Palm Beach, Fla. – President Donald Trump suggested the U.S. “hit” port facilities along the coast as he employed pressure campaign on Venezuelabut the US offered few details.
Trump first appeared to confirm the strike in an impromptu radio interview on Friday, and when asked by reporters on Monday about the “explosion in Venezuela”, he said the US had hit a facility where “boats accused of transporting drugs are loaded”.
“There was a big explosion in the dock area where they load the drugs onto the ships,” Trump said met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Florida. “They’re loading the boats with drugs, so we’ve hit all the boats and now we’re going to hit the area. It’s the implementation area. There’s where they implement. And that’s not here anymore.”
It’s part of an escalating effort to target what the Trump administration says it is drug smuggling boats heading to the United States. It moves closer to the coastal strikes the military has so far conducted in the international waters of the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean.
The US military said it carried out another strike on Monday against a ship accused of drug smuggling in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing two people. The attacks have killed at least 107 people in 30 attacks since early September, according to figures released by the Trump administration.
Trump declined to say whether the US military or the CIA carried out the attack on the dock or where it took place. He did not confirm that it happened in Venezuela.
“I know exactly who it was, but I don’t want to say who it was. But you know it was along the coast,” Trump said.
Trump first mentioned the strike on Friday when he called radio host John Catsimatidis during a WABC radio show to discuss US strikes on alleged drug-carrying ships.
“I don’t know if you’ve read or seen, they have a big plant or a big facility where they send those ships, you know where they come from,” Trump said. “We ruled it out two days ago. So we hit them very hard.”
Trump gave no further details in the interview.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth or one of the US military’s social media accounts has typically announced each boat strike in a post on X in the past, but there was no post about any strike on the facility.
The Pentagon on Monday referred questions to the White House, which did not immediately respond to a message seeking more details. The Venezuelan government’s press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s statement.
Trump months suggested can conduct ground strikes in South America, Venezuela, or perhaps another country, and in recent weeks he has said that the U.S. will cross strike ships and will hit the ground “soon.”
In October, Trump confirmed that he did authorized by the CIA conduct covert operations in Venezuela. The agency did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Monday.
Along with the strikes, the US sent warships, built up military forces in the region, they seized two oil tankers and chased by a third.
The Trump administration said it was on board “armed conflict” with drug cartels and trying to stop the flow of narcotics into the United States.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro he insisted that the real purpose of US military operations was to remove him from power.
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said in an interview with Vanity Fair he posted this month that Trump “wants to keep blowing up ships until Maduro ‘cries uncle’.”
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