Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned of further U.S. military action against cartels following a strike that killed 11 people on a boat in the Caribbean that the Pentagon claimed was transporting drugs.
“We’ve got assets in the air, assets in the water, assets on ships, because this is a deadly serious mission for us, and it won’t, it won’t stop with just this strike,” Hegseth said on Fox News on Wednesday.
“Anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narco-terrorist will face the same fate,” Hegseth added.
Read more: 4,000 Troops and 4,500,000 Militiamen: What to Know About the U.S.-Venezuela Standoff
The strike appears to be the first in a long-threatened military campaign by the Trump Administration to stop cartels from trafficking drugs into the United States, despite questions over the legality of such an operation.
Here’s what you need to know about the strike and what comes next.
Where, when, and how?
President Donald Trump first announced the strike on Truth Social on Tuesday, claiming that the 11 people killed were members of Tren de Aragua, a powerful Venezuela-based gang that his administration has designated as a foreign terrorist organization. He shared a video of what appears to be a speedboat being struck by something and exploding. It is unclear what kind of weapon was used.
Trump said that he held Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro responsible for the gang’s operations—something Maduro has denied—and has ordered a build-up of U.S. military forces in the waters off Venezuela, ostensibly to target traffickers.
“Earlier this morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility. TDA is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the strike took place in international waters in the “southern Caribbean” against “a drug vessel which had departed from Venezuela.”
Neither the U.S. military nor the White House provided any evidence to back up their claims that the boat was carrying drugs, or provide legal justification for killing civilian drug traffickers without trial.
Is it legal to bomb cartels?
Ever since Trump raised the possibility of launching military strikes on drug cartels, legal experts have questioned whether there was a basis in law to do so.
Brian Finucane, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group who worked for a decade in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the State Department, said that the Trump Administration’s attempt to use drug-related deaths as a justification for using military force against cartels was illegal under international law.
“The tragic deaths of Americans from the opioid epidemic do not provide any legal basis for the use of force against Mexico in supposed self-defense,” he wrote in Just Security in February. “In the absence of such an armed attack, any use of force by the United States on Mexican territory—even if directed at the personnel and facilities of drug trafficking organizations—would violate the UN Charter.”
Trump pitched the idea of striking cartels in Mexico during his first term to his then-Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, Esper later said, but the Secretary informed the President that it would be illegal.
“We would have this private discussion where I’d say, ‘Mr. President, you know, I understand the motive.’ Because he was very serious about dealing with drugs in America,” Esper said. “I get that, we all understand, but I had to explain to him, ‘We can’t do that. It would violate international law. It would be terrible for our neighbors to the south. It would, you know, impact us in so many ways.’”
Trump has been threatening to go after cartels for some time
Trump campaigned on a promise to use military action against cartels to stop the flow of drugs into the United States, repeating a favored tactic of previous American presidents by declaring war on drugs.
During his campaign, Trump promised to take down the cartels just as we took down ISIS and the ISIS caliphate,” adding: “We will show NO MERCY to the cartels.”
When he returned to office in January, Trump signed an order directing the State Department to designate drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
In February, he designated Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, as well as six groups in Mexico and MS-13 in El Salvador, as foreign terrorist organizations. Earlier this month, the President signed a secret directive to the Pentagon to use military force against these cartels, sources told the New York Times.
Late last month, the Pentagon also ordered three U.S. Navy missile destroyers—the USS Gravely, USS Jason Dunham and USS Sampson—and around 4,000 military personnel to the edge of Venezuela’s territorial waters, according to Reuters. The Administration confirmed to CNN last week that it had ordered naval movements as part of an effort to stymie drug trafficking.
The Trump Administration is also sending additional military assets to international airspace and waters, including several P-8 spy planes, warships, and an attack submarine, an official told Reuters.
Maduro ‘should be worried’
Trump views the cartels and drug trafficking as being encouraged and directed byMaduro. Maduro has denied links to Tren de Aragua and points to a record of tackling the group in his own country.
Nevertheless, the Trump Administration has piled pressure on Maduro at the same time as it has taken action against the cartels. In addition to a huge build-up of U.S. military forces in the waters off Venezuela, Attorney General Pam Bondi is offering a reward of $50 million for information leading to Maduro’s arrest and seized up to $700 million of assets with alleged links to Maduro on Aug. 13, including luxury goods, bank accounts, and private jets.
The Venezuelan government mobilized more than four million militia troops last month in response to U.S. naval movements in the region, and Maduro this week accused the U.S. of seeking regime change in Venezuela.
“They are seeking a regime change through military threat,” he told reporters on Monday.
“In the face of this maximum military pressure, we have declared maximum preparedness for the defense of Venezuela,” Maduro said of the deployment, which he characterized as “an extravagant, unjustifiable, immoral and absolutely criminal and bloody threat.”
Following Tuesday’s strike, Hegseth said Maduro was “effectively a kingpin of a drug narco state,” adding that he “should be worried.”