Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth previewed the possibility of additional strikes targeting drug cartels in bodies of water off the U.S. coastline.
U.S. forces carried out a strike on Tuesday morning against a vessel the president said was being operated by Tren de Aragua. The strike killed the 11 people on board. It was a dramatic escalation, but an expected one due to the military’s increased efforts to go after the cartels in Central and South America.
“This is a deadly serious mission for us, and it won’t stop with just this strike,” Hegseth said on Fox & Friends Wednesday morning. “Anyone else trafficking in the waters who we know is a terrorist will face the same fate, and it is important to protect our homeland and hemisphere.”
He added, “President Trump is willing to go on offense in ways others have not been.”
The secretary declined to provide details about what type of strike the United States launched, but he said it was a “precision” strike.
“We knew who was in the boat and what they represented, that is Tren de Aragua, designated by the United States for trying to poison our country with illicit drugs,” he continued, though neither he nor U.S. Southern Command, which is the combatant command responsible for the area, has shared any details about the people targeted in the strike.
The Trump administration designated Tren de Aragua, among a group of cartels, as a foreign terrorist organization in February. Doing so allowed it to pursue cartels more aggressively.
In recent weeks, the U.S. military has deployed significant resources to the Caribbean Sea and the waterways off Central and South America as a part of the administration’s overarching efforts to curb drug smuggling into the U.S.
The USS Gravely, USS Jason Dunham, and USS Sampson, supplemented with several thousand Marines, are in the area and part of the Trump administration’s plan to use the military to fight the threat from Latin American drug cartels.
Last month, the Department of Justice and the State Department announced in a joint statement that they would double the Biden administration’s $25 million offer for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who is accused of violating narcotics laws by aiding drug cartels and street gangs.
TRUMP SAYS 11 TREN DE ARAGUA ‘TERRORISTS’ KILLED IN US STRIKE ON DRUG VESSEL THAT LEFT VENEZUELA
The “only person that should be worried is Nicolas Maduro, who is running — effectively is a kingpin of a narco-state, not actually elected and indicted for $50 million by the United States, and we know he is involved in drug running affecting the American people,” the secretary continued.
