US conducts lethal strike on ‘drug vessel’ in Caribbean: Rubio

The U.S. military on Tuesday conducted a lethal strike on a boat allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean after departing Venezuela, according to President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Trump mentioned the strike at the White House on Tuesday, saying the U.S. “literally shot out a boat, a drug-carrying boat, lot of drugs in that boat.”

“We have a lot of drugs pouring into our country, coming in for a long time. And these came out of Venezuela. And coming out very heavily from Venezuela. A lot of things are coming out of Venezuela. So we took it out,” Trump said on Tuesday.

Rubio confirmed the military’s engagement on social platform X, writing that the “lethal” strike was launched in the southern Caribbean against a “drug vessel which had departed from Venezuela and was being operated by a designated narco-terrorist organization.” 

The strike on the boat comes as the administration has bolstered its maritime force in the Caribbean to mitigate the threats from Latin American drug cartels. The U.S. deployed at least seven ships, a nuclear-powered submarine and more than 4,500 Marines near Venezuela in recent days. 

The deployment was slammed by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who called it “an extravagant, unjustifiable, immoral and absolutely criminal and bloody threat.”

“In the face of this maximum military pressure, we have declared maximum preparedness for the defense of Venezuela,” Maduro said at a press conference on Monday. 

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