{"id":199128,"date":"2025-09-04T08:54:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T08:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/199128\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T08:54:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T08:54:11","slug":"trump-says-strike-on-venezuelan-gang-will-lead-cartels-to-think-twice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/199128\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says strike on Venezuelan gang will lead cartels to think twice"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump on Wednesday justified the lethal military strike<\/a> that his administration said was carried out a day earlier against a Venezuelan gang as a necessary effort by the United States to send an unmistakable message to Latin American cartels.<\/p>\n

Asked why the military did not instead interdict the vessel and capture those on board, Trump said the operation would cause drug smugglers to think twice about trying to move drugs into the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people, and everybody fully understands that,\u201d Trump said while hosting Polish President Karol Nawrocki<\/a> at the White House. He added, \u201cObviously, they won\u2019t be doing it again. And I think a lot of other people won\u2019t be doing it again. When they watch that tape, they\u2019re going to say, \u2018Let\u2019s not do this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s strike was an astonishing departure from typical U.S. drug interdiction efforts at a time when Trump has ordered a major Navy buildup in the waters near Venezuela.<\/p>\n

Later Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that such operations \u201cwill happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"U.S.<\/p>\n

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio boards his plane at Felipe Angeles International Airport in Zumpango, on the outskirts of Mexico City, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025, en route to Ecuador. (AP Photo\/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)<\/p>\n

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio boards his plane at Felipe Angeles International Airport in Zumpango, on the outskirts of Mexico City, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025, en route to Ecuador. (AP Photo\/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)<\/p>\n

Read More<\/p>\n

Rubio said previous U.S. interdiction efforts in Latin America have not worked in stemming the flow of illicit drugs into the United States and beyond.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat will stop them is when you blow them up, when you get rid of them,\u201d Rubio said on a visit to Mexico.<\/p>\n

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on \u201cFox & Friends\u201d that Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro was running his country \u201cas a kingpin of a drug narco-state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hegseth said officials \u201cknew exactly who was in that boat\u201d and \u201cexactly what they were doing.\u201d But the Republican administration has not presented any evidence supporting Trump\u2019s claim that operators of the vessel were from the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and were trying to smuggle in drugs.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump is willing to go on offense in ways that others have not seen,\u201d said Hegseth, who declined to detail how the strike was carried out. <\/p>\n

Venezuela\u2019s government, which has long minimized the presence of Tren de Aragua<\/a> in the South American country, limited its reaction to the strike to questioning the veracity of a video publicized by the Trump administration showing the attack. Communications Minister Freddy \u00d1\u00e1\u00f1ez suggested it was created using artificial intelligence and described it as an \u201calmost cartoonish animation, rather than a realistic depiction of an explosion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hegseth responded that the strike \u201cwas definitely not artificial intelligence,\u201d adding he watched live footage from Washington as the strike was carried out.<\/p>\n

Trump and administration officials have repeatedly blamed the gang for being at the root of the violence and illicit drug dealing that plague some American cities.<\/p>\n

The president on Tuesday repeated his claim \u2014 contradicted by a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment<\/a> \u2014 that Tren de Aragua is operating under Maduro\u2019s control.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"President<\/p>\n

President Nicolas Maduro gives a press conference in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, Sept. 1, 2025. (AP Photo\/Ariana Cubillos)<\/p>\n

President Nicolas Maduro gives a press conference in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, Sept. 1, 2025. (AP Photo\/Ariana Cubillos)<\/p>\n

Read More<\/p>\n

In announcing the strike, Trump said the operation, which he said killed 11, was carried out in international waters. He also noted that the gang is designated by the U.S. government as a foreign terrorist organization.<\/p>\n

Unlike its counterparts from Colombia, Brazil and Central America, Tren de Aragua has no large-scale involvement in smuggling cocaine across international borders, according to InSight Crime, which last month published a 64-page report on the gang based on two years of research.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve found no direct participation of TdA in the transnational drug trade, although there are cases of them acting as subcontractors for other drug trafficking organizations,\u201d said Jeremy McDermott, a Colombia-based co-founder of InSight Crime, referring to the Venezuelan gang by its initials.<\/p>\n

Still, with affiliated cells spread across Latin America, it would not be a huge leap for Tren de Aragua to one day delve deeper into the drug trade, he said. Meanwhile, the rhetoric from officials in Washington who would blame TdA as a proxy for all Venezuelan drug traffickers assures it will remain a target of intense U.S. government focus.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is almost impossible today to determine who is TdA and who is not,\u201d said McDermott. \u201cDeportations and statements from the United States suggest that TdA is now being used as a catch-all description for Venezuelan criminals acting abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some international warfare experts are questioning the legality of the strike.<\/p>\n

\u201cIntentional killing outside armed conflict hostilities is unlawful unless it is to save a life immediately,\u201d said Mary Ellen O\u2019Connell, an expert on international law and the use of force at the University of Notre Dame Law School. \u201cNo hostilities were occurring in the Caribbean.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hegseth was opaque in his comments on Fox about whether Trump was looking to press for \u201cregime change\u201d in Venezuela.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, that\u2019s a presidential decision,\u201d Hegseth said. He added that \u201canyone would prefer that\u201d Maduro \u201cwould just give himself up. But that\u2019s a presidential-level decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. announced plans last month to boost its maritime force in the waters off Venezuela<\/a> to combat threats from Latin American drug cartels<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Maduro\u2019s government has responded by deploying troops along Venezuela\u2019s coast and border with neighboring Colombia, as well as by urging Venezuelans to enlist in a civilian militia.<\/p>\n

Ryan Berg, director of the Americas program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Tuesday\u2019s strike clearly shows governments in the region, not only Maduro, the paradigm shift brought on by the U.S. decision to declare Tren de Aragua and Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a United States that sees security differently,\u201d Berg said. \u201cThey\u2019ve just demonstrated the ability to use deadly force in the Western Hemisphere, and they\u2019ve already told Mexico that they\u2019re going to do the same thing on Mexican territory if they don\u2019t get the level of cooperation that they want.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. has a complicated legacy of sticking its hand in Latin American affairs, and American military interventions \u2014 particularly during the Cold War \u2014 played a major part in destabilizing governments and paving the way for coups in Guatemala, Chile and a number of Central American nations, which still grapple with the sometimes violent fallout.<\/p>\n

In recent years, the U.S. has taken a a more subtle approach, providing foreign assistance to many countries and security forces, but not making direct strikes like what was seen in Caribbean waters.<\/p>\n

Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations Juan Ram\u00f3n de la Fuente, who met with Rubio on Wednesday, underscored the importance of the Trump administration to operate in the region \u201cwithout subordination\u201d of other governments and \u201crespecting sovereignty\u201d of allies.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Lee reported from Mexico City. AP writer Regina Garcia Cano and Megan Janetsky in Mexico City and Joshua Goodman in Miami contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump on Wednesday justified the lethal military strike that his administration said was…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":199129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1613,84,69,20228,110279,57,51,110342,110339,1612,410,110341,2222,50,92550,6986,80,110340,4217,52,61,67,370,32322,14513,96,93,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-199128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-central-america","9":"tag-district-of-columbia","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-drug-crimes","12":"tag-freddy-ez","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-jeremy-mcdermott","16":"tag-juan-ramn-de-la-fuente","17":"tag-latin-america","18":"tag-marco-rubio","19":"tag-mary-ellen-oconnell","20":"tag-mexico","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-nicolas-maduro","23":"tag-pete-hegseth","24":"tag-politics","25":"tag-ryan-berg","26":"tag-south-america","27":"tag-top-stories","28":"tag-u-s-news","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-united-states-government","31":"tag-venezuela","32":"tag-venezuela-government","33":"tag-war-and-unrest","34":"tag-washington-news","35":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}