The United States has begun what officials described as a “sustained military campaign” against Venezuelan drug cartels, following a deadly strike on a suspected narco-trafficking vessel in the southern Caribbean that killed 11 people.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed on Wednesday that Washington would escalate operations targeting cartel-linked maritime activity, as the Pentagon expands its naval presence in the region.
“It won’t stop with just this strike,” Hegseth told Fox News, a day after the attack on what US officials said was a “drug vessel” operated by Venezuela’s powerful Tren de Aragua criminal syndicate. “Anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narco-terrorist will face the same fate.”
Rubio, speaking during a visit to Mexico City, said the decision to destroy the vessel rather than interdict it came directly from President Donald Trump. “Instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders, he blew it up. And it’ll happen again. Maybe it’s happening right now,” Rubio said.
Trump posted a video of the strike to social media late Tuesday, though the Pentagon has not released details about the type of weapon used. Asked whether the attack involved a drone or missile, Hegseth said only that it was a “precision” operation and “classified.” He added: “We knew exactly who was in that boat. We knew exactly what they were doing and who they represented.”
The strike comes amid a significant US military buildup in the Caribbean, where at least eight warships have been deployed in recent weeks, including three guided-missile destroyers, an amphibious assault ship, a guided-missile cruiser and a nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine.
Trump defended the escalation, saying the operation targeted traffickers carrying “massive amounts of drugs.” “When they watch that tape,” he said, “they’re going to say: ‘Let’s not do this.’” Rubio argued that conventional interdictions fail to deter cartels, adding: “What will stop them is when you blow them up.”
The move has fueled speculation that the deployment could also be aimed at pressuring Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who remains in power after winning a third term in elections widely denounced by Washington and international observers as fraudulent. The US has long accused Maduro and senior officials of running the so-called “Cartel of the Suns,” a state-linked drug-trafficking network.
Maduro, who previously warned that the US buildup was a prelude to “regime change,” has not commented on the strike. His communications minister, Freddy Ñáñez, dismissed the footage as an AI-generated fake designed to mislead Trump. Hegseth countered that claim, saying: “It was definitely not artificial intelligence.”
Reactions across the region have been mixed. Colombian President Gustavo Petro condemned the operation, writing on X that the strike, “if true, is murder in any part of the world.” By contrast, Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar welcomed the action, declaring: “I have no sympathy for traffickers. The US military should kill them all violently.”
Rubio’s visit to Mexico comes as President Claudia Sheinbaum faces mounting US pressure to rein in powerful cartels that dominate swaths of territory and funnel narcotics north. Her ability to demonstrate results could determine whether Mexico avoids punitive tariffs or even unilateral American military action.
