Sept. 2 (UPI) — President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he ordered a “kinetic strike” on a boat carrying drugs from Venezuela to the United States that he said killed nearly a dozen members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
Trump made the announcement in a social media post referring to members of the infamous Venezuelan gang as “narcoterrorists.” The strike marks the Trump administration’s embrace of military force against drug trafficking, which was previously left to law enforcement. It is also the latest ratcheting up of hostility with Venezuela after Trump said the gang is controlled by the country’s leader Nicolas Maduro.
The early morning strike killed 11 members of the gang while they were transporting illegal narcotics in international waters, according to Trump. U.S. military personnel were not harmed, he wrote.
“Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America,” Trump wrote in his post.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the strike by U.S. military forces in a post on X, writing that it occurred in the southern Caribbean.
Shortly into his second term, Trump designated the Tren de Aragua and La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gangs as “foreign terrorist organizations,” concluding that their drug trafficking and violent activities are a destabilizing presence.
The Trump administration in August doubled its bounty to $50 million for the arrest of Maduro, for the authoritarian ruler’s alleged role in drug trafficking.
Stephen Miller, deputy White House chief of staff, on Friday acknowledged in a press briefing that the United States was building up naval forces in the Caribbean, saying it was to “combat and dismantle drug trafficking organizations, criminal cartels and these foreign terrorist organizations in our hemisphere.”
Maduro responded by placing troops on the border and calling on Venezuelans to resist an invasion by the United States, saying during a press conference Monday that the county is “facing the greatest threat our continent has seen in 100 years,” reported El Pais.
“If Venezuela was attacked, we would declare an armed struggle and a Republic in arms,” Maduro said, according to the newspaper.