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President Donald Trump lauded the U.S. military strike against an alleged drug-laden Venezuelan boat in the southern Caribbean that took out 11 suspected Tren de Aragua narco-terrorists Tuesday.
Trump’s comments came after he shared a video on social media depicting the U.S. military strike against the Venezuelan vessel in U.S. Southern Command’s area of responsibility, just days after he deployed three U.S. Navy guided missile destroyers to bolster the administration’s counternarcotics efforts in the region.
“You had massive amounts of drugs,” Trump told reporters Wednesday about the recent strike. “We have tapes of them speaking. It was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people. And, everybody fully understands that 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. And I think a lot of other people won’t be doing it again. When they watch that tape, they’re going to say, let’s not do this. We have to protect our country and we’re going to. Venezuela has been a very bad actor.”
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Trump previously said Monday that U.S. forces had determined those on the vessel were members of Tren de Aragua, and said Tuesday that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro oversees the group.
However, a declassified assessment from the National Intelligence Council in April determined that there is no coordination between Tren de Aragua and the Venezuelan government.
According to Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., the vessel belonged to the Cartel of the Suns, a Venezuelan drug trafficking group led by Venezuela’s military leaders.
The Trump administration has taken an aggressive approach to drive down the influx of drugs into the U.S., and has designated drug cartel groups like Tren de Aragua, the Sinaloa cartel and others as foreign terrorist organizations in February.
In response to the Trump administration’s decision to dispatch the destroyers to U.S. Southern Command, Maduro said Venezuela was prepared to respond to any attacks and said the move amounted to “an extravagant, unjustifiable, immoral and absolutely criminal and bloody threat.”
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“In the face of this maximum military pressure, we have declared maximum preparedness for the defense of Venezuela,” Maduro said Monday during a press conference.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth signaled the U.S. military would launch future strikes on other drug vessels attempting to smuggle narcotics into the U.S.
“We’ve got assets in the air, assets in the water, assets on ships, because this is a deadly serious mission for us, and it won’t, it won’t stop with just this strike,” Hegseth told Fox News Wednesday.
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“Anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narco-terrorist will face the same fate,” Hegseth said.
Fox News Alexandra Koch contributed to this report.
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