Trump administration says boat strike is start of campaign against Venezuelan cartels
- The San Juan Daily Star
- Sep 5
- 5 min read
By ERIC SCHMITT, HELENE COOPER, ALAN FEUER, CHARLIE SAVAGE and EDWARD WONG
The Trump administration declared the start of a new and potentially violent campaign against Venezuelan cartels earlier this week, defending a deadly U.S. military strike on a boat that officials said was carrying drugs even as specialists in the law of war questioned the legality of the attack.
The U.S. Navy has long intercepted and boarded ships suspected of smuggling drugs in international waters, typically with a Coast Guard officer temporarily in charge to invoke law enforcement authority. Tuesday’s direct attack in the Caribbean was a marked departure from that decades-long approach.
The administration has said 11 people were aboard the vessel. It was unclear whether they were given a chance to surrender before the United States attacked.
The Trump administration has not offered any legal rationale. But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in an appearance on “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday that administration officials “knew exactly who was in that boat” and “exactly what they were doing,” although he did not offer evidence.
“President Trump is willing to go on offense in ways that others have not seen,” he added.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at a news conference in Mexico City that seizing drug shipments in recent years had not dissuaded cartels and traffickers. “What will stop them is when we blow up and get rid of them,” he said.
But some officials at the Defense Department privately expressed concern Wednesday about the administration’s shifting narratives, including where the vessel was headed. Rubio had said Tuesday that it was going to Trinidad, while President Donald Trump said it was the United States. On Wednesday, Rubio changed his version, saying the drug-laden boat was bound for the United States.
The secretary said in Mexico City that drug cartels and traffickers, including those on the boat, “pose an immediate threat to the United States, period.”
Pentagon officials were still working Wednesday on what legal authority they would tell the public was used to back up the extraordinary strike in international waters.
On Tuesday, Trump said on social media that 11 members of the Tren de Aragua gang, whom he called “Narco terrorists,” were killed in the strike.
Trump’s post was accompanied by a video of what appeared to be a speedboat cutting through the water, with a number of people on board. An explosion then appears to blow it up.
Congress has not authorized any armed conflict against Tren de Aragua or Venezuela, and several legal experts said they were unaware of any precedent for claiming that a country could invoke self-defense as a basis to target drug trafficking suspects with lethal force.
The Trump administration has deemed several gangs and drug cartels to be terrorist organizations, including Tren de Aragua, and Rubio earlier maintained that this meant the government could use military force against them. But as a matter of law, that is inaccurate: Such designations allow the government to sanction such groups, including by freezing their assets, but do not authorize combat activity against them.
One senior U.S. official said a Special Operations aircraft — either an attack helicopter or an MQ-9 Reaper drone — carried out the attack after U.S. surveillance aircraft and other sensors, including electronic eavesdropping platforms, monitored cartel maritime traffic for weeks before the strike.
“We have tapes of them speaking,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. “There was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people, and everybody fully understands that. In fact, you see it, you see the bags of drugs all over the boat, and they were hit. Obviously they won’t be doing it again.”
Trump’s post Tuesday was accompanied by the only video released depicting what the administration says took place. It appears to show a long speedboat moving briskly through open water when an apparent explosion causes the craft to burst into flames. The video is mostly black and white; it is not clear enough to see how many people are on the boat or whether it is carrying drugs. A Defense Department official questioned whether a boat that size could hold 11 people.
It is also unclear why the military did not interdict the boat instead of blowing it up. In the past, the Coast Guard and even the U.S. Navy have interdicted boats bound for the United States with drugs, detaining and prosecuting the crew.
Senior congressional Democrats said Wednesday that stopping the spread of drugs was a top priority, but not in the way Trump was doing it.
“The administration has not identified the authority under which this action was taken, raising the question of its legality and constitutionality,” said Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. “The lack of information and transparency from the administration is even more concerning.”
A former senior federal law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military matter, said the attack was a “significant change” in U.S. anti-narcotics operations.
“In all of my years of doing this,” the former official said, “I’ve never seen the U.S. military say, ‘OK, this is a drug shipment,’ and then just blow it up.”
Trump signed a still-secret directive last month instructing the Pentagon to use military force against some Latin American drug cartels that his administration has labeled “terrorist” organizations.
Around the same time, the administration declared that a Venezuelan criminal group was a terrorist organization and that Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, was its leader, while calling his government illegitimate.
In recent days, Maduro has accused Rubio of trying to drag Trump into a bloody war in the Caribbean, one that the Venezuelan leader said would stain Trump’s reputation.
Amid the belligerent rhetoric, the Pentagon has been amassing a small armada of warships in the southern Caribbean, to include three guided-missile destroyers. The Navy has also deployed the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group — including the USS San Antonio, the USS Iwo Jima and the USS Fort Lauderdale, carrying 4,500 sailors — and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, with 2,200 Marines, Defense Department officials said.
Several P-8 surveillance planes and at least one submarine have also deployed to the region, officials said.
Officials have indicated that blowing up boats suspected of transporting drugs is not the only way the U.S. military could go after cartels. Special Operations troops could also target drug operatives believed to be of higher intelligence value in seize-and-capture missions, they said.
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