U.S. Strikes Another Boat Off Venezuela, Killing 6

Topline

The U.S. military downed another small boat off the coast of Venezuela it claims was smuggling drugs into the U.S., President Donald Trump said Tuesday, marking at least the fifth strike in recent weeks as the Trump administration ramps up efforts to combat drug smuggling in the Caribbean.

Key Facts

Trump said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “ordered a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization conducting narcotrafficing” off the coast of Venezuela on Tuesday morning, killing “six male narcoterrorists,” he wrote on Truth Social, accompanied by aerial footage of the boat bursting into flames.

It’s unclear which alleged terrorist organization the boat was affiliated with and where it originated from.

The strike is at least the fifth on alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean in recent months, raising questions about their legality, as the Trump administration has claimed they were conducted as part of an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.

At least 27 people have been killed in the strikes.

The strikes have escalated tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela as the U.S. military has increased its naval presence in the Caribbean in what the Trump administration claims is an effort to tamp down on drug smuggling.

Key Background

The U.S. military carried out three similar strikes in September and one more earlier this month, raising concerns among some lawmakers from both parties and experts who questioned their legality without authorization from Congress. The Trump administration has designated Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua and several other Latin American gangs as foreign terrorist organizations and has claimed it has the authority to conduct the strikes by equating drug smuggling to an “armed attack” against U.S. citizens.

Tangent

The Senate rejected legislation earlier this month that would have required the U.S. military to seek congressional authorization to conduct attacks on “any non-state organization engaged in the promotion, trafficking, and distribution of illegal drugs and other related activities.” Republican Sens. Rand Paul, Ky., and Lisa Murkowski, Alaska, voted with nearly all Democrats to move the resolution forward.

Chief Critic

“Is it too much to ask to know the names of those we kill before we kill them? To know what evidence exists of their guilt? At the very least, the government should explain how the gang came to be labeled as terrorists” Paul said earlier this month, alleging the administration should be required to give Congress more information before conducting the strikes, adding “the blow-them-to-smithereens crowd also conveniently ignores the fact that death is generally not the penalty for drug smuggling.”

Further Reading

Trump Announces Another Strike On Alleged Venezuelan Drug Trafficker, Killing 4 (Forbes)