{"id":304034,"date":"2025-10-15T00:56:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T00:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/304034\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T00:56:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T00:56:10","slug":"us-strikes-another-boat-accused-of-carrying-drugs-off-venezuela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/304034\/","title":{"rendered":"US strikes another boat accused of carrying drugs off Venezuela"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The United States struck another small boat<\/a> accused of carrying drugs in the waters off Venezuela, killing six people, President Donald Trump said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Those who died in the strike were aboard the vessel, and no U.S. forces were harmed, the president said in a social media post. It\u2019s the fifth deadly strike in the Caribbean as Trump\u2019s administration has asserted it\u2019s treating alleged drug traffickers as unlawful combatants<\/a> who must be met with military force.<\/p>\n

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the strike Tuesday morning, said Trump, who released a video of it as he has in the past. Hegseth later shared the video in a post on X.<\/p>\n

The black-and-white video showed a small boat that appeared stationary on the water. Seconds into the video, it is struck by a projectile from overhead and explodes. The boat is then seen floating aflame for several seconds. <\/p>\n

Trump said the strike was conducted in international waters and \u201cintelligence\u201d confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with \u201cnarcoterrorist networks\u201d and was on a known drug trafficking route.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking more information on the latest boat strike, but one defense official confirmed that the details in the social media post were accurate. The official was not authorized to speak publicly on the strike and spoke on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n

What could the long-term impact be? <\/p>\n

James Story, former U.S. ambassador for the Venezuela Affairs Unit from 2018 to 2023, served under Trump\u2019s first term and under President Joe Biden. He told The Associated Press that ongoing American strikes on boats in the Caribbean may ultimately hinder counternarcotics efforts. By ruffling the feathers of longtime American allies in the region like Colombia, Story said, the strikes likely \u201churt our ability to gather intelligence\u201d from allies to crack down on drug trafficking organizations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they believe that the intelligence they provide us will result in what some could describe as an extrajudicial killing, and nobody here is sympathetic to the plight of drug traffickers … that puts us in a pretty bad spot,\u201d Story said. \u201dIt puts us in contravention with international law and it undermines our ability to work in the hemisphere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, frustration with the Trump administration has been growing on Capitol Hill among members of both major political parties. Some Republicans are seeking more information from the White House on the legal justification and details of the strikes. Democrats contend the strikes violate U.S. and international law.<\/p>\n

The Senate last week voted on a war powers resolution that would have barred the Trump administration from conducting the strikes unless Congress specifically authorized them, but it failed to pass.<\/p>\n

In a memo to Congress that was obtained by The Associated Press, the Trump administration said it had \u201cdetermined that the United States is in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations\u201d and that Trump directed the Pentagon to \u201cconduct operations against them pursuant to the law of armed conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has yet to provide underlying evidence to lawmakers proving that the boats<\/a> targeted by the U.S. military were in fact carrying narcotics, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n

Congressman says Trump\u2019s authority in this matter is limited<\/p>\n

California Sen. Adam Schiff, a Democrat who last week pushed the vote on the Venezuela resolution, said in a post on X that the president\u2019s authority to respond to an armed attack or the threat of one was limited and did not apply.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese continued strikes \u2014 27 killed to date \u2014 risk getting the U.S. into a full fledged war,\u201d Schiff said. He said he would push for another vote if the strikes continue.<\/p>\n

The strikes followed a buildup of U.S. maritime forces<\/a> in the Caribbean unlike any seen in recent times. <\/p>\n

Following Tuesday\u2019s strike, Jorge Rodr\u00edguez, president of Venezuela\u2019s National Assembly and a close ally of President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, called on the press to combat U.S. \u201clies\u201d that are being used to justify a possible invasion.<\/p>\n

The government had convened foreign media and dozens of leaders of local media outlets for Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s message.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe objective is not the search for the truth and much less fighting drug trafficking,\u201d Rodr\u00edguez said. It\u2019s about \u201clooking for the way to have an excuse for aggression.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not asking you to make up anything, but rather to defend the truth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Ben Finley in Washington, Jorge Rueda in Caracas, Venezuela, and Megan Janetsky in Mexico City contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The United States struck another small boat accused of carrying drugs in the waters off…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":304035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[38853,3881,30368,88587,1613,69,20228,57,4228,3464,115835,82,154306,1612,2934,8132,50,92550,6986,3674,80,4217,89,322,67,370,132,68,32322,14513,93,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-304034","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-adam-schiff","10":"tag-ap-top-news","11":"tag-caribbean","12":"tag-caribbean-sea","13":"tag-central-america","14":"tag-donald-trump","15":"tag-drug-crimes","16":"tag-general-news","17":"tag-indictments","18":"tag-international-agreements","19":"tag-james-story","20":"tag-joe-biden","21":"tag-jorge-rodrguez","22":"tag-latin-america","23":"tag-legislation","24":"tag-military-and-defense","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-nicolas-maduro","27":"tag-pete-hegseth","28":"tag-political-violence","29":"tag-politics","30":"tag-south-america","31":"tag-u-s-democratic-party","32":"tag-u-s-republican-party","33":"tag-united-states","34":"tag-united-states-government","35":"tag-unitedstates","36":"tag-us","37":"tag-venezuela","38":"tag-venezuela-government","39":"tag-washington-news","40":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304034","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=304034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}