U.S. forces in the Caribbean fired upon a drug boat from Venezuela, killing 11 members of the gang Tren de Aragua, President Donald Trump announced on Sept. 2, amid a heightened naval operation near the country.
He first confirmed the attack during the White House press briefing, stating, “We, just over the last few minutes, literally shot out a boat, a drug-carrying boat, a lot of drugs in that boat.”
Later that same day, the president confirmed on Truth Social that U.S. military forces “positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists” spotted in an area under the United States Southern Command’s responsibility.
“The strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States,” he said in the post. “The strike resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action. No U.S. Forces were harmed in this strike.
“Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America,” he added. “BEWARE!”
The Trump administration has taken several recent steps to slow the flow of drugs northward toward the United States, including designating several Latin American criminal organizations as foreign terrorist groups.
“We have a lot of drugs pouring into our country, coming in for a long time,” Trump said Tuesday, as he discussed the new high-seas drug bust.
He said the particular drug boat came from Venezuela and said narcotics have been flowing “very heavily from Venezuela” recently.
This counter-drug action comes in the weeks after the U.S. government doubled to $50 million a reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
The U.S. government has challenged the results of the last two Venezuelan presidential elections, alleging that Maduro’s past two wins were not a product of a free and fair process.
Announcing the heightened arrest reward last month, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Maduro sits at the head of a drug trafficking operation dubbed the Cartel de los Soles, and has supported other drug cartels operating in the region, such as the Sinaloa cartel.
The U.S. State Department, earlier this year, added the Sinaloa cartel to its list of designated foreign terrorist organizations. The Cártel de los Soles is currently listed by the U.S. Treasury Department as a specially-designated global terrorist entity.
“Today the U.S. military conducted a lethal strike in the southern [Caribbean] against a drug vessel which had departed from Venezuela and was being operated by a designated narco-terrorist organization,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said of the Tuesday operation.
Last month, the U.S. military dispatched several air and naval assets to the southern Caribbean Sea as part of a new counter-drug operation. The deployment brings those military assets a relatively short distance from Venezuela’s northern coastline.
During an Aug. 19 press briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked whether the recent military activity in the Caribbean could lead to U.S. boots on the ground in Venezuela. She did not rule out such a possibility in her response.
“What I will say, with respect to Venezuela, President Trump has been very clear and consistent; he’s prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country and to bring those responsible to justice,” Leavitt said at the time.
“The Maduro regime is not the legitimate government of Venezuela; it is a narcoterror cartel. And Maduro, it is the view of this administration, is not a legitimate president. He is a fugitive head of this cartel who has been indicted in the United States for trafficking drugs into the country.”
Following the news of the increased reward for his arrest and the U.S. force deployment near Venezuela, Maduro has called for Venezuela’s citizens to mobilize for militia service. The Venezuelan president’s office has said that as many as 4.5 million of Venezuela’s approximately 30 million people could answer the call to arms.
“We are a people of warriors; we will never yield to intimidation and blackmail of any kind. We will be independent and free! Never a colony or a slave!” Maduro wrote in a Sept. 1 Telegram post.
T.J. Muscaro contributed to this report.
Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the U.S. government’s designation for Cártel de los Soles. The Epoch Times regrets the error.
