WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States hit another small boat accused of transporting drugs into waters off Venezuela, killing six people, President Donald Trump said Tuesday.
Those who died in the strike were on board the ship and no members of the US forces were injured, the Republican president said in a message posted on social media. This is the fifth deadly strike in the Caribbean, with the Trump administration saying it was treating suspected drug traffickers as illegal fighters which must be fought by military force.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the strike Tuesday morning, said Trump, who released a video of it, as he has done in the past. Hegseth later shared the video in a post on X.
Trump said the strike was carried out in international waters and that “intelligence” confirmed the ship was trafficking narcotics, was associated with “narcoterrorist networks” and was on a known drug trafficking route.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking more information about the latest boat strike.
Frustration with the Trump administration has been growing on Capitol Hill among members of both major political parties. Some Republicans are demanding more information from the White House about the legal justification and details of the strikes. Democrats say the strikes violate U.S. and international law.
The Senate passed a war powers resolution last week that would have barred the Trump administration from carrying out strikes unless Congress specifically authorizes them, but that resolution did not pass.
In a memo to Congress obtained by The Associated Press, the Trump administration said it had “determined that the United States is engaged in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations” and that Trump had directed the Pentagon to “conduct operations against them consistent with the laws of armed conflict.”
The Trump administration has yet to provide lawmakers with underlying evidence proving that the boats targeted by the US military in a series of deadly strikes were in fact carrying narcotics, according to two US officials familiar with the matter, who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Strikes followed a strengthening of American maritime forces in the Caribbean like we have never seen in recent times.
Last week, Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino told military leaders that the U.S. government knew the drug trafficking accusations used to support recent actions in the Caribbean were false, with its real intention being to “force regime change” in the South American country.
He added that the Venezuelan government does not consider the deployment of US warships as a simple “propaganda action” and warned of possible escalation.
“I want to warn the population: we must prepare because the irrationality with which the American empire operates is not normal,” Padrino said during the televised meeting. “It is anti-political, anti-human, hawkish, crude and vulgar.”
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Associated Press writer Ben Finley contributed to this report.
