The U.S. Embassy in Bangkok is warning Americans of potential ‘violent retaliatory attacks’ Friday after a group of 45 Uyghurs were deported by Thailand to China in a move Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned in the ‘strongest possible terms.’ 

Thai police and security officials said China had given assurances that the men — who had been in custody for more than a decade — wouldn’t face penalties or be harmed. They said at a news conference Thursday that all of them voluntarily returned after being shown a translation of a written Chinese agreement requesting their repatriation and declaring they would be allowed to live normally. 

‘Similar deportations have prompted violent retaliatory attacks in the past,’ the U.S. Embassy warned though on Friday. ‘Most notably, in the wake of a 2015 deportation of Uyghurs from Thailand, improvised explosive devices detonated at the Erawan Shrine in Bangkok killing 20 people and injuring 125 others as this shrine is heavily visited by tourists from China.’ 

The Embassy is now encouraging Americans in Thailand to ‘exercise increased caution and vigilance, especially in crowded locations frequented by tourists due to the potential for increased collateral risk.’ 

Rubio slammed the deportations Thursday, describing it as a ‘forced return of at least 40 Uyghurs to China, where they lack due process rights and where Uyghurs have faced persecution, forced labor, and torture.’ 

‘As Thailand’s longstanding ally, we are alarmed by this action, which risks running afoul of its international obligations under the U.N. Convention Against Torture and the International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance,’ Rubio continued. ‘This act runs counter to the Thai people’s longstanding tradition of protection for the most vulnerable and is inconsistent with Thailand’s commitment to protect human rights.’ 

‘We urge all governments in countries where Uyghurs seek protection not to forcibly return ethnic Uyghurs to China,’ he added. 

‘We call on Chinese authorities to provide full access to verify the well-being of the returned Uyghurs on a regular basis,’ Rubio also said. ‘The Thai Government must insist and fully verify continuously that Chinese authorities protect the Uyghurs’ human rights.’ 

Thai lawmakers, activists and lawyers had raised the alarm Wednesday that the men were about to be deported, and after midnight, trucks with black sheets covering their windows left Bangkok’s Immigration Detention Center, where they had been held, according to the Associated Press. 

The news agency reported that it appeared the truck drove them to Bangkok’s Don Mueang airport, where a China Southern Airlines plane was waiting, and then flew to the heartland of China’s Uyghur population in northwestern Xinjiang province. 

In a statement on Facebook, the Chinese Embassy acknowledged Thursday that 40 Chinese nationals who it said entered Thailand illegally were deported to Xinjiang by a chartered flight. 

It said the men had been detained in Thailand for more than 10 years because of ‘complicated international factors.’ 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, shared a message on X in which he declared, ‘Make Iraq Great Again!’

His post included a graphic featuring the Iraqi flag along with the letters ‘MIGA,’ and the phrase ‘MAKE IRAQ GREAT AGAIN.’ 

An X user wrote in response to Wilson’s post, ‘American first huh?’

‘Forget Iraq and worry about Americans,’ another account wrote when replying to the congressman.

Wilson has been speaking out on social media about various foreign countries, including Iraq and Iran.

Wilson asserts that Iran controls Iraq.

He has been using the phrase ‘Free Iraq from Iran.’

‘Iran runs Iraq’s government,’ as well as its ‘military,’  ‘judiciary,’ ‘police,’ and ‘banks,’ the U.S. lawmaker declared in a post. 

‘The great people of Iraq of all religions and ethnicities are the inheritors of an amazing civilization,’ he said in another post. ‘They deserve more than to be ruled by the terrorist regime in Iran. Biden abandoned the nonsectarian protest movement in Iraq. We must empower the Iraqi people to Make Iraq Great Again and Free Iraq from Iran.’

‘Defund Iraq,’ he declared in another post.

In another post Wilson advocated several policies, one of which is to ‘Cut all aid to Iraq as long as Iran runs Iraq.’

Wilson and some other GOP lawmakers are pushing a proposal for the creation of a $250 bill featuring President Donald Trump.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy isn’t backing down from seeking NATO membership for Ukraine despite the fact that President Donald Trump has said the Ukrainian leader ‘could forget about’ joining the military alliance. 

Still, Zelenskyy is all in on securing NATO membership for his country, and he said Sunday he would step down as president if it meant NATO adopted Ukraine. Zelenskyy reiterated his position Wednesday and told the BBC, ‘I want to find a NATO path or something similar.’ 

‘If we don’t get security guarantees, we won’t have a ceasefire, nothing will work, nothing,’ Zelenskyy said. 

Zelenskyy is slated to visit the White House on Friday, and Trump told reporters on Thursday that a peace negotiation to end the war between Ukraine and Russia is in the final stages. Even so, no deal is secured, and Trump hesitated to discuss plans regarding a peacekeeping force in the region until one was signed.

Although Trump said on Thursday he believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin will uphold his end of a peace deal, several experts claim Zelenskyy remains adamant about pushing for Ukraine to become a NATO member because it reduces the likelihood that Putin could resume hostilities, and it means that other security guarantees are more likely. 

Article 5 of the NATO treaty stipulates that if a member country is attacked, it will be considered an attack against all NATO members and requires other NATO countries to take action, including the use of armed forces. 

Peter Rough, a senior fellow and director of the Center on Europe and Eurasia at the Hudson Institute think tank, said that with backing from the West, Ukraine becomes bigger than Russia. 

‘Putin would have to think twice about restarting a war if he thinks the major Western powers are obligated to defend Ukraine,’ Rough said in a Thursday email to Fox News Digital. ‘Of course, bringing Ukraine into NATO would put American (and European) skin and credibility in the game. That explains Trump’s hesitation, even resistance to such a concept.’ 

Rough said Zelenskyy’s ‘fallback position’ if NATO membership isn’t possible is to secure support from Western troops to promote a ceasefire. For example, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on Feb. 16 that the U.K. was ready to send troops to Ukraine if necessary to ensure peace between Ukraine and Russia.

‘If all else fails, then, Zelenskyy may have to settle for continued financing and military assistance,’ Rough said. ‘But he isn’t going to negotiate with himself, which is why he remains adamant about security guarantees in public.’

John Hardie, the deputy director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Russia program, said another conflict between Russia and Ukraine is likely and that the ‘hard truth’ is the negotiations from the Trump administration won’t ‘resolve the fundamental question at stake in this war.’

‘Putin’s goal isn’t just to grab some more territory in eastern Ukraine,’ Hardie said in an email to Fox News Digital. ‘He remains determined to make Ukraine itself into a vassal state and to rewrite the broader security order in Europe.’

As a result, Hardie said NATO membership for Ukraine provides the best option for preserving Ukraine’s safety against Russian aggression. Although that’s a no from Trump, Hardie said the U.S. does need to articulate just how much support it can offer for European troops who will provide a post-war security presence in the region. 

For example, Starmer told reporters on Feb. 17 that any reassurance force would require a ‘U.S. backstop because a U.S. security guarantee is the only way to effectively deter Russia from attacking Ukraine again.’ 

‘The Trump administration needs to provide Europe with clarity on what U.S. contribution it can expect,’ Hardie said. ‘Ukraine will also need a continued supply of military aid from the West, including the United States, though there are ways to reduce the burden on American taxpayers, such as the use of frozen Russian assets.’ 

Zelenskyy told reporters Wednesday he is prepared to broach ‘very important questions’ with Trump during their Friday visit, including whether the U.S. will continue to provide aid to Ukraine. Congress has appropriated $175 billion since 2022 for aid to Ukraine, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

To recoup some of these costs, Trump said Zelenskyy is expected to sign a rare-earth minerals deal that will allow the U.S. and Ukraine to partner on developing resources like oil and gas.

The agreement will permit the U.S. access to Ukraine’s minerals and will also help Ukraine rebuild from the war, Trump said. 

‘We’re going to be signing really a very important agreement for both sides, because it’s really going to get us into that country,’ Trump told reporters Thursday. ‘We’ll have a lot of people working there and so, in that sense, it’s very good.’

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday is set to meet with President Donald Trump for the first time since he re-entered the White House to sign what could be a key minerals deal to help end Russia’s war. 

Though some details of the agreement have emerged since the meeting was announced this week, the exact terms remain unclear, and European leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, are waiting to see what could come out of this agreement, particularly when it comes to security demands.

Trump on Wednesday told reporters that Zelenskyy could ‘forget about’ any ambitions to join NATO, but the Ukrainian president also said that day that he needs security guarantees, otherwise ‘we won’t have a ceasefire, nothing will work, nothing.’

‘I want to find a NATO path or something similar,’ Zelenskyy said.

Ukrainian leadership has long sought NATO membership, and in 2008 at the Bucharest Summit the alliance agreed Ukraine would eventually become a member of NATO, a defense partnership Zelenskyy has since argued is the best defense against a future Russian invasion.

Trump told reporters that by entering into a minerals deal with Washington, Kyiv will be granted ‘automatic security’ guarantees by the mere presence of American extractors on Ukrainian soil.

‘Nobody’s going to be messing around with our people when we’re there,’ Trump said. ‘We’ll be there in that way.’

But it remains unclear if this ‘guarantee’ will be enough to comfort Zelenskyy, and according to former CIA Moscow Station Chief Dan Hoffman, there are too many outstanding factors to determine whether Putin would be deterred, including Kyiv’s rearmament capabilities and whether NATO nations would agree to send in troops to Ukraine. 

‘As far as deterring Putin from attacking again [and] as far as Ukraine’s relationship with the United States, especially with this administration, you want the U.S. to have economic skin in the game,’ Hoffman said. ‘That’s how you walk down that path of closer bilateral relationship, and one where it’s certainly in our interest … for [Ukraine] to be an independent, sovereign nation.’

Trump said on Wednesday that European allies, including the U.K. and France, will be watching U.S. negotiations with Ukraine and Russia ‘very closely.’

‘They volunteered to put so-called peacekeepers on the site. And I think that’s a good thing,’ he added.

In response to questions by Fox News Digital over the European Union’s position on a U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal, top diplomat for the EU, Kaja Kallas, said the agreement could prove positive for Kyiv so long as it puts Ukraine in a position of strength when it comes to countering Russia at the negotiating table.

‘[The] U.S. also has a very clear self-interest in play, and that hopefully makes U.S. support Ukraine more, because economic ties are making this stronger,’ she said. ‘And then it all works.’

‘Right now, it is a very important message that we send that we are behind Ukraine, to make them strong enough to be able to say no to a bad deal,’ she added. 

But it’s not just European allies watching the dealings unfold; Putin is also keeping a close eye on a U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal.

Putin’s representatives reportedly proposed a similar deal to the Trump administration while meeting in Saudi Arabia last week, and they said a deal could be brokered to give the U.S. access to minerals in Ukrainian regions now occupied by invading Russian forces, including Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia.

The Trump administration has reportedly not ruled out an economic deal with Moscow. 

Hoffman said it is in Zelenskyy’s strategic interest to make a deal with Trump, as it would hamper Putin’s strategic goals. 

‘[Putin] doesn’t want Ukraine to have commercial relationships with Europe and the United States,’ he said. ‘That was part of why he wanted to topple the central government in Kyiv and then install a puppet regime that was beholden to Russia.

‘The more links Ukraine has to the West … commercial links, diplomatic and strategic military links … it’s not good for Putin,’ Hoffman added.

European leaders are weary of President Donald Trump’s push to secure a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, with the European Union’s top diplomat saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘doesn’t really want peace.’

Trump on Thursday said his administration had been in ‘very good talks with Russia,’ though he did not expand on whether any tangible progress in ending Russia’s war in Ukraine had begun.

Some NATO allies, as well as the U.S.’s decades-old partners, are increasingly frustrated with President Trump’s controversial comments about Ukraine in what has been perceived as a cost of Washington bettering ties with Moscow.

‘[The] U.S. is talking to Russia, and you have to establish contacts,’ EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas told Fox News Digital in a sit-down interview. ‘But right now, Russia doesn’t really want peace. 

‘[Russia] … wants us to think that they can wait us out and that time is on their side, but it’s not really so,’ she continued. ‘If we increase the pressure, economic pressure on them, but also political pressure, if we support Ukraine so that they would be stronger on the battlefield, then they would also be stronger behind the negotiation table.’

The warning comes as Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy are set to secure a minerals deal on Friday in what some hope could eventually help ceasefire discussions.

Trump has championed his ability to re-enter talks with Russia and his successful demands that NATO nations share more of the economic burden in securing Ukraine. 

NATO allies did drastically ramp up their defense spending after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but the stark reversal of U.S. policy in Ukraine between the Trump and Biden administrations has sent some European nations reeling.

While some allies, like the U.K., are looking to prove to Trump that Washington and London have more shared values than not, other leaders, like the incoming chancellor of Germany, are looking to distance themselves from the U.S., a position Berlin has not taken since the fall of Nazi Germany at the end of World War II.

Kallas, in speaking with Fox News Digital, also looked to remind the Trump administration of the important value of the NATO alliance and emphasized the only time Article 5 has been called in the 76 years since the alliance was formed was after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S.

‘In terms of … international security, we need to work together with the Americans, who have been our allies for a very, very long time,’ she said. ‘And we have been there for America.’

Kallas, who served as the first female prime minister of Estonia, pointed to the sacrifices that NATO troops made in aiding the U.S. fight in the War on Terror.

‘We, as Estonia, lost as many soldiers per capita as the United States,’ she said. ‘We were there for you when you asked for help. 

‘That’s why it’s painful to hear messages that, you know, we don’t care about our European allies. It should work both ways,’ Kallas added. 

The EU chief diplomat has repeatedly urged the U.S. and European nations not to let Putin succeed in dividing the West over Ukraine. 

Ultimately, she argued that the U.S. needs to remain a steadfast partner with Europe in deterring Russian aggression because it is not only Putin that poses an active threat to the collective alliance.

Kallas visited Washington this week to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and lawmakers about vital issues that affect the EU-U.S. security partnership, though her meeting with Rubio was canceled.

The State Department did not confirm why the meeting was canceled without being rescheduled during her stay in Washington, though Kallas said that after positive discussions with Rubio at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month, she if confident communication will remain ongoing.

‘There’s a lot to discuss, from Ukraine to the Middle East, also what is happening in Africa, Iran – where we have definitely mutual interest to cooperate – and not to mention China as well,’ Kallas said.  ‘There are a lot of topics that we can do [work] together with our transatlantic partners.’