President Donald Trump has released a video showing a United States military strike on a boat in the Caribbean that he says was smuggling drugs out of Venezuela for the Tren de Aragua gang, stoking fears of a possible clash between the Venezuelan and US militaries.
In a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump said 11 people were killed on Tuesday. He wrote: “No US 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. BEWARE!”
The strike, apparently carried out in international waters, marks an escalation in tensions between the Trump administration and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom Trump has repeatedly accused of assisting international drug gangs.
The incident is the first known attack the US has made against alleged smugglers since the Trump administration began increasing its military presence in the Caribbean last month to counter drug cartels designated as “narcoterrorist organisations”.
The Trump administration dispatched warships to the southern Caribbean in August in a bid, it said, to counter threats to US national security posed by criminal organisations operating in the region.
The New York Times reported that Trump had signed a secret directive ordering the Pentagon to use military force against certain Latin American drug cartels that the US considers “terrorist organisations”.
On Thursday, the Reuters news agency reported that seven US warships and one nuclear-powered fast attack submarine were headed for the Caribbean. More than 4,500 sailors and Marines are on board the vessels.
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