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(CNN) The United States “conducted a lethal strike” against an alleged “drug vessel” coming from Venezuela, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday.
“As @potus just announced moments ago, today the U.S. 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 organisation,” Rubio said in a post on X after President Donald Trump referenced the incident in Oval Office remarks.
The use of military force against Latin American drug cartels represents a significant escalation by the Trump administration and could have serious implications for the region.
The US has amassed a large number of military assets around the Caribbean and Latin America, drawing the ire of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
CNN has asked the Venezuelan government for comment.
US officials provided few details about the strike, including who specifically it targeted, where in the “southern Caribbean” it took place, or whether there were any casualties.
Trump on Tuesday afternoon said the US military “just over the last few minutes, literally shot out a boat, a drug carrying boat.”
“It just happened moments ago, and our great general, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff … he gave us a little bit of a briefing,” Trump said.
“There’s more where that came from,” he said, noting that “a lot of drugs” are “pouring into” the US from Venezuela.
A senior defense official confirmed a “precision strike” against an alleged drug vessel in the southern Caribbean, but did not offer further details about the operation.
CNN previously reported that the US military was deploying more than 4,000 Marines and sailors to the waters around Latin America and the Caribbean as part of a ramped-up effort to combat drug cartels, according to two US defense officials — a show of force that has given the president a broad range of military options should he want to target drug cartels.
Rubio, who begins a trip to Mexico and Ecuador on Tuesday, had previously suggested that military action against the cartels was a possibility.
“There are designated narco-terrorist groups operating in the region. Some of them utilizing international airspace, international waters to transit poison into the United States. And those groups will be confronted. The president has made that clear from the time he has operated,” he said in mid-August. On Friday, Rubio visited the headquarters of US Southern Command, which has responsibility for the deployed assets.
The robust military presence in the region has drawn heated remarks from Maduro. The Trump administration has increased the bounty for the Venezuelan president to $50 million for drug trafficking.
“It is an extravagant threat… absolutely criminal, bloody. They have wanted to move forward with what they call maximum pressure, and in the face of maximum military pressure, we have prepared maximum readiness,” Maduro said Monday, adding that he will not “bow to threats.”
