President Donald Trump said the U.S. military struck a boat off the coast of Venezuela on Friday that he claimed was “loaded with enough drugs to kill 25 TO 50 THOUSAND PEOPLE.”
In a post on Truth Social, Trump announced the strike, which officials said targeted a vessel linked to a terrorist organization.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the vessel was affiliated with a designated terrorist group and that four “narco-terrorists” were killed in the operation.
“The strike was conducted in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela while the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics — headed to America to poison our people,” Hegseth said in a statement on X.
It was the fourth known strike on a boat the administration said was attempting to smuggle drugs into the U.S. in recent weeks. Hegseth warned that “these strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over!!!!”
Scripps News learned this week that Trump sent Congress a memo designating drug cartel officials as “unlawful combatants” engaged in an “armed conflict.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson defended the president’s authority to carry out the drone strikes, saying the cartels are “at war with us” through fentanyl trafficking.
