On Tuesday, President Donald Trump carried out a strike on a boat in the southern Caribbean that he claims was operated by members of the Tren de Aragua gang and en route to the United States with drugs on board. "The strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States," Trump posted on Truth Social with a video of the strike. "Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!"
The strike followed last week's deployment of eight U.S. warships, one nuclear-powered submarine, and thousands of Marines—the largest military buildup in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama. Officially, Washington says it's fighting drug cartels by first designating them as global terrorists. Yet Trump "secretly signed a directive to the Pentagon" instructing the military to start targeting cartels. But the Venezuelan regime is no ordinary cartel.
In early August, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a reward of up to $50 million "for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction" of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro "for violating U.S. narcotics laws." Maduro is accused of being "a leader of Cartel de los Soles" (Cartel of the Suns), a powerful trafficking network that, like Tren de Aragua, has become a target of U.S. operations.
