US President Donald Trump claimed that the US military had dismantled a third drug ship from Venezuela.
Trump warned Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro to stop sending narcotics and criminals from his country to the United States.
The U.S. campaign against drug cartels has increased tensions with Venezuela.
US President Donald Trump claimed the US military had dismantled a third drug ship from Venezuela, even though the Pentagon has only detailed two of those attacks so far.
“Stop sending drugs to the United States,”Trump declared Tuesday as he left Washington for London.“We actually destroyed three ships, not two, but you saw two.”
Trump did not provide further details about the attack, but warned Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro to stop sending narcotics and criminals from his country to the United States.
Trump posted details of the second attack on social media, including a video showing a boat bobbing in the waves in unidentified waters. After several seconds, it was consumed by a massive fireball. Trump claimed the attack"resulted in the death in action of three male terrorists." Later Monday, he told reporters at the White House that the United States is ready to attack drug cartels on land and at sea.
Last month, Trump ordered an attack that the Pentagon said left 11 dead on another ship allegedly carrying drugs.
The campaign has increased tensions with Venezuela. On Monday, Maduro called the U.S. actions an aggression and said there was no communication between the Caracas regime and the Washington government.
“The attack occurred while these confirmed Venezuelan Narco-Terrorists were in international waters transporting illegal Narcotics (A DEADLY WEAPON THAT POISONS AMERICANS!) bound for the United States,”Trump said in a Truth Social post announcing the attack.
“These extremely violent drug cartels REPRESENT A THREAT to the National Security, Foreign Policy, and vital interests of the United States,”he added.
The attack came nearly two weeks after another military strike on what the Trump administration described as a speedboat carrying drugs from Venezuela, which killed 11 people.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Monday afternoon, Trump claimed that General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had shown him footage of the latest attack.
Asked what evidence the U.S. had that the ship was carrying drugs, Trump replied:"We have evidence. Just look at the cargo scattered across the ocean: big bags of cocaine and fentanyl everywhere."
Trump also suggested that U.S. military strikes against suspected drug traffickers at sea could extend to land.
He added that the U.S. military is seeing fewer vessels in the Caribbean since the first attack earlier this month. However, he added that cartels continue to smuggle drugs overland.
“We’re telling the cartels right now that we’re going to stop them, too,” Trump declared. “When they come by land, we’ll stop them the same way we stopped the boats… But maybe with a little bit of talk, it won’t happen. If it doesn’t happen, that’s good.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth later used X to warn the cartels that the United States would track them, take them out, and dismantle their networks across our hemisphere, at times and places of our choosing, echoing the strong language used by previous administrations during the Global War on Terror. The White House also released a short, unclassified video of the attack on social media.
