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.
“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.”
Trump shared a video of the successful military strike in the post. Take a look —
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 warned 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.
“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 then 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 the language used by past administrations during the Global War on Terror.
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, almost all Democrats, have questioned the legality of Trump’s action. They view it as a potential overreach of executive authority.
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.
“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.
Drone strikes against identified terror targets have been a regular practice going back decades. The Trump administration has claimed self-defense as a legal justification for the strikes, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio arguing the violent 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. The White House warned that more military strikes on drug targets would be coming as the U.S. looks to “wage war” on these violent cartels.
The Trump administration has railed specifically against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro for the scourge of illegal drugs in U.S. communities.
Maduro, a communist dictator, said during a press conference earlier on Monday that the U.S. government was 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.
“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 instead 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 Horn News and the Associated Press contributed to this report.