{"id":146563,"date":"2025-09-15T21:38:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T21:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/146563\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T21:38:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T21:38:08","slug":"trump-says-u-s-has-struck-another-alleged-drug-boat-from-venezuela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/146563\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says U.S. has struck another alleged drug boat from Venezuela"},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that the U.S. military has carried out another strike against a Venezuelan drug cartel vessel that had been on its way to the United States, the second such strike in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

He said three men were killed in the strike\u00a0and no U.S. personnel were injured, adding that it occurred in international waters.<\/p>\n

Trump said in a post on Truth Social<\/a>\u00a0that the target had been “positively identified [as]\u00a0extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists,” adding that the cartels threaten U.S. national security, foreign policy and other interests.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The post included a nearly 30-second video, which appeared to show a vessel exploding and then on fire. Trump provided no evidence for his assertion that the boat was carrying drugs.<\/p>\n

Venezuela’s\u00a0Communications Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Buildup in southern Caribbean<\/p>\n

The latest strike comes amid a large U.S. military buildup in the southern Caribbean. Five U.S. F-35 aircraft were seen landing in Puerto Rico on Saturday after the Trump administration ordered 10 of the stealth fighters to join the buildup in the region.<\/p>\n

There are also at least seven U.S. warships in the region, along with one nuclear-powered submarine.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the\u00a0U.S. president announced a similar strike<\/a>, off Venezuela,\u00a0also involving\u00a0what he alleged was a drug-carrying vessel.<\/p>\n

The administration justified the earlier strike as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States.<\/p>\n

But several senators, Democrats and some Republicans, have indicated dissatisfaction with the administration’s rationale and questioned the legality of the action. They view it as a potential overreach of executive authority in part by using the military for law enforcement purposes.<\/p>\n

The Trump has claimed self-defence as a legal justification for the first strike, with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arguing the drug cartels “pose an immediate threat” to the nation.<\/p>\n

U.S. officials said that strike targeted Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization. And they indicated more military strikes on drug targets would be coming as the U.S. looks to “wage war” on cartels.<\/p>\n

Trump did not specify whether Tren de Aragua was also the target of Monday’s strike.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has railed specifically against Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro for the scourge of illegal drugs in U.S. communities.<\/p>\n

Maduro slams U.S.<\/p>\n

Maduro earlier on Monday lashed out at the U.S. government, accusing the Trump administration of using drug-trafficking accusations as an excuse for a military operation whose intentions are “to intimidate and seek regime change” in the South American country. <\/p>\n

Speaking to Fox News on Monday, Rubio reiterated that the U.S. doesn’t see Maduro as the rightful leader of Venezuela but as the head of a drug cartel.<\/p>\n

“We’re not going to have a cartel, operating or masquerading as a government, operating in our own hemisphere,” Rubio said.<\/p>\n

\"VenezuelanVenezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro points at a map of the Americas during a news conference in Caracas on Monday. He has said the U.S. is seeking ‘regime change’ in Venezuela. (Jesus Vargas\/The Associated Press)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that the U.S. military has carried out another strike against a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-146563","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}