President Donald Trump has ordered the military to attack vessels he says are smuggling drugs into the region.
Six people were killed in a US attack on a ship in the Caribbean Sea in what War Secretary Pete Hegseth described as an anti-drug smuggling operation.
The attack marks the latest in a series of US military actions in the Caribbean and Pacific in what President Donald Trump calls a campaign to eliminate narcotics trafficking from Venezuela and Colombia. Both nations have strongly rejected the claims.
The War Department conducted a “lethal kinetic blow” on a Tren de Aragua (TdA) ship in neutral waters during the night of Thursday, Hegseth wrote in X on Friday. TdA is a transnational criminal organization from Venezuela.
“If you are a narcoterrorist who smuggles drugs into our hemisphere, we will treat you like we treat Al Qaeda.” he added, promising to continue “chase” and “kill” More alleged traffickers.
Overnight, at the direction of President Trump, the War Department conducted a lethal kinetic attack against a vessel operated by the Tren de Aragua (TdA), a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO), which traffics narcotics in the Caribbean Sea. The ship was known to our… pic.twitter.com/lVlw0FLBv4
– Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) October 24, 2025
Just a day earlier, Trump touted what he called a huge success in the U.S. military’s efforts against suspected Venezuelans. “drug boats” stating that the flow of narcotics arriving by sea has decreased to “about 5% of what they were a year ago.”
He added that “The earth will be next” without providing further details on when and where US strikes could fall.
Both Caracas and Bogotá have argued that US operations in the region are the beginning of an attempted resource appropriation, rather than an anti-smuggling effort.
The American operation “it’s not about drug trafficking… they need oil [and] gas,” Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro told RT last month, arguing that Washington was interested in the Latin American country’s vast energy and mineral reserves.
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