Trump Orders Second Airstrike on Drug Boat, Slams Cartels as National Security Threat

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump announced Monday that U.S. military forces, acting on his direct orders, carried out a second airstrike against a Venezuelan drug boat in the Caribbean Sea, killing three traffickers and torching a shipment of narcotics bound for American shores.

The operation, conducted in international waters within the U.S. Southern Command's area of responsibility, targeted what Trump described as "confirmed narcoterrorists" from Venezuela transporting "illegal narcotics (A DEADLY WEAPON POISONING AMERICANS!) headed to the U.S."

In a post on Truth Social accompanied by an unclassified video clip of the explosion—a vessel erupting in flames and thick black smoke amid several figures on deck, Trump wrote: "This morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a SECOND Kinetic Strike against positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility."

The strike marked the latest escalation in Trump's aggressive campaign against drug cartels, coming just weeks after a similar operation earlier this month that the president said eliminated nearly a dozen members of the notorious Tren de Aragua gang.

No U.S. personnel were injured in Monday's action, according to the White House.Trump, fresh off boarding Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland for a trip to New York to attend a Yankees baseball game, used the post to issue a stark warning. "These extremely violent drug trafficking cartels POSE A THREAT to U.S. National Security, Foreign Policy, and vital U.S. Interests," he continued. "BE WARNED — IF YOU ARE TRANSPORTING DRUGS THAT CAN KILL AMERICANS, WE ARE HUNTING YOU!"

The move builds on heightened U.S. naval deployments in the Caribbean earlier this year, aimed at squeezing drug routes off Venezuela's coast while pressuring strongman Nicolas Maduro, whom the administration accuses of overseeing vast trafficking networks through proxies like Tren de Aragua, Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, and Venezuela's own Cartel of the Suns.

In August, the U.S. doubled its reward for information leading to Maduro's arrest to $50 million, citing his regime's role in flooding America with fentanyl and other poisons.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, speaking to reporters last week, laid out the scale of the problem: "Maduro uses foreign terrorist organizations like TDA, Sinaloa, and Cartel of the Suns to bring deadly drugs and violence into our country. To date, the DEA has seized 30 tons of cocaine linked to Maduro and his associates with nearly seven tons linked to Maduro himself."

The strikes underscore Trump's vow to treat cartels as terrorist entities, a designation his administration has pushed to unlock broader military tools against them. Critics, including some Democrats, have raised concerns about escalation risks in the region, but supporters hail the actions as a long-overdue crackdown on the opioid crisis claiming tens of thousands of American lives annually.

As the president heads to Yankee Stadium, pointing emphatically toward his plane in a photo snapped by White House photographers—the message from the Oval Office remains clear: The hunt is on.

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