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Trump Says US Struck 'Narcotrafficking' Vessel Off Venezuelan Coast
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October 14, 2025
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6:47Now PlayingBloomberg's Iain Marlow breaks down the news that the US struck another boat alleged to be carrying narcotics off the coast of Venezuela.
President Donald Trump ordered a strike on a boat of alleged narco-traffickers off the coast of Venezuela, killing six people, the latest in a series of attacks the White House says are needed to protect Americans but have raised questions from legal scholars.
Trump said in a social media post that the vessel was affiliated with a designated terrorist organization he didn’t identify. A 33-second video included in the post showed an aerial shot of a boat that’s struck by a missile and explodes in a fireball.
Trump said the boat was in international waters and that no US forces were harmed in the strike.
The administration has now hit a half dozen boats in the southern Caribbean since the start of September, saying that the vessels were transporting drugs bound for the US. The strikes have added to tension with Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro that were already rising after the Trump administration dispatched warships to the southern Caribbean in August.
The head of the US Southern Command, Admiral Alvin Holsey, is visiting key Caribbean nations this week as the Trump administration sends forces into the region in a bid to hem in Venezuela. Holsey will meet with the leaders of Antigua and Barbuda, as well as Grenada, starting Tuesday, according to the US embassy in Barbados.
Trump recently called off US diplomatic engagement with Venezuela, according to people familiar with the decision, which favors Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s more hardline approach and may lead to further escalation. Trump has suggested he could order the US military to escalate attacks by hitting cartel infrastructure on land — a move that may also involve risky strikes on Venezuelan military targets.
The strikes have been criticized by Democrats, legal scholars and nongovernmental organizations. Senate Democrats last week forced a vote to try to block the Trump administration from conducting the attacks without an explicit authorization from Congress. While Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, sponsored the measure and another Republican voted for it, it failed to draw enough of their party’s support to pass.
The White House has declared that the US was in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels flooding the country with illegal drugs like fentanyl. While Venezuela is a transit nation for cocaine, most experts believe that the more deadly fentanyl comes from Mexico.
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