US President Donald Trump has announced that he has struck a Venezuelan ship claiming that the US military is run by a drug cartel and that it has travelled to the US.
Trump said three men were killed in Monday’s attack.
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The attack is the second in the US on suspicion of a Venezuelan drug ship. It was first held on September 2nd.
Everything we know about the latest attacks:
What happened with this attack?
“This morning, on my order, the US military carried out a second campaign strike against actively identified, highly violent drug trafficking cartels and narcotelists in the responsible Southcom area,” Trump wrote in a post about his true social platform.
“These highly violent drug trafficking cartels pose a threat to the US national security, foreign policy and the important US interests,” he added.
Southcom is the U.S. Department of Defense’s Unified Combat Command, responsible for operations in 31 countries in Central and South America, the Caribbean and its territorial waters.
Trump’s post was accompanied by a 30-second video clip showing the ship explode into flames. The clip says “not classified” in the green font at the top. Trump wrote that “three male terrorists” were killed in the attack.
Trump continued his post as follows: “Be warned – if you’re transporting drugs that can kill Americans, we’re hunting you!”
What happened in the first attack?
On September 3rd, Trump posted a video about the true social footage of another ship bombed the day before. He wrote that this was an attack on “Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists in the South Com region.”
Trump added that Tren de Aragua is a US-identified “foreign terrorist organization” that works “under the control” of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
“This strike killed 11 terrorists in action. The strike did not harm the US troops,” Trump wrote at the time.
What do we know about who was on board?
The United States and Venezuela have not revealed any details about those who died on the ship or those who were on the boat in the latest attacks. Neither side has released names for those killed or onboard.
Trump uses the term “terrorist” to describe people who were killed in both cases.
After the attack on September 2nd, Venezuelan Home Minister Diosdado Cabello said none of the 11 killed were members of Trenderagua. “When I asked in town, there was none from Tren de Aragua. There were no drug traffickers,” Cabello said.
The Trump administration has yet to provide evidence to demonstrate claims that the passengers on the first ships that the US attacks are members of Trenderagua, which boat people carry drugs, or “terrorists.”
How did Venezuela respond?
However, on Monday, Maduro called the first boat bombing a “heinous crime.”
Maduro described the attack as “a military attack on civilians who have not threatened any country militarily, not during war.”
Venezuelan leaders have accused the US of trying to provoke Venezuela at war, and the ultimate goal of the US was a “oil change of government” rather than cracking down on drug cartels.
Maduro said its relations with the US were completely broken. “Today, I can announce their bomb threat, death threat, and communications have been destroyed by them in a horrifying mail,” he said.
Maduro also called US Secretary of State Marco Rubio “the Lord of Death and War.”
In addition to the two bombed boats, Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday accused US forces of illegally boarding and occupying one of the country’s fishing boats in Venezuela’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
The EEZ is a region ranging from only countries with the right to economically explore and misuse resources, up to 200 nautical miles (370km). Many of the country’s eez are in international waters, so a ship from another country may pass through it. However, it is rare for a country to target fishing vessels engaged in economic activity in the EEZ of the country to which the ship belongs.
“The warship deployed 18 armed agents that were occupied by boarding small, harmless boats for eight hours,” a ministry statement said.
Last week, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Ivan Gill told CNN in an interview:
In response to reports on the deployment of US warships in August, Maduro joined his supporters in the militia, to protect Venezuela, declaring that “the empire will not touch Venezuela’s sacred soil.”
What is the broader context?
The first attack in Venezuelan waters came after news agencies reported that US warships had been deployed into the Southern Caribbean.
US Fleet Command announced on August 14 that IWO Jima Amphibious Ready Group sailors and Marines departed Norfolk and Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, but did not disclose details of the mission or where to deploy.
The Trump administration has accused the Maduro government of working directly with drug cartels and engaging in cocaine trafficking. He accused Tren de Aragua of being the frontline of Maduro’s left-wing government.
The US government has not provided evidence to demonstrate these allegations denied by the Maduro government.
The classified US intelligence report released in April pointed out that Venezuela’s tolerant environment allows drug gangs, but found there was no evidence of a link between Trenderagua and senior officials at Maduro. The report drew input from all 18 agencies that make up the intelligence reporting community in the US. All agencies except the Federal Bureau of Investigation have agreed to the findings.
In his post Monday, Trump accused Venezuela of smuggling cocaine into the United States. “The strikes have occurred, but these confirmed narcotolists from Venezuela were in international waters transporting illegal drugs (a deadly weapons addicted Americans!) heading to the United States,” he wrote.
However, according to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, most cultivation of cocaine, the plant used to produce cocaine occurs in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, with the main cocaine routes that have been combined to the US run through Colombia, Peru and Equadore. It’s not Venezuela. A 2024 US Drug Enforcement Agency report also found that 84% of cocaine seized in the US originated from Colombia and did not mention Venezuela.
Washington has not developed formal diplomatic ties with Venezuela since 2019 and does not recognize Maduro’s government as justified.
