Donald Trump, the President of the United States, said that US military carried out a “lethal kinetic strike” on a ship that intelligence said was smuggling drugs. The strike happened in the US Southern Command’s area of responsibility and is the third of its kind in the past few weeks. On social media, Trump said that the ship was “affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization” and was on a well-known route for bringing drugs into the US. Reports say that the strike killed three people and caused a huge explosion that Trump broadcast on YouTube.
Rising Tensions
This military action is a big step forward in the US’s fight against drugs, going beyond stopping drug trafficking to killing people. Two earlier strikes, which also hit boats that were thought to be connected to Venezuela, killed 14 people. The first one, on September 2, killed 11 people, while the second one, on September 15, killed three more. Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela, has called the strikes “aggression” and said that the US made up drug trafficking charges to justify military action. But the Trump administration says that these actions are a necessary step up to safeguard US national security from what it calls “narcoterrorism.”
Trump says the U.S. will attack a suspected Venezuelan drug boat for the second time.
This video is a news story about the second US military strike on ships that are thought to be carrying drugs.