US President Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed that American military forces had sunk three suspected drug-smuggling vessels linked to Venezuela, escalating his administration’s crackdown on narcotics operations tied to the cartel Tren de Aragua.
“We knocked off, actually, three boats, not two, but you saw two,” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn before departing for a state visit to London. He added that the number of vessels operating in the region had sharply declined, hinting at deterrence.
The President also urged Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro to halt illicit operations, saying: “Stop sending Tren de Aragua into the United States, stop sending drugs into the United States, stop sending people from your prisons into our country.”
Trump’s comments follow his earlier announcement on September 3, when he confirmed a US strike on a suspected Tren de Aragua drug boat that killed 11 people. At the time, he described the organisation as a foreign terrorist group under Maduro’s control, accusing it of mass murder, drug and sex trafficking, and violent crimes across the Americas.
“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,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the latest strike, saying it targeted “a drug vessel which had departed from Venezuela” in the southern Caribbean.
The State Department designated Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organisation in February, describing it as one of the most dangerous transnational criminal groups operating in the Western Hemisphere.
The increased US military presence in the Caribbean and Latin America has drawn sharp criticism from Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who has accused Washington of escalating regional tensions.
