An air strike by US forces on Tuesday killed 11 people onboard a boat the White House claimed were gang members carrying drugs out of Venezuela, without providing evidence.
But defence secretary Pete Hegseth said that the attack was just the start of a new campaign against cartels, while Trump said the killings were necessary to send a message to traffickers.
But the Venezuelan government has accused the US of threatening its sovereignty and plotting regime change, with President Nicolás Maduro saying the country was “confronting the biggest threat that has been seen on our continent in the last 100 years”.
A US Navy missile destroyer docks at the Amador International in Panama this week (Photo: Daniel Gonzalez/Anadolu/Getty)The White House also recently doubled the arrest warrant for Maduro to $50 million (£37m), describing the Venezuelan leader as “one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world.” Caracas dismissed the move as “propaganda”.
“The president’s overall perspective is that, if there is a terrorist threat to the homeland of the US, he trusts the military to take that threat out — whether it’s a drug boat off the coast of Venezuela or an al-Qaeda terrorist in the Middle East,” a senior administration official told US outlet Axios.
Hegseth said officials “knew exactly who was in that boat” and “exactly what they were doing.”
Neither provided evidence for their claims.
Pete Hegseth defended the operation, saying the US had full knowledge of the boat’s passengers and activity and that it was the start of a new phase of military action against cartels (Photo: Reuters/ Jonathan Ernst)‘A criminal act of murder’
Kenneth Roth, visiting professor at Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and the former head of Human Rights Watch, said that it could account to “criminal act of murder”.
“Drug traffickers are not combatants who can be summarily shot on sight, which is what the laws of war allow. Rather, they are criminal suspects who must be arrested and prosecuted. By ordering military force against alleged drug traffickers, Trump directed a summary execution, a blatant violation of law-enforcement standards.”
“Lethal force against a civilian vessel in international waters is a war crime if not in self-defence, which this video does not show,” he wrote in a post on X. Only non-lethal actions, like warning shots or disabling fire, are allowed.
“When they watch that tape, they’re going to say, `Let’s not do this’,” he said at the White House.
Dr Carlos Solar, an expert in Latin American Security in defence think tank RUSI, said that the strike marked “the next stage of actionable military intervention to fight the drug cartels”.
“For a change, Washington is now leading the fight, especially in the routes out of Venezuela where the Maduro regime does next to nothing to pursue the drug trafficking.”
US deployments in the Caribbean (Photo: Anadolu/Getty)
A bid for regime change?
At least seven US warships have been stationed in the region, along with a nuclear-powered submarine, aircraft, drones, and more than 4,500 sailors and marines.
In response, Maduro declared “maximum preparedness for the defence of Venezuela” and accused the US of “seeking a regime change through military threat”.
Trump warned at the time “all options are on the table” to achieve a transition of power in Venezuela.
Dr Solar said that an invasion was “unrealistic” and Maduro was inflating the threat to rally domestic support, including from the Venezuelan military.
But Dr Christopher Sabatini, an expert on Latin American affairs at Chatham House, said that the US may be trying to pressure Venezuelan opposition to instigate regime change on their own.
“What this is really about is trying to rattle the Maduro government, and in particular those around him to try to force some form of regime change. They’re trying to apply pressure to spark a military coup. They’re hoping people will defect and say, ‘we can’t take this, all of our heads are on the line’.”
“Maduro is seen also as part of what John Bolton used to call the “triangle of tyranny” or the “three stooges of socialism: Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua”.
The US recently doubled its bounty on the arrest of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, a move Caracas described as “pathetic” and “ridiculous”. (Photo: Kamil Krzaczynski/ Federico Parra/ AFP via Getty)
Dr Gill-Tiney said the attack this week appears to be a “symbolic show of force” for domestic consumption, which is unlikely to threaten the cartels or the Venezuelan regime.
“Unless paired with patrol craft and intelligence assets, this looks to be Trumpian showman-style continuity, rather than a step-change in approach.”
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Read More“Overall, this looks less like preparation for regime change and more like a politically useful show of force dressed up as counternarcotics,” he said.
“Its practical impact on drug flows will likely be limited since the cartels can likely find alternative routes quickly, but it reinforces Trump’s domestic narrative of using military force to tackle crime – much like the deployment of the National Guard in DC.”
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