The United States struck another small boat accused of carrying drugs in the waters off Venezuela, killing six people, President Trump said Tuesday. Those who died in the strike were aboard the vessel, and no US forces were harmed, Trump said in a Truth Social post. It's the fifth deadly strike in the Caribbean as Trump's administration has asserted it is treating alleged drug traffickers as unlawful combatants who must be met with military force. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the strike Tuesday morning, said Trump, who released a video of it. Hegseth later shared the video in a post on X.
Trump said the strike was conducted in international waters "just off the coast of Venezuela" and "intelligence" confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with "narcoterrorist networks" and was on a known drug trafficking route.
- Frustration with the Trump administration has been growing on Capitol Hill among members of both major political parties, the AP reports. Some Republicans are seeking more information from the White House on the legal justification and details of the strikes. Democrats contend the strikes violate US and international law. The Senate last week voted on a war powers resolution that would have barred the Trump administration from conducting the strikes unless Congress specifically authorized them, but it failed to pass.
In a memo to Congress. the Trump administration said it had "determined that the United States is in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations" and that Trump directed the Pentagon to "conduct operations against them pursuant to the law of armed conflict." The Trump administration has yet to provide underlying evidence to lawmakers proving that the boats targeted by the US military in a series of fatal strikes were in fact carrying narcotics, according to two US officials who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity.
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