The U.S. military has destroyed at least two suspected drug-smuggling boats from Venezuela in a bold and controversial escalation of its counter-narcotics strategy.
President Donald Trump ordered the strikes, sparking international outcry, legal scrutiny, and renewed hostilities with Nicolás Maduro’s government, per BBC News.
The operations mark a major departure from decades of drug interdiction policy, with Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisting the new tactic is both justified and effective.
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“Blow them up”: Rubio and Trump unapologetic after fatal strike
Speaking from Mexico City, Rubio confirmed the U.S. military had destroyed a boat believed to be carrying narcotics from Venezuela, per the Independent.
“Instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders, we blew it up, and it’ll happen again. Maybe it’s happening right now,” Rubio said.
He argued that traditional interdiction tactics have failed, and that “blowing them up works.”
“What will stop them is when you blow them up, when you get rid of them,” he added.
When pressed about whether the vessel was warned before being destroyed, Rubio maintained: “The president has a right to eliminate immediate threats to the United States. This president is not a talker, he’s a doer.”
Trump: “We recorded them… big bags of cocaine and fentanyl all over the place”
Trump echoed the same no-nonsense tone during a White House press briefing and on social media.
“This morning, on my orders, US military forces conducted a second kinetic strike against positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists,” he wrote on Truth Social.
“These extremely violent drug trafficking cartels pose a threat to US national security.”
The post included a video showing a boat engulfed in flames after what appeared to be an explosive impact.
Later, from the Oval Office, Trump doubled down: “All you have to do is look at the cargo - it was spattered all over the ocean - big bags of cocaine and fentanyl all over the place.
"We recorded them. It was very careful, because we know you people would be after us. We're very careful.”
He added: “There was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people, and everybody fully understands that… 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.’”
Vice President JD Vance backed the move, describing the people on board the destroyed vessel as “literal terrorists” trafficking “deadly drugs” into the U.S.
Experts question link to Venezuela's fentanyl trade
Despite the administration’s claims, analysts have cast doubt on Venezuela’s role in the fentanyl trade.
Experts told The New York Times the powerful synthetic opioid is produced mostly in Mexico using Chinese precursor chemicals - and that Venezuela plays little to no role.
Even so, Trump said maritime drug trafficking to the U.S. had declined since the first strike, though he admitted narcotics were still entering the country by land. “We’re telling the cartels right now, we’re going to be stopping them too,” he said.
Maduro calls Rubio the “lord of death and war” as Venezuela vows to retaliate
Unsurprisingly, Caracas did not take the strikes lightly. President Maduro slammed the U.S. for its escalating “aggression,” accusing Rubio of being the “lord of death and war.”
He declared Venezuela’s right to self-defense, stating the country would “fully” exercise its “legitimate right to defend itself.”
“Relations with the US have been destroyed by their bomb threats,” Maduro said. “We have moved from a period of battered relations to a completely broken one.”
Foreign Minister Yván Gil later accused U.S. forces of boarding a small Venezuelan fishing boat in what he described as an “illegal and hostile” seizure that lasted eight hours.
Venezuela’s foreign ministry claimed the U.S. was “looking for an incident to justify escalating war in the Caribbean, with the aim of regime change” in Caracas.
Tensions further escalated when two Venezuelan F-16s flew over a U.S. Navy destroyer, prompting Trump to warn: “Any Venezuelan jets putting us in a dangerous situation would be shot down.”
When asked whether the U.S. would begin striking targets on mainland Venezuela, Trump offered only a cryptic reply: “We’ll see what happens.”