{"id":131013,"date":"2025-09-04T00:59:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T00:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/131013\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T00:59:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T00:59:10","slug":"will-happen-again-rubio-hints-at-more-us-strikes-against-drug-smugglers-donald-trump-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/131013\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Will happen again\u2019: Rubio hints at more US strikes against drug smugglers | Donald Trump News"},"content":{"rendered":"

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that military attacks<\/a> on alleged drug traffickers will \u201chappen again\u201d, brushing aside concerns over the legality of such attacks and the sovereignty of Latin American nations.<\/p>\n

Speaking during a news conference in Mexico City on Wednesday, Rubio pledged continued security coordination with countries like Mexico, but suggested the US would not hesitate to take extreme measures on its own.<\/p>\n

His remarks, in part, were a response to President Donald Trump\u2019s announcement that the US\u00a0had blown up a vessel<\/a> in the Caribbean Sea a day earlier.<\/p>\n

Trump and Rubio identified the small boat as a drug-smuggling vessel coming from Venezuela, though no details were provided. All 11 people on board reportedly died.<\/p>\n

Rubio framed the air strike as part of a shifting strategy in the US\u2019s ongoing \u201cwar on drugs\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States has long \u2014 for many, many years \u2014 established intelligence that allowed us to interdict and stop drug boats. And we did that. And it doesn\u2019t work. Interdiction doesn\u2019t work,\u201d Rubio said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat will stop them is when you blow them up, when you get rid of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rubio then explained that the attack was authorised personally by Trump. It had been in the south Caribbean Sea at the time of the attack, and Rubio said it was headed for the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of interdicting it, on the president\u2019s orders, we blew it up. And it will happen again,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cMaybe it\u2019s happening right now. I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rubio\u2019s visit to Mexico City comes as the Trump administration seeks close cooperation with Mexico, but its aggressive foreign policy has spurred concerns abroad.<\/p>\n

Latin American nations have struggled to balance the need for working relations with the US and Trump\u2019s increasingly brazen threats.<\/p>\n

Experts say that attacks like Tuesday\u2019s boat bombing are likely illegal under international law, which limits military actions on vessels sailing through international waters.<\/p>\n

Still, Rubio defended the action as necessary for protecting the wellbeing of the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re on a boat full of cocaine or fentanyl, whatever, headed to the United States, you\u2019re an immediate threat to the United States,\u201d said Rubio.<\/p>\n

US military strikes against armed groups around the world have often depended on the idea that such groups, often tied to armed or fighting groups that represent an immediate risk to US national security. That argument has not previously been used as a pretext for military strikes on drug trafficking, deemed a criminal issue.<\/p>\n

But Trump\u2019s second inauguration has marked a shift in that approach.<\/p>\n

Since taking office in January, Trump has pushed for emergency powers on the premise that Latin American gangs and other criminal groups constitute an \u201cinvasion\u201d on US soil.<\/p>\n

He has also designated many such groups as \u201cforeign terrorist organisations\u201d.<\/p>\n

In August, reports emerged that Trump had signed an order<\/a> authorising military strikes against cartels and other drug-smuggling operations, fuelling fears that the US would carry out military strikes in Latin America despite concerns about sovereignty<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Such concerns have been particularly prominent in Mexico, the US\u2019s immediate neighbour to the south.<\/p>\n

To mark Rubio\u2019s visit, Mexico and the US issued a joint statement emphasising \u201crespect for sovereignty and territorial integrity\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has also repeatedly sought to dispel worries that the Trump administration may take unilateral action on Mexican soil. Trump, meanwhile, has not ruled out such a possibility.<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera correspondent John Holman explained that Rubio\u2019s visit was aimed at \u201csmoothing the feathers\u201d and lowering tensions in Mexico.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot of fulsome praise. But the elephant in the room here really is that President Trump has been saying repeatedly that, if Mexico wants it, then the US is very happy to send its military down into the country to fight drug cartels,\u201d Holman explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat really wasn\u2019t touched on in this meeting apart from the Mexican foreign minister repeatedly saying that, \u2018Yes, we\u2019re going to work with the United States\u2019 \u2014 in a very diplomatic way, saying everyone in their own jurisdiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Rubio and other US officials have emphasised that the US would continue to collaborate on security and drug enforcement with Mexico, which the US has pushed to take a more aggressive stance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got assets in the air, assets in the water, assets on ships, because this is a deadly serious mission for us, and it won\u2019t stop with just this strike,\u201d Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on the TV show Fox and Friends.<\/p>\n

Not all countries in the region are apprehensive as the US takes on an increasingly militarised approach to criminal groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cI, along with most of the country, am happy that the US naval deployment is having success in their mission,\u201d Trinidad and Tobago\u2019s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said in a statement on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pain and suffering the cartels have inflicted on our nation is immense. I have no sympathy for traffickers; the US military should kill them all violently.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that military attacks on alleged drug traffickers will \u201chappen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,1127,3071,12,2605,2420,4379,3,21,19,22,20,25,1209,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-131013","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-conflict","10":"tag-crime","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-drugs","13":"tag-government","14":"tag-military","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-us-canada","22":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}