Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said that the U.S. military’s campaign against drug traffickers in the Caribbean “won’t stop with just” the Tuesday strike that President Trump said killed 11 “terrorists” on a boat that departed Venezuela.
“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. Anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narco-terrorist will face the same fate, and it’s important for the American people to protect our homeland and protect our hemisphere,” Hegseth said Wednesday during his appearance on “Fox & Friends.”
Trump said on Tuesday that a military “kinetic” strike took out a “drug vessel” in the Caribbean, with the members on board being part of Tren de Aragua, a transnational gang from Venezuela, that is designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government.
The boat was in international waters when the Tuesday morning striker took place and was carrying “illegal” narcotics, according to Trump. The boat was en route to the U.S. Hours later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that he believed the vessel was heading toward Trinidad and Tobago or another country in the region.
“You’re poisoning our people. We’ve got incredible assets, and they are gathering in the region. And so, you want to try to traffic drugs. It’s a new day. It’s a different day. And so those 11 drug traffickers are no longer with us, sending a very clear signal that this is an activity the United States is not going to tolerate in our hemisphere,” Hegseth told the co-hosts.
Freddy Ñáñez, Venezuela’s minister of communications and information, claimed the video of the strike on the boat, which was shared by both Trump and Hegseth on Tuesday, was generated by artificial intelligence. The Pentagon chief shot down the claim.
“I can tell you that was definitely not artificial intelligence. I watched it live. We knew exactly who was in that boat. We knew exactly what they were doing, and we knew exactly who they represented,” Hegseth said.
The strike on the vessel came as the Trump administration has increased the military’s presence in the Caribbean, arguing it is an effort to combat threats from the Latin American cartels the president has accused of flowing fentanyl and other drugs into the U.S.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, for whom the U.S. government is offering a $50 million reward for arrest, railed against the U.S.’s deployment of military assets near his nation, calling it an “extravagant, unjustifiable, immoral, and absolutely criminal and bloody threat.”
When asked if regime change is the U.S.’s goal in Venezuela, Hegseth said that it is a decision for the president to make.
“That’s a presidential-level decision, and we’re prepared with every asset that the American military has,” the defense secretary said.
