The United States will keep assets positioned in the Caribbean and strike anyone “trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narco terrorist,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Wednesday morning, a day after President Donald Trump said the U.S. military had attacked and destroyed a drug-carrying vessel in the region.
Mr. Trump said Tuesday that the U.S. had struck the boat in international waters after it had departed from Venezuela. The president later said on Truth Social that 11 people were killed in the strike. He said the attack targeted members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuela-based organized crime group that has been designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the Trump administration.
Mr. Trump also posted a video that appeared to show a military strike obliterating a small boat in the open sea.
Hegseth told “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday morning that he watched the strike live. He said the video was “definitely not artificial intelligence,” as Venezuela’s Communications Minister Freddy Ñáñez claimed in a post on social media. Hegseth said that he could not elaborate on how the operation had been carried out, but said it was a “precision” attack.
“We knew exactly who was in that boat, we knew exactly what they were doing, and we knew exactly who they represented, and that was Tren de Aragua … trying to poison our country with illicit drugs,” Hegseth said.
Hegseth did not say how the government identified the boat or those aboard it. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Tuesday that he believed the drugs were headed toward Trinidad and Tobago or another country in the Caribbean. Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, praised the strike in a statement issued late Tuesday, The Associated Press reported.
Hegseth said Wednesday that the strike shows that “President Trump is willing to go on offense in ways that others have not been” when dealing with drug smugglers.
“You want to try to traffic drugs, it’s a new day,” the defense secretary said. “It’s a different day, and so those 11 drug traffickers are no longer with us, sending a very clear signal that this is an activity the United States is not going to tolerate in our hemisphere.”
Hegseth said that assets will remain in the region, and that further strikes may be forthcoming.
“This is a deadly, serious mission for us and it won’t stop with just this strike,” he said. “Anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narco-terrorist will face the same fate.”
Mr. Trump directed the military to target drug cartels in Latin America last month. In August, the U.S. said the Navy would increase its presence near Venezuela and deploy multiple warships as part of an anti-drug cartel mission. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro called the move an “extravagant, unjustifiable, immoral and absolutely criminal and bloody threat.” Maduro responded by deploying warships and drones to Venezuela’s coastline.
The U.S. has not indicated it plans to strike Venezuela directly. When Hegseth was asked Wednesday by Fox News about the possibility of a regime change in the country, he said it was a “presidential decision.” The Trump administration has accused Maduro’s government of working with drug cartels and groups like Tren de Aragua to bring illicit substances into the United States.
A U.S. federal court charged Maduro with narco-terrorism and drug trafficking in 2020, allegations that Maduro has denied. The U.S. is offering a $50 million reward for Maduro’s arrest.
“What we have, there in the Caribbean, is clear demonstration of military might,” Hegseth said in the “Fox & Friends” interview. “President Trump has shown whether it is southwest border, Houthis, (Operation) Midnight Hammer in Iran, precise power could impact and reshape dynamics around the world and in the region. Nicolas Maduro, as he considers whether to be a narco-trafficker, has decisions to make.”
