WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said the U.S. military again targeted a boat allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela, killing three aboard the vessel.
“The Strike occurred while these confirmed narcoterrorists from Venezuela were in International Waters transporting illegal narcotics (A DEADLY WEAPON POISONING AMERICANS!) headed to the U.S.,” Trump said in a Truth Social post announcing the strike. “These extremely violent drug trafficking cartels POSE A THREAT to U.S. National Security, Foreign Policy, and vital U.S. Interests.”
Trump said the strike was carried out Monday, two weeks after another military strike on what the Trump administration says was a drug-carrying speedboat from Venezuela that killed 11.
The Trump administration justified the earlier strike as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States.
But several senators, Democrats and some Republicans, have indicated their dissatisfaction with the administration’s rationale and questioned the legality of the action. They view it as a potential overreach of executive authority in part because the military was used for law enforcement purposes.
READ MORE: Venezuelan gang expert: U.S. risks casualties of innocents with Caribbean military anti-drug mission
The Trump has claimed self-defense as a legal justification for the first strike, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio arguing the drug cartels “pose an immediate threat” to the nation.
U.S. officials said the strike early this month targeted Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization. And they indicated more military strikes on drug targets would be coming as the U.S. looks to “wage war” on cartels.
Trump did not specify whether Tren de Aragua was also the target of Monday's strike.
The Trump administration has railed specifically against Venezuelan Nicolas Maduro for the scourge of illegal drugs in U.S. communities.
Speaking to Fox News earlier Monday, Rubio reiterated that the U.S. doesn’t see Maduro as the rightful leader of Venezuela but as head of a drug cartel.
“We’re not going to have a cartel, operating or masquerading as a government, operating in our own hemisphere,” Rubio said.
Following the first military strike on a boat allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela, America's chief diplomat said Trump was "going to use the U.S. military and all the elements of American power to target cartels who are targeting America.”
AP and others have reported that the boat had turned around and was heading back to shore when it was struck. But Rubio on Monday said he didn’t know if that’s accurate.
“What needs to start happening is some of these boats need to get blown up,” Rubio said. “We can’t live in a world where all of a sudden they do a U-turn and so we can’t touch them anymore.”
