President Donald Trump has refused to rule out military strikes inside Venezuela as part of his administration’s war on cartels linked to Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro’s government, signaling a potential escalation against cartels and narco-terrorists in Latin America.
The president previously declared a “non-international armed conflict” with drug smugglers on September 30, informing lawmakers via memo after four fatal strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean since September. Several videos of military strikes on drug-trafficking boats have been released by the War Department.
“Earlier this morning, on President Trump’s orders, I directed a lethal, kinetic strike on a narco-trafficking vessel affiliated with Designated Terrorist Organizations in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” Hegseth announced in a social media post Friday.
According to the department, the most recent strike killed four narco-terrorists, and no U.S. forces were harmed 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 announced in a post last week. “Our intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this vessel was trafficking narcotics, the people onboard were narco-terrorists, and they were operating on a known narco-trafficking transit route. These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over!!!!”
“The message is clear: if you traffic drugs toward our shores, we will stop you cold,” Hegseth went on in a follow-up post. He added that the Joint Task Force aims to “crush the cartels, stop the poison, and keep America safe.”
The U.S. Navy deployed guided missile destroyers to the Caribbean in August to bolster counter-narcotics efforts, with experts expecting rotations to continue for months or over a year. Bryan Clark, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, told Fox News Digital in September: “I expect these deployments to continue for months or more than a year, with new ships rotating in to replace those that need to return home for maintenance or crew rest.”
Trump’s approach marks an unprecedented shift, involving the military against drug cartels in Latin America “in a way that no previous US administration has dared to so far,” according to Geoff Ramsey, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “By involving the military, the president is going after drug cartels in a way that no previous US administration has dared to so far. I think it is likely that we will see the Pentagon evaluate targets inside Venezuela,” he told Fox News.
He added that additional strikes could hit drug shipments or flights from covert airfields near the Colombian border. “It’s a bad time to be posted in a guerrilla camp on the Colombian border or operating a Tren de Aragua safe house along the Caribbean trafficking route.” However, Ramsey cautioned that strikes within Venezuela would require dismantling its air defense system, “which would escalate hostilities by openly engaging with Venezuela’s military.” The U.S. has avoided targeting Venezuelan military assets, as evidenced when two Venezuelan F-16s flew over a U.S. destroyer last month without being “blown out of the sky,” Ramsey noted, suggesting no interest in a full shooting war.
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