Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro points at a map of the Americas during a press conference in Caracas, Venezuela, on Monday. Jesus Vargas/AP hide caption
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Jesus Vargas/AP
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said the U.S. military on Monday again targeted a boat allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela, killing three aboard the vessel, and hinted that the military targeting of cartels could be further expanded.
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Trump confirms U.S. strike on alleged Venezuelan drug boat
“The Strike occurred while these confirmed narcoterrorists from Venezuela were in International Waters transporting illegal narcotics (A DEADLY WEAPON POISONING AMERICANS!) headed to the U.S.,” Trump said in a Truth Social post announcing the strike. “These extremely violent drug trafficking cartels POSE A THREAT to U.S. National Security, Foreign Policy, and vital U.S. Interests.”
The strike was carried out nearly two weeks after another military strike on what the Trump administration said was a drug-carrying speedboat from Venezuela that killed 11.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office later on Monday, Trump said he had been shown footage of the latest strike by Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Asked what proof the U.S. has that the vessel was carrying drugs, Trump replied, “We have proof. All you have to do is look at the cargo that was spattered all over the ocean — big bags of cocaine and and fentanyl all over the place.”
Trump also suggested that U.S. military strikes targeting alleged drug smugglers at sea could be expanded to land.
He said the U.S. military is seeing fewer vessels in the Caribbean since carrying out the first strike early this month. But he said the cartels are still smuggling drugs by land.
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“We’re telling the cartels right now we’re going to be stopping them, too,” Trump said. “When they come by land we’re going to be stopping them the same way we stopped the boats. … But maybe by talking about it a little bit, it won’t happen. If it doesn’t happen that’s good.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth later took to X to warn cartels the U.S. would “track them, kill them, and dismantle their networks throughout our hemisphere — at the times and places of our choosing,” echoing muscular language used by past administrations during the Global War on Terror. The White House also posted a short unclassified video clip on social media of the strike.
Questions about legality
The Trump administration has justified the military action as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States.
But several senators, Democrats and some Republicans, have questioned the legality of Trump’s action. They view it as a potential overreach of executive authority in part because the military was used for law enforcement purposes.
Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California said he’s drafting a war powers resolution aimed at preventing U.S. troops from engaging in further strikes until formally authorized by Congress.
Schiff said he was concerned “these lawless killings are just putting us at risk” and could prompt another country to target U.S. forces without proper justification.
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“I don’t want to see us get into some war with Venezuela because the president is just blowing ships willy-nilly out of the water,” Schiff said.
Human rights groups have also raised concerns that the strikes flout international law. The White House has offered scant information about how the operations came together or the legal authorities under which they were carried out.
“Let us be clear — this may be an extrajudicial execution, which is murder,” said Daphne Eviatar, who directs Amnesty International USA’s Security with Human Rights Program. “There is absolutely no legal justification for this military strike.”
The Trump administration has claimed self-defense as a legal justification for the first strike, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio arguing the drug cartels “pose an immediate threat” to the nation.
U.S. officials said the strike early this month targeted Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization. And they indicated more military strikes on drug targets would be coming as the U.S. looks to “wage war” on cartels.
Trump did not specify whether Tren de Aragua was also the target of Monday’s strike.
The Venezuelan government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reported strike.
The Trump administration has railed specifically against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro for the scourge of illegal drugs in U.S. communities.
Venezuela’s president lashes out
Maduro during a press conference earlier on Monday lashed out at the U.S. government, accusing the Trump administration of using drug trafficking accusations as an excuse for a military operation whose intentions are “to intimidate and seek regime change” in the South American country.
Maduro also repudiated what he described as a weekend operation in which 18 Marines raided a Venezuelan fishing boat in the Caribbean.
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“What were they looking for? Tuna? What were they looking for? A kilo of snapper? Who gave the order in Washington for a missile destroyer to send 18 armed Marines to raid a tuna fishing vessel?” he said. “They were looking for a military incident. If the tuna fishing boys had any kind of weapons and used weapons while in Venezuelan jurisdiction, it would have been the military incident that the warmongers, extremists who want a war in the Caribbean, are seeking.”
Speaking to Fox News earlier Monday, Rubio reiterated that the U.S. doesn’t see Maduro as the rightful leader of Venezuela but as head of a drug cartel. Rubio has consistently depicted Venezuela as a vestige of communist ideology in the Western Hemisphere.
“We’re not going to have a cartel, operating or masquerading as a government, operating in our own hemisphere,” Rubio said.
Following the first military strike on a boat allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela, America’s chief diplomat said Trump was “going to use the U.S. military and all the elements of American power to target cartels who are targeting America.”
The AP and others have reported that the boat had turned around and was heading back to shore when it was struck. But Rubio on Monday said he didn’t know if that’s accurate.
“What needs to start happening is some of these boats need to get blown up,” Rubio said. “We can’t live in a world where all of a sudden they do a U-turn and so we can’t touch them anymore.”
