists that were featured in this auction, use AI to supplement their existing practices,” said Sales Giles.The collection includes paintings, sculptures, photographs and giant screens displaying entirely digital works.Among the sale’s highlights is “Emerging Faces” (estimated to sell for up to $250,000) by American artist Pindar Van Arman, a series of nine paintings resulting from a “conversation” between two AI models.The first model paints a face on canvas while the second stops it when it recognizes a human form.- ‘Controversy and criticism’ -The sale has not been welcomed by all, and an online petition calling for its cancellation has gathered more than 6,300 signatures.Many of the submitted works “were created using AI models that are known to be trained on copyrighted work without a license,” it says.The petition says the sale contributes to the “mass theft of human artists’ work.”Several artists filed lawsuits in 2023 against generative AI startups, including popular platforms Midjourney and Stability AI, accusing them of violating intellectual property laws.Digital art heavyweight Refik Anadol, who is participating in the event with his animated creation “Machine Hallucinations,” defended the sale on X, saying the “majority of the artists in the project (are) specifically pushing and using their own datasets + their own models.”Petition signatory and illustrator Reid Southern said that at a minimum, pieces should be excluded that don’t use the artist’s own software or data — accounting for perhaps one-third of the sale, he said.”If these were oil paintings,” he said, and there “was a strong likelihood that many of them were either counterfeit or forgeries or stolen or unethical in some way, I don’t believe it would be ethical for Christie to continue the auction.”Sales Giles responded: “I’m not a copyright lawyer, so I can’t comment on the legality specifically. But the idea that artists have been looking at prior artists to influence their current work is not new.”Every new artistic movement generates controversy and criticism,” she added.”Midjourney is trained on basically the entirety of the internet,” said noted Turkish artist Sarp Kerem Yavuz, who used this software to create “Hayal,” also being auctioned at Christie’s.”There’s so much information (out there) that you cannot infringe on individual copyright,” he said.Southern, the illustrator, pushed back. “That’s essentially arguing that it’s bad to steal from one or two people, but it’s okay to steal from millions of people, right?” he said.

Pop superstar Madonna has reignited her campaign against President Donald Trump, upbraiding the US leader for calling himself “the King.”Horror author Stephen King also laid into Trump on Friday in his return to the X platform, calling the president “traitorous” over his dealings with Russian President Vladimir Putin.Trump has issued a wave of executive orders and started contacts with Putin since taking office on January 20.He declared “LONG LIVE THE KING” to end a social media message on Wednesday stating that he had killed off a New York plan to impose a peak congestion charge of $9 for cars entering much of Manhattan.The White House reposted the message on its social media with an illustration showing Trump wearing a diamond-studded crown.”I thought this country was built by Europeans, escaping living under the rule of a King, to establish a New World governed by the people,” Madonna, widely known as “The Queen of Pop,” said late Thursday on the X platform.”Currently we have a president who calls Himself Our King. If this is a joke, I’m not laughing,” added the 66-year-old singer.Madonna criticized Trump during his first term as president and took part in a demonstration by Trump opponents after his January 20 inauguration. She has highlighted attacks on LGBTQ rights by the new administration.Opponents frequently criticize Trump for adopting a regal tone. He said in his inaugural address that he was “saved by God to make America great again,” after surviving an assassination attempt in July.The Republican leader campaigned against New York’s congestion charge, the first in the United States, during his presidential campaign.The US Department of Transportation directed New York authorities this week to halt the charge. New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said lawyers have initiated court action to halt the federal order.But Trump triumphantly said on his Truth Social platform that “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!”King, one of the world’s best-selling authors and a prolific social media user, left the X platform of Trump ally Elon Musk three months ago saying it had become “too toxic” following Trump’s election victory.”I’m baaaaack! Did you miss me?” he said in a post Friday. “I did tbh (to be honest),” Musk responded in a post.”Just wanted to say that Trump is a traitorous, Putin-loving dipshit! Goes double for Elon!” added King, a longtime critic of the president and Musk.

Drama, disruption and disputes are essential to Donald Trump’s politics, and this week served up another series of extraordinary moments as he completed his first month of a second term in the White House.- You’re fired, please come back -Key nuclear security staff were sacked in sweeping federal cuts — before a desperate rush to re-hire them. An official memo admitted “we do not have a good way to get in touch” with the fired employees.Trump responded to concerns by claiming that a lot of corruption and waste had been found in government departments.”We have to just do what we have to do,” he said. “In some cases, they’ll fire people, then they’ll put some people back … not all of them, because a lot of people were let go.”- The chainsaw revs up -Trump’s cutter-in-chief Elon Musk brandished a chainsaw high over his head on stage in front of cheering conservatives at a Washington get-together.It was handed to him by right-wing Argentine President Javier Milei, who made the machine a symbol of slashing bureaucracy and state spending in his own country.The chainsaw, which was not turned on, was engraved with “Viva la libertad, carajo” — “Long live freedom, damn it.”- Ice hockey as geopolitics -An ice hockey game between the United States and Canada turned into a symbol of the ugly new relationship between the neighbors and allies as Trump repeatedly says he wants to make it a 51st US state.”You can’t take our country — and you can’t take our game,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said after Canada’s emotional 3-2 overtime victory.Trump often calls Canada “the 51st state” and taunts Trudeau by referring to him as a mere US state governor.- Musk and Trump: ‘brothers’ -“I feel like I’m interviewing two brothers here,” said Fox host Sean Hannity in conversation with the president and the tech billionaire.Sitting next to Musk, Trump joked: “He’s got some very brilliant young people working for him that dress much worse than him, actually.”Musk revealed he would have endorsed the Republican anyway, but the assassination attempt on Trump in July sped up his public announcement.- Was that a Nazi salute? -Conservative firebrand Steve Bannon made a gesture on stage seen by some as a Nazi salute.Bannon briefly made the hand signal after telling Trump supporters: “We are not going to retreat, we’re not going to surrender, we’re not going to quit. Fight, fight, fight!”France’s far-right leader Jordan Bardella canceled his speech due to the “gesture alluding to Nazi ideology.”- A short honeymoon? -Among independent voters, only one in three support what Trump has done so far, and half oppose it, with the remainder unsure, according to a Washington Post poll.It found 57 percent of voters say he has exceeded his authority since taking office.Polls may not matter to Trump, who is banned by the constitution from a third term in office, though he teases supporters and opponents by suggesting he may run again.- ‘Hell of a lot of fun’ -Vice President JD Vance is embracing all the action.Trump “is acutely aware that the American people gave us a window to save the country and that’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Vance said.”And thank God for that, because it’s been a hell of a lot of fun the past month.”

On a snowy prairie in Minnesota stands a monastery like no other. A concrete trapezoid banner encasing a bell tower looms over a giant, beehive-shaped front window composed of hundreds of gently shimmering hexagons.For half a century, the existence of this modernist masterpiece has been mainly known to the Benedictine monks who worship there, and the hordes of architects who make pilgrimages to Saint John’s Abbey Church each summer.But these days, it is finding new fame as the basis for “The Brutalist,” the epic drama about an immigrant architect, haunted by the Holocaust, that is a favorite to win best picture at the Oscars.The tale of the church’s genesis is as unlikely as the movie plot it inspired, spanning titans of architecture, ambitious monks, Vatican reform — and an almighty row over that beehive window.Giving tours to guests, abbey member Alan Reed begins by asking his guests: “How could this have happened?””That this small college at the time, in the middle of nowhere, run by a group of monks, would hire a world-famous architect… it is an amazing story,” he told AFP.- ‘Extraordinary’ -It begins with Baldwin Dworschak, a 44-year-old “buttoned-down” abbot, who inherited stewardship of a monastery rapidly outgrowing its historic grounds in the post-war US boom years of the 1950s.At a time when the Catholic Church was reforming and modernizing, Dworschak and his advisors saw an opportunity to emulate the pioneering 12th-century European monks who ushered in the then-new Gothic style.Arranged by a monk who had studied architecture, letters inviting commissions were sent out to Richard Neutra, Walter Gropius, Eero Saarinen and Marcel Breuer — among the world’s leading modernist architects at the time.Amazingly, several responded, and Breuer — a Hungarian Jew who had trained at Germany’s influential Bauhaus school, and invented the sleek, tubular-steel chairs that furnish trendy offices to this day — was appointed to oversee the giant church in a far northern corner of the United States.The design he came up with was “something nobody had ever seen before,” said Victoria Young, a professor of architecture at the University of St Thomas in Minnesota, who wrote a book on Breuer’s “extraordinary” creation.Chinese American architect I.M. Pei — a former student of Breuer — once wrote that Saint John’s Abbey Church would be considered one of the greatest examples of 20th century architecture if it were located in New York, not Minnesota.- Almighty row -Brady Corbet, director of “The Brutalist,” cites a book written by Hilary Thimmesh, a junior member of Dworschak’s committee, as a key source for his movie.Corbet told AFP he has visited Saint John’s, and stumbled upon Thimmesh’s memoir while doing extensive reading for the film.Several parallels are clear: a Jewish architect designing a colossal Christian edifice on a remote US hilltop, in a controversial modernist style.A major source of dramatic tension in the film occurs when the client — a millionaire tycoon in the movie, rather than an abbot — brings in his own designer, undermining the original architect.In real life, Breuer struck up a friendship with Dworschak, but they fell out when the monks brought in their own stained-glass window designer, spurning the work of Breuer’s close friend and former teacher Joseph Albers.In a bitter letter, Breuer calls the move a “sudden blow” and states it would be “better to do nothing” than go ahead with the monks’ preference.The new design must be “terminated immediately,” says another letter — to no avail.The power struggle in “The Brutalist” culminates in a horrific act of sexual violence in an Italian marble quarry.Thankfully, the real-life client and architect quickly made up.- ‘Forgotten’ -Some inevitable Hollywood hyperbole aside, an Oscar-nominated film bringing attention to their monastery’s hidden treasure is a source of pride for those connected to Saint John’s.Architect Robert McCarter wrote a book on Breuer “because I felt Breuer had been forgotten, even by the profession, to some degree,” he told AFP.”There are many people who think that Saint John’s is, by far, his greatest building. That includes me,” he said.”It’s still a place that enough people don’t know about,” agreed Young.For the monks of Saint John’s today, the film could offer a more practical lifeline. The church is badly in need of repairs, with some concrete starting to crumble, and steel beginning to rust.Their order has shrunk, from being the world’s largest male Benedictine monastery with 340 monks, to below 100. It is far too few for such a cavernous space.”If we could raise enough money,” the monks could at least heat the church in winter and cool it in summer, said Reed.And the attention the film is getting?”The monks certainly are quite impressed,” he said.

US President Donald Trump said Thursday that he has appointed Alice Marie Johnson, a woman he pardoned in his first term, as “pardon czar” to advise on other cases.”Alice was in prison for doing something that today probably wouldn’t even be prosecuted,” Trump said at an event celebrating Black History Month at the White House.”She spent 22 years in prison — 22 years. She had another 22 years left. Can you believe it? And I pardoned her, and it was one of the best pardons,” he told the crowd that included Johnson.”We’re going to be listening to your recommendation and pardons… She’s going to be my pardon czar,” Trump said.US reality television star Kim Kardashian successfully petitioned Trump in 2018 to pardon Johnson, who had served nearly 22 years of a life sentence for a non-violent drug offense.Johnson, who was 63 when she was released, was a first-time offender who was convicted of cocaine possession and money laundering. Trump initially commuted her sentence and later pardoned her.

Erikka Olson spent five years building her resume with a seasonal job at California’s Yosemite National Park before she finally landed a permanent position with the US Forest Service in Nevada. This past weekend, the Trump administration laid her off, along with thousands of other federal employees. The cuts were part of the work of the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by billionaire Elon Musk, as part of a declared effort to reduce public spending by dismantling the federal bureaucracy. The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) estimates 1,000 US National Park Service employees who were on one-year probationary periods were laid off. About 3,400 employees of the US Forest Service were among the cuts too, according to multiple US media reports.Olson, 27, had worked at Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest since last June, performing tasks such as maintaining hiking trails, clearing vegetation and other debris from paths and collecting data on visitors.On Saturday, she received an email saying she was fired with immediate effect, alleging poor performance.”Our work as federal employees is such a good deal for the American public,” Olson told AFP.She argued that her modest salary was worth it to support work the public can take for granted at times, such as clean bathrooms and accessible hiking trails.”Having wilderness areas that are protected is like, such a good deal for the American people, and I think they’ll be losing that,” she lamented.- ‘Fueled by anger’ -The United States’ 63 National Parks are highly popular public attractions, especially in the spring and summertime — and in an age of strong political division, protecting public lands remains one of the few federal issues that has widespread consensus.One former employee of a National Park in the Washington area, who asked not to be named, said “the National Parks are America’s best idea.””It’s not saving money,” the employee told AFP about the layoffs, of which she was a part.”It’s only going to hurt services. You know, visitors to the parks are going to be shocked and saddened with what they’re going to come across this summer… less services, dirty bathrooms, no programs, and shortened hours.”Now in her 50s, the employee said she spent her last days returning work equipment and bringing home personal belongings.”I am being fueled by anger, because it’s so stupid and because it’s not benefiting anybody, you know… there’s not going to be anybody there to protect the public lands, or instruct people, or save them when they throw themselves in front of a bison in Yellowstone,” the employee said.- Privatization? -Emily Douce, the NPCA’s deputy vice president of government affairs, listed trash piling up, overflowing restrooms, and damage to the natural environment as “some examples that could happen if the park service doesn’t have the staff necessary to run these parks.” Aleksander Chmura, a former janitor at Yosemite National Park, said he feared the parks face “destruction and potentially privatization” in the wake of the layoffs. “They’ll make up these excuses saying, ‘look, the parks can’t run themselves. We need to privatize them,'” he said. “I really, really think that what we’re going to head towards is a privatization of our parks. And we cannot let that happen by any means whatsoever.”  Nathan Vince, another laid-off Yosemite employee, was the park’s sole locksmith before he was fired last Friday. “They’ve gutted essential people, and they haven’t even looked at what I do or who I am or the need of my position,” Vince, 42, told AFP. “There’s absolutely nothing efficient about this, or that makes any sense, unless the goal is to get rid of all the locks in a park,” he added. 

A US judge on Thursday denied a union bid to temporarily halt the firing of thousands of federal employees on probationary status, handing President Donald Trump another legal win in his plan to slash the government workforce.District Judge Christopher Cooper said he lacked the jurisdiction to handle the complaint, one of several filed in courts in recent days in an effort to pause the mass sackings.The judge’s decision comes as around 6,700 workers at the 100,000-strong Internal Revenue Service (IRS) who were on probation were being laid off.A former IRS probationary officer who was laid off on Thursday told AFP she and her colleagues had been warned to cancel any trips before receiving an email, requesting they come to the office with their government-issued IDs and laptops.The mother of two, in her 40s, who requested to remain anonymous, said: “This has just completely turned people’s lives upside down.”There’s zero empathy. Maybe they don’t really care about this, and they only care about the mission of cost-cutting and such.”She said they had not received any severance and that she was now thinking about the “financial hardship” ahead, adding: “How are we going to deal with, for instance, our mortgage and then health insurance?” Most of the employees being let go were part of the US tax agency’s enforcement teams, less than two months before the US income tax filing deadline of April 15, a former IRS official said. The National Treasury Employees Union and four other unions that represent federal employees had asked Cooper to issue a temporary restraining order preventing termination of their members who are probationary employees.Cooper, an appointee of former president Barack Obama, said his court lacks jurisdiction to hear their claims and they should instead be brought before the Federal Labor Relations Authority, a body that adjudicates federal labor disputes.- Managers had ‘no idea’ -A probationary worker who spoke to AFP, on condition of anonymity to freely discuss his former employer, said that managers at the agency had “no idea” the layoffs were coming.”I think DOGE has been very careful to make it seem like the agencies themselves are making the decisions, when I can tell, our managers yesterday were just as shocked as we were,” he said. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is a free-ranging entity run by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a top Trump ally and donor.On Thursday, the laid-off IRS worker said staff at his agency were “a little resigned, a little defeated, including our managers… some of them were, seemed like they were on the verge of tears.”He had been a revenue agent on a team that oversaw tax collection for corporations and wealthy individuals.”I think Republicans have really kind of twisted the narrative in the press to say that the IRS has hired a bunch of people to go after middle- or working-class folks, when really a lot of the people that were hired were hired to go after large corporations and high net worth individuals,” he said. – ‘Cruel’ -On Wednesday, another federal judge declined a request to temporarily block DOGE from firing federal employees.Fourteen Democratic-ruled states filed a suit last week contesting Musk’s legal authority but District Judge Tanya Chutkan denied their emergency request to pause his actions.Musk’s cost-cutting spree has been met with legal pushback on several fronts and a mixed bag of rulings.A judge last week lifted a freeze he had temporarily imposed on a mass buyout plan offered by the Trump administration to federal workers.According to the White House, more than 75,000 federal employees signed on to the buyout offer from the Office of Personnel Management.The fired IRS worker said he had felt “between a rock and a hard place” when he received the buyout offer, facing either quitting his job or being fired anyway.”For all of this to happen in such a cruel fashion, just it doesn’t make sense to me,” he said.

“The Brutalist,” an epic drama loosely inspired by the life and work of architect Marcel Breuer, is one of the favorites for the Oscars.But the film has drawn scorn from design experts, who accuse it of glaring errors, and question whether its main character is even a Brutalist architect.Here are five things to know about the film, which is up for 10 Academy Awards including best picture:- Who was Marcel Breuer? -Director Brady Corbet has said his protagonist Laszlo Toth is an “amalgamation” of several famed architects, most notably Breuer.Like the fictional Toth, Breuer was born in Hungary, honed his skills at inter-war Germany’s influential Bauhaus school, and immigrated to America.Both designed iconic chairs before turning their focus to grand buildings. Born Jewish, each was commissioned to construct giant Christian buildings in remote parts of the United States that become their masterpieces.Corbet has said a book about Breuer’s work on Saint John’s Abbey, in rural Minnesota, was a key inspiration for the film. Breuer is also known for designing parts of Paris’s UNESCO headquarters, New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Pirelli Tire Building in Connecticut. – What is brutalism? -Brutalism is a polarizing design style that emerged in the 1950s post-war reconstruction of Europe.It is recognizable for its exposed, unembellished concrete, and giant, bold geometric forms.The term is believed to come from “beton brut,” French for raw concrete.Surprisingly, almost no Brutalist architecture appears in “The Brutalist” — until we glimpse Toth’s completed masterpiece at the end of the three-and-a-half-hour film.In a podcast episode entitled “Why The Brutalist is a Terrible Movie,” design critic Alexandra Lange said the filmmakers “say they read all these books on Brutalism, but absolutely none of that is used to any dramatic purpose or really seems to have been absorbed.”Victoria Young, a professor at the University of St Thomas, told AFP that the building we see at the end is not even Brutalist, but early modernist.”I’m like, ‘You’re kind of missing the whole timeline here,” she said.- What about the timeline? – Experts have pointed out other ways in which the film distorts history.In the film, Toth is a Holocaust survivor who struggles for work and queues for free bread on arrival in post-war America, before his talents are eventually spotted by a wealthy benefactor.In reality, Bauhaus alumni like Breuer and Walter Gropius crossed the Atlantic in the 1930s, before the war. They arrived as globally famous professionals, welcomed into prestigious posts at places like Harvard University.Modernist architecture was deeply established and fashionable in the United States long before the film’s setting.”As an architectural historian, my head is still spinning apart from watching that movie,” said Young.Toth is presented as a devoutly religious heroin addict. Breuer was sober and secular.- Any other controversies? -“The Brutalist” editor David Jancso said artificial intelligence was used to make renderings of Toth’s buildings and blueprints. (AI, which is both increasingly used and loathed by many in Hollywood, also sharpened up the actors’ Hungarian accents.)Corbet swiftly clarified the blueprint designs were hand-drawn.But he said the technology was used to create “intentionally… poor digital renderings circa 1980” for the movie’s epilogue.- Will it matter? -“The Brutalist” is a frontrunner for best picture. And the criticisms of it pale in comparison to the storm surrounding “Emilia Perez,” over its star’s offensive social media posts.Robert McCarter, architect and author of monograph “Breuer,” said the film’s occasional historical distortion “doesn’t bother me.””They’re just using his biography conveniently… I think it’s fine,” he told AFP.What of the monks who pray each day in Saint John’s Abbey, the movie’s supposed inspiration?Alan Reed admitted the supposed Brutalism of the film’s title reminds him of “Russian modern buildings… that look like gun parapets” or “a bunch of boxes piled up,” rather than his extraordinary church.Still, he said, his fellow monks are “quite excited” by the extra attention their home is receiving.

The United States deported 177 migrants from its military base in Guantanamo, Cuba to their homeland in Venezuela Thursday, the latest sign of cooperation between the long-feuding governments. Officials in Washington and Caracas confirmed that a plane left the US base and deposited the 177 people in Honduras, where they were picked up by the Venezuelan government. The deportees then left for Venezuela on a flag carrier Conviasa flight that arrived in Maiquetia late Thursday.Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello received the all-male group of deportees at the airport, telling them: “Welcome to the homeland.” “Those who returned, in theory, are all Venezuelans who were in Guantanamo,” Cabello told journalists, adding that another deportation flight was expected to arrive at the end of the week.The carefully choreographed operation would have seemed impossible just weeks ago when the United States accused President Nicolas Maduro of stealing an election. But since President Donald Trump entered office four weeks ago, relations have thawed, with the White House prioritizing immigration cooperation. Maduro said the handover was at the “direct request” of his government to that of Trump.”We have rescued 177 new migrants from Guantanamo,” he said at an official event.Trump envoy Richard Grenell traveled to Caracas on January 31 and met Maduro, who is the subject of a $25 million US bounty for his arrest. Grenell brokered the release of six US prisoners. A day later Trump announced Venezuela had agreed to accept illegal migrants deported from the United States. – ‘Recovered’ -Venezuela said it had “requested the repatriation of a group of compatriots who were unjustly taken to the Guantanamo naval base.””This request has been accepted and the citizens have been transferred to Honduras, from where they will be recovered,” the government said in a statement. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed they had transported “177 Venezuelan illegal aliens from Guantanamo Bay to Honduras today for pickup by the Venezuelan government.”Caracas broke off ties with Washington in January 2019 after The United States recognized then-opposition leader Juan Guaido as “interim president” following 2018 elections that were widely rejected as neither free nor fair. In October 2023, Maduro allowed US planes with deported migrants to fly into Venezuela but withdrew permission four months later. His government has been flying free or subsidized repatriation flights for Venezuelans wishing to return home. Venezuela is keen to end crippling US sanctions and to move beyond the controversy over elections last July that the United States and numerous other countries said were won by the opposition. The contested election results sparked protests in which at least 28 people were killed and about 200 injured, with 2,400 arrests.Human rights groups in the United States have sued to gain access to migrants held in Guantanamo after Trump ordered the base to prepare to receive some 30,000 people who entered the United States without papers.Guantanamo is synonymous with abuses against terror suspects held there after the September 11 attacks. The United States on Thursday deported another group of 135 migrants of various nationalities — including 65 children — to Costa Rica, from where they will be repatriated to their home countries, including China, Russia, Afghanistan, Ghana and Vietnam, the government in San Jose said.Costa Rica, along with Panama, is serving as a way station for migrants deported by Trump’s government. 

Mexico’s president warned the United States on Thursday her country would never tolerate an “invasion” of its national sovereignty and vowed fresh legal action against US gunmakers after Washington designated cartels as terrorist organizations.The remarks were the latest in a series hitting back at the administration of President Donald Trump, which has ramped up pressure on its southern neighbor to curb illegal flows of drugs and migrants.Mexico is trying to avoid the sweeping 25-percent tariffs threatened by Trump by increasing cooperation in the fight against narcotics trafficked by the cartels in his sights.The eight Latin American drug trafficking groups designated as terrorist organizations include Mexican gangs such as the Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa cartels — two of the country’s most powerful and violent criminal organizations.But the designation “cannot be an opportunity for the US to invade our sovereignty,” President Claudia Sheinbaum told a news conference.”They can call them (the cartels) whatever they want, but with Mexico, it is collaboration and coordination, never subordination or interventionism, and even less invasion.”In an interview broadcast late Thursday on the social media platform X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attempted to allay those concerns.”In the case of Mexico, the preference always is to work in conjunction with our partners in Mexico, and we can provide them a lot of information about who they are and where they’re located,” he said, referring to the newly designated criminal gangs. Sheinbaum said Mexico would expand its legal action against US gun manufacturers, which her government accuses of negligence in the sale of weapons that end up in the hands of drug traffickers.The lawsuit could lead to a new charge of alleged “complicity” with terrorist groups, she said.- ‘Eligible for drone strikes’? -Trump signed an executive order on his first day back in the White House last month saying that the cartels “constitute a national security threat beyond that posed by traditional organized crime.”US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that the designations “provide law enforcement additional tools to stop these groups.””Terrorist designations play a critical role in our fight against terrorism and are an effective way to curtail support for terrorist activities,” he said in a statement. While he did not mention it, the move has raised speculation about possible military action against the cartels.Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has been given a prominent role in the Trump administration, suggested the designation “means they’re eligible for drone strikes.”On Wednesday, Sheinbaum confirmed that the United States had been operating drones spying on Mexican cartels as part of a collaboration that has existed for years.According to The New York Times, Washington has stepped up secret drone flights over Mexico in search of fentanyl labs as part of Trump’s campaign against drug cartels.Military threats from the United States always generate resentment in Mexico, which lost half of its territory to the United States in the 19th century.Sheinbaum said that she would present to Congress a constitutional reform to protect “the integrity, independence and sovereignty of the nation” including against the violation of its territory by land, air or sea.On Thursday, Canada — also under threat of 25-percent tariffs from Trump over the flow of drugs and migrants into the United States — joined the United States in labeling seven drug cartels as “terrorist entities.”The groups sanctioned by Canada included the Gulf Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Michoacan Family, the United Cartels, MS-13, TdA and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. – Mexico adjusting strategy -Mexico says that between 200,000 and 750,000 weapons manufactured by US gunmakers are smuggled across the border from the United States every year, often being used in crime.The Latin American country tightly controls firearm sales, making them practically impossible to obtain legally. Even so, drug-related violence has seen around 480,000 people killed in Mexico since the government deployed the army to combat trafficking in 2006, according to official figures.While she has ruled out declaring “war” on drug cartels, Sheinbaum has quietly dropped her predecessor’s “hugs not bullets” strategy, which prioritized tackling the root causes of criminal violence over security operations.Her government has announced a series of major drug seizures and deployed more troops to the border with the United States in return for Trump pausing tariffs for one month.Mexican authorities also announced the arrest this week of two prominent members of the Sinaloa Cartel, including the head of security for one of its warring factions.