by Emmitt Barry, with reporting from Washington D.C. Bureau Staff
(Worthy News) – President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that U.S. forces had carried out a lethal strike against a Venezuelan drug-smuggling vessel, marking the first acknowledged military action under his expanded authority to target Latin American cartels.
“There’s more where that came from,” Trump said at the White House, vowing to intensify the fight against narcoterrorists. On Truth Social, he released declassified video showing the small boat exploding after being struck, saying 11 members of the Tren de Aragua cartel were killed. “Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!” Trump wrote.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the strike targeted a “positively identified” narco-terrorist vessel that had departed from Venezuela, operated by a cartel formally designated as a foreign terrorist organization earlier this year. A senior defense official described it as a “precision strike” against a “go-fast” boat, the type commonly used to smuggle cocaine north from South America.
The action follows Trump’s order last month sending three Navy warships to the Caribbean to bolster interdiction efforts. The administration has broadened the Pentagon’s authority, allowing the military not only to support but to directly engage cartels, a sharp break from traditional reliance on Coast Guard-led interdictions.
The strike escalates Washington’s confrontation with Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, whom the U.S. deems illegitimate due to fraudulent elections, human-rights abuses, and direct ties to drug trafficking. Just weeks ago, the Trump administration doubled its reward for Maduro’s arrest to $50 million, citing his leadership role in the so-called Cártel de los Soles, a syndicate accused of working with Mexican and Venezuelan gangs.
Maduro responded defiantly late Monday, calling the U.S. military buildup “the biggest threat our continent has seen in the last 100 years” and warning that Venezuela would launch an “armed struggle” if attacked. His regime has already urged millions of citizens to enlist in civilian militias.
Despite those threats, U.S. officials signaled more strikes could be coming. “We’re going to take on drug cartels wherever they are operating against the interests of the United States,” Rubio said in Miami. “The president is very clear–he’s going to use the full power of America to eradicate them.”
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