Washington (AFP) – US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said his country had “knocked off” three boats in total from Venezuela, a day after he confirmed a second deadly US strike on alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean.
“We knocked off actually three boats not two, but you saw two,” he told reporters at the White House before heading to the United Kingdom for a state visit. He did not elaborate on what had happened with the third boat, or if any more people had been killed. On Monday evening, he announced that US forces had struck a second boat in international waters, killing three people he described as “narco-terrorists.”
Trump’s administration has faced questions over the legality of such strikes since its first attack earlier this month, which killed 11 people. The US government has released videos of the two previously known strikes and claims it has irrefutable evidence the people killed were traffickers seeking to ship deadly drugs to the United States. It has not, however, provided details to back up those claims, while drug trafficking itself is not a capital offense under US law.
The attacks also come amid spiraling tensions in the Caribbean as a large US naval build-up sparks speculation that Washington may be seeking regime change in Caracas. The United States accuses Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro of heading a cocaine trafficking cartel and recently doubled its bounty for his capture to $50 million. Much of the international community rejected Maduro’s July 2024 re-election, with the opposition claiming widespread fraud.
“Stop sending drugs into the United States,” Trump said, in response to a reporter who asked him what message he wanted to send to Venezuelan President Maduro.
© 2024 AFP
