US Military Conducts First Targeted Lethal Strike on Drug Smuggling Vessel in Caribbean Sea

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The United States “conducted a lethal strike” against an alleged “drug vessel” coming from Venezuela, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday. 11 smugglers were reportedly killed in the strike, all alleged to be Tren de Aragua (TdA) members.

“As @potus just announced moments ago, today the U.S. military conducted a lethal strike in the southern Carribean against a drug vessel which had departed from Venezuela and was being operated by a designated narco-terrorist organization,” Rubio said in a post on X after President Donald Trump referenced the incident in Oval Office remarks.

The use of military force against Latin American drug cartels represents a significant escalation by the Trump administration and could have serious implications for the region.

The US has amassed a large number of military assets around the Caribbean and Latin America, drawing the ire of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

A senior defense official confirmed a “precision strike” against an alleged drug vessel in the southern Caribbean.

“Earlier this morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility. TDA is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

Trump on Tuesday afternoon said the US military “just over the last few minutes, literally shot out a boat, a drug carrying boat.”

“It just happened moments ago, and our great general, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff … he gave us a little bit of a briefing,” Trump said.

“There’s more where that came from,” he said, noting that “a lot of drugs” are “pouring into” the US from Venezuela. 

However, according to Maduro's 2020 indictment by US authorities, around 250 tons of cocaine travel through Venezuela annually, with much traveling to aboard sea vessels and container ships to Europe and Oceano as well as through other countries and onto the US and Canada.

For comparison, nearby Ecuador saw over 100 tons seized during the same year, 200 tons in 2023 and over 300 tons in 2024 meaning even more travelled via the banana hub country. Colombia produces nearly 2,500 tons of the 3,800 tons of cocaine manufactured annually.

“The majority of Colombian cocaine is being trafficked north along the Pacific coast,” says the UNODC. Not via Venezuela and the Caribbean Sea.

“It’s strange that we don’t see more boats heading to the Pacific, or the criminalization of (more Colombian groups),” a US diplomat told CNN, who also asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss these issues.

Increased Military Presence

The Trump administration has taken an aggressive approach to combating Latin American drug cartels, designating many of them as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists.

The US military was deploying more than 4,000 Marines and sailors to the waters around Latin America and the Caribbean as part of a ramped-up effort to combat drug cartels, according to two US defense officials — a show of force that has given the president a broad range of military options should he want to target drug cartels.

Rubio, who begins a trip to Mexico and Ecuador on Tuesday, had previously suggested that military action against the cartels was a possibility.

“There are designated narco-terrorist groups operating in the region. Some of them utilizing international airspace, international waters to transit poison into the United States. And those groups will be confronted. The president has made that clear from the time he has operated,” he said in mid-August. On Friday, Rubio visited the headquarters of US Southern Command, which has responsibility for the deployed assets.

The robust military presence in the region has drawn heated remarks from Maduro. The Trump administration has increased the bounty for the Venezuelan president to $50 million for drug trafficking.

“It is an extravagant threat… absolutely criminal, bloody. They have wanted to move forward with what they call maximum pressure, and in the face of maximum military pressure, we have prepared maximum readiness,” Maduro said Monday, adding that he will not “bow to threats.”

In recent weeks, Ecuador, Argentina and have all designated Venezuela's Cartel de los Soles as terrorist group.

Sources CNN, CNN