Trump says military carried out strike on alleged Venezuelan drug cartel vessel

Donald Trump said on Monday that the United States had carried out a strike on a second Venezuelan boat and killed three alleged terrorists he claimed were transporting drugs, expanding his administration’s war against drug cartels and the scope of lethal military force to stop them.

The US president gave few details about the strike, saying in a social media post that the action was on his orders and that it had happened earlier in the morning. The post was accompanied by a video clip showing the boat, which appeared to be stationary, erupting into a fireball.

“The strike occurred while these confirmed narco-terroists from Venezuela were in International Waters transporting illegal narcotics (A DEADLY WEAPON POISONING AMERICANS!) headed to the US,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump’s announcement of the strike appeared to be worded in a way to suggest there was a valid legal basis for the strike – an issue that became a source of heavy criticism in Washington after the operation against the first alleged Venezuelan drug boat earlier this month, which killed 11 people.

According to people familiar with the matter, the administration briefed Congress last week that the first strike was legal under the president’s Article II powers because it involved a boat connected to the Tren de Aragua gang, which Trump designated a foreign terrorist organization.

The administration has provided little evidence that the first boat was carrying illegal drugs beyond asserting they had tracked the drugs being loaded on to the boat in order to be distributed in the United States, even if the boat at one point was said to have turned around.

Asked on Sunday about that first strike and claims it was a fishing vessel, Trump said in response to questions from the Guardian: “You saw the bags of white. It’s nonsense. So we knew it before they even left. We knew exactly where that boat, where it came from, where the drugs came from and where it was heading.”

By claiming, for the strike on the second boat, that the drugs were a threat to the United States and asserting that the boat’s crew were “terrorists”, Trump appeared to be preemptively setting the groundwork to make the same Article II legal claim to order a missile strike against the second boat.

The latest strike comes as the US continues a massive buildup of forces around Venezuela. Over the weekend, five F-35 fighter jets arrived in Puerto Rico to join about half a dozen US navy destroyers already moved to the US territory recently, and support assets the administration said had been deployed to disrupt the flow of illegal drugs.

Trump demurred on whether the US would conduct operations inside Venezuela against drug cartels there. He also deflected a question from the Guardian about its president, Nicholás Maduro, accusing Trump of acting illegally. “What’s illegal are the drugs that were on the boat,” he said.

The Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group – including the USS San Antonio, the USS Iwo Jima and the USS Fort Lauderdale, carrying 4,500 sailors – and the 22nd marine expeditionary unit, with 2,200 marines, were deployed to the region ahead of the first strike this month. The US also deployed several P-8 surveillance planes and submarines, officials said.