President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that the US military conducted a strike against an alleged “drug vessel” that departed Venezuela.
“As [President Trump] just announced moments ago, today the US military conducted a lethal strike in the southern Caribbean against a drug vessel which had departed from Venezuela and was being operated by a designated narco-terrorist organization,” Marco wrote on X.
There are no other details about the strike, and so far, the Venezuelan government hasn’t commented. The announcement comes after the US has deployed at least nine warships toward Venezuela.
The US has claimed without providing evidence that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is the leader of a cartel and has referred to his government as a “narco-terrorist regime,” which means there’s a possibility the boat the US targeted may have been a government vessel.
The group the US claims Maduro heads, the so-called Cartel of the Suns, is a term used to describe a network of Venezuelan government and military officials allegedly involved in drug trafficking, but it does not actually exist as an organization. Maduro and other Latin American leaders have denied the US claims. The US military deployment to the Southern Caribbean appears to really be another push for regime change in Venezuela after the failed attempt during the first Trump administration.
Rubio was a staunch supporter of the first regime change effort when he was a senator, and according to a report from Axios, he is largely driving Trump’s current Venezuela policy. Rubio recently announced that the bounty on Maduro’s head was increased to $50 million, and the Trump administration has designated several cartels, including the so-called Cartel of the Suns, as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists.”
One US official told Axios that the current operation against Venezuela could be “Noriega part 2,” referring to the 1989 US invasion of Panama that led to the ouster of Manuel Noriega. Maduro has vowed to fight if the US attacks, warning on Monday that he will declare a “republic in arms.”