{"id":140151,"date":"2025-09-16T01:58:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T01:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/140151\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T01:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T01:58:08","slug":"trump-announces-deadly-us-strike-on-another-alleged-venezuelan-drug-boat-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/140151\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump announces deadly US strike on another alleged Venezuelan drug boat | Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump<\/a> said on Monday that the United States had carried out a strike on a second Venezuelan<\/a> boat and killed three alleged terrorists he claimed were transporting drugs, expanding his administration\u2019s war against drug cartels and the scope of lethal military force to stop them.<\/p>\n

The US president gave few details about the strike, saying in a social media post that the action was on his orders and that it had happened earlier in the morning. The post was accompanied by a video clip showing the boat, which appeared to be stationary, erupting into a fireball.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe strike occurred while these confirmed narco-terroists from Venezuela<\/a> were in International Waters transporting illegal narcotics (A DEADLY WEAPON POISONING AMERICANS!) headed to the US,\u201d Trump wrote on Truth Social.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s announcement of the strike appeared to be worded in a way to suggest there was a valid legal basis for the strike \u2013 an issue that became a source of heavy criticism in Washington after the operation against the first<\/a> alleged Venezuelan drug boat earlier this month, which killed 11 people.<\/p>\n

According to people familiar with the matter, the administration briefed Congress last week that the first strike was legal under the president\u2019s article 2 powers because it involved a boat connected to the Tren de Aragua gang<\/a>, which Trump designated a foreign terrorist organization.<\/p>\n

The administration has provided little evidence that the first boat was carrying illegal drugs beyond asserting they had tracked the drugs being loaded on to the boat in order to be distributed in the United States, even if the boat at one point was said to have turned around.<\/p>\n

Asked on Sunday about that first strike and claims it was a fishing vessel, Trump said in response to questions from the Guardian: \u201cYou saw the bags of white. It\u2019s nonsense. So we knew it before they even left. We knew exactly where that boat, where it came from, where the drugs came from and where it was heading.\u201d<\/p>\n

By claiming, for the strike on the second boat, that the drugs were a threat to the United States and asserting that the boat\u2019s crew were \u201cterrorists\u201d, Trump appeared to be preemptively setting the groundwork to make the same article 2 legal claim to order a missile strike against the second boat.<\/p>\n

The latest strike comes as the US continues a massive buildup of forces around Venezuela. Over the weekend, five F-35 fighter jets<\/a> arrived in Puerto Rico to join about half a dozen US navy destroyers already moved to the US territory recently, and support assets the administration said had been deployed to disrupt the flow of illegal drugs.<\/p>\n

The US naval forces in the region are comprised of the Iwo Jima amphibious ready group \u2013 including the USS San Antonio, USS Iwo Jima, USS Fort Lauderdale carrying 4,500 sailors \u2013 and the 22nd marine expeditionary unit, with 2,200 marines, according to administration officials.<\/p>\n

Trump has been noncommittal about conducting military operations inside Venezuela against the drug cartels or the government, and deflected questions about the legality of the strikes on Sunday night. \u201cWhat\u2019s illegal are the drugs that were on the boat,\u201d he told the Guardian.<\/p>\n

On Monday evening, Adam Schiff, a Democratic senator, said in a post on social media<\/a> that \u201cI\u2019m drafting a resolution and forcing a vote to reclaim Congress\u2019s power to declare war.\u201d He said: \u201cThese lawless killings are just putting us at risk\u201d and could prompt another country to target US forces without proper justification.<\/p>\n

For his part, from Caracas, the Venezuelan president Nicol\u00e1s Maduro said hours before Trump announced the second strike that his country would defend itself against foreign aggression as he lashed out at US secretary of state, Marco Rubio<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201c[He is] the Lord of Death and War and Hatred,\u201d Maduro said at a news conference of Rubio, who has played an outsize role in the administration\u2019s Venezuela operations as both the top US diplomat and Trump\u2019s national security adviser.<\/p>\n

Observers have downplayed the likelihood of a US military<\/a> intervention on Venezuelan soil. Many believe the US pressure campaign is partly designed to trigger defections that might help bring down Maduro\u2019s administration and partly political theatre for a domestic audience.<\/p>\n

Still, given Trump\u2019s unpredictable nature, members of Maduro\u2019s regime and officials in other South American countries have watched the situation anxiously.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Venezuela, the governing Chavistas have gone from disbelief to surprise, from surprise to indignation, and from indignation to horror\u201d over Trump\u2019s behaviour, the Spanish newspaper El Pa\u00eds reported on Monday.<\/p>\n

The newspaper said Maduro\u2019s inner circle had initially interpreted the US naval deployment as a Trumpian negotiating tactic. \u201cAs the days passed, however, they have become convinced that Washington is preparing for an invasion,\u201d El Pa\u00eds reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll that\u2019s left is for them to shoot at the buildings we\u2019re sitting in, damn it,\u201d one senior official close to Maduro was quoted as saying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump said on Monday that the United States had carried out a strike on a second Venezuelan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-140151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}