President Trump said on Friday that the US military bombed another boat in US Southern Command’s area of responsibility, which includes the Caribbean and most of South America.
The president claimed without evidence that US intelligence showed that the boat was carrying drugs and that three “narcoterrorists” were killed. While Trump didn’t specify exactly where the bombing occurred, previous US military strikes on boats targeted vessels in the Caribbean that left Venezuela.
“On my Orders, the Secretary of War ordered a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization conducting narcotrafficking in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking illicit narcotics, and was transiting along a known narcotrafficking passage enroute to poison Americans. The strike killed 3 male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel, which was in international waters,” the president added.
Trump’s post included a video that purported to show the strike on the boat. He did not specify when the boat was bombed, but it marks at least the third time that the US military has taken such action against vessels in the region. According to numbers released by Trump, at least 17 people have been extrajudicially executed by the US military since the campaign began.
Democrats are looking to rein in the US military campaign and have introduced War Powers Resolutions that would stop the strikes on boats. “Congress alone holds the power to declare war. And while we share with the executive branch the imperative of preventing and deterring drugs from reaching our shores, blowing up boats without any legal justification risks dragging the United States into another war and provoking unjustified hostilities against our own citizens,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said in a statement on a resolution he introduced on Friday.
A series of US naval warships has been deployed near Venezuela and are backed by F-35 fighter jets in Puerto Rico. While Trump and other US officials claim the military action and pressure on Venezuela’s government is about drug trafficking and a response to overdose deaths in the US, fentanyl doesn’t come from or through Venezuela, and the majority of the cocaine that is transported to the US comes through the Pacific, not the Caribbean.
Trump issued a new threat to Venezuela on Saturday, saying that if the country doesn’t accept “prisoners” he claims were sent to the US by Venezuelan leaders, there would be significant consequences. “Thousands of people have been badly hurt, and even killed, by these ‘Monsters.’ GET THEM THE HELL OUT OF OUR COUNTRY, RIGHT NOW, OR THE PRICE YOU PAY WILL BE INCALCULABLE!” he wrote on Truth Social.
Venezuela’s government has been cooperative with the Trump administration on deportations, and President Nicolas Maduro has made clear he’s willing to work with the US and wants dialogue. Reuters reported on Saturday that Maduro had sent a letter to Trump days after the first US strike on a boat near Venezuela and offered direct talks with US special envoy Ric Grennel, who traveled to Venezuela for talks with Maduro back in January.
“President, I hope that together we can defeat the falsehoods that have sullied our relationship, which must be historic and peaceful,” Maduro wrote in the letter. “These and other issues will always be open for a direct and frank conversation with your special envoy to overcome media noise and fake news.”
Sources told Reuters that despite the US military campaign, twice-weekly deportation flights moving illegal migrants to Venezuela from the US have continued uninterrupted.
