Miranda Jeyaretnam
The strike, conducted on Monday morning, killed three people off the coast of Venezuela. Trump claimed that the vessel was transporting drugs headed for the U.S. The strike comes less than a month after the U.S. mobilized military assets and personnel near the South American country and conducted a similar strike on another Venezuelan vessel, which killed 11 people.
“This morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a SECOND Kinetic Strike against positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “These extremely violent drug trafficking cartels POSE A THREAT to U.S. National Security, Foreign Policy, and vital U.S. Interests.”
Trump included a 27-second video in the post that showed a vessel exploding and bursting into flames, which he said was proof that the boat carried drugs. It’s not clear from the video what was on the vessel.
“All you have to do is look at the cargo that was spattered all over the ocean—big bags of cocaine and fentanyl all over the place,” Trump told reporters at the Oval Office. “We recorded them. It was very careful, because we know you people would be after us. We’re very careful.”
Still, Trump’s assurances, however, have done little to assuage concerns from some that the U.S. is headed toward—or already engaging in—an unauthorized war with Venezuela. Here’s what to know.
How Trump has targeted Venezuela in drug crackdown
The Trump Administration has said that its attacks on Venezuela are part of its wider crackdown on drug trafficking into the U.S. On the first day of his second term in office, Trump declared a national emergency over illegal immigration and drug trafficking across the U.S.-Mexico border. He has since imposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico, accusing the countries of not sufficiently clamping down on cross-border fentanyl smuggling, and on China over its alleged manufacturing of fentanyl. He also designated drug cartels, including Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, as foreign terrorist groups and labeled them a national security threat. Last month, he signed a secret directive to the Pentagon authorizing the use of military force against these cartels, according to the New York Times.
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