U.S. forces could have stopped the boat that officials say was carrying illegal drugs from Venezuela to the United States on Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, but President Donald Trump chose instead to destroy it, killing 11 people on board, to send a deterrent message to traffickers.

“Instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders, we blew it up — and it’ll happen again,” Rubio told reporters Wednesday in Mexico City.

U.S. forces launched a “precision strike” on the vessel as it traveled through the Caribbean Sea, U.S. officials said. When asked if they warned the crew, Rubio said the vessel, like others carrying drugs, posed an “immediate threat to the United States,” giving the country the right to destroy it.

“The president has a right to eliminate immediate threats to the United States,” Rubio said. “This president is not a talker, he’s a doer — he’s going to do it.”
The action was a dramatic escalation for the United States in its fight against drug traffickers. Lawmakers and legal analysts questioned the legality of launching a lethal strike against civilians in international waters outside of an armed conflict.

“We have tapes of them speaking,” Trump said from the Oval Office on Wednesday. “It was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people, and everybody fully understands it. You see it, you see the bags of drugs all over the boat and they were hit.

The administration has not said how the vessel was targeted, who was on board or the types and quantities of drugs they were allegedly smuggling.
Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/09/03/us-strikes-venezuela-alleged-drug-boat/

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