The Trump White House is all bout peace through strength. They won’t hesitate to show the United States’s power.
And the White House warns of devastating military strikes that will target this foreign nation.
America is fighting back hard against the drug scum poisoning its streets, and Tuesday’s decisive U.S. military strike on Venezuelan narco-terrorists marks a new chapter in that battle. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, pulling double duty as acting national security adviser, made it crystal clear that these actions aren’t one-offs—they’re the new normal for dealing with cartels that dare to flood the nation with deadly narcotics.
Rubio didn’t mince words during his trip to Mexico, slamming the old ways of just intercepting boats as ineffective. “The United States has long, for many, many years, established intelligence that allow us to interdict and stop drug boats, and we did that and it doesn’t work,” he stated. Instead, he emphasized a no-nonsense approach: “What will stop them is when you blow them up, when you get rid of them.”
He doubled down on America’s commitment to crush these threats anywhere they pop up. “We’re going to take on drug cartels wherever they are and wherever they’re operating against the interests of the United States,” Rubio declared.
The Navy’s operation took out eleven operatives from the vicious Tren de Aragua gang, a terror outfit tied directly to Caracas, as they hauled drugs across the Caribbean. This isn’t the gentle Coast Guard routine of seizures and arrests anymore—it’s full-on military might stepping in to eliminate the problem at its source.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth echoed that tough stance on Fox & Friends, calling out the cartels for their deadly assault on American lives. “We’re not going to allow this kind of activity. You’re poisoning our people,” he said firmly.
Hegseth highlighted the buildup of U.S. forces ready to strike. “We’ve got incredible assets, and they are gathering in the region,” he said. “And so you want to try to traffic drugs, it’s a new day — it’s a different day … this is an activity the United States is not going to tolerate in our hemisphere.”
President Trump himself weighed in from the Oval Office, expressing hope that this takedown would make other cartels think twice. He described the haul as enormous, backed by solid evidence. “On the boat, you had massive amounts of drugs,” the president said to reporters. “We have tapes of them speaking. It was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to k*ll a lot of people and everybody fully understands that. In fact, you see it, you see the bags of drugs all over the boat.”
Trump pointed out the obvious outcome for those involved. “And they were hit. Obviously they won’t be doing it again, and I think a lot of other people won’t be doing it again. When they watch that tape, they’re going to say, ‘Let’s not do this,’” he continued.
He didn’t hold back on Venezuela’s role in this mess. “We have to protect our country, and we’re going to. Venezuela has been a very bad actor,” Trump asserted.
Details on the mission remain sparse from the Pentagon, but what’s known is the Navy ramped up its presence last month with eight vessels, including three potent guided-missile destroyers, all geared toward smashing drug runners in the region.
This strike stands out as the first military hit since President Trump greenlit the use of armed forces against these Latin American cartels, now officially branded as foreign terrorist groups earlier this year—a move used to unleash troops without the red tape.
Back in the White House since January, Trump has cranked up the heat on Venezuela’s socialist tyrant Nicolas Maduro, whom the U.S. accuses of rigging the last two elections to cling to power.
Trump pulled no punches on the immigration nightmare fueled by Maduro’s regime. “They’ve been, as you know, they’ve been sending millions of people into our country,” he said earlier this week. “Many of them Tren de Aragua, some of the worst gangs — some of the worst people anywhere in the world in terms of gangs.”
Insiders close to the president reveal that Tuesday’s action was also a direct shot across Maduro’s bow, a leader Trump has openly loathed for years. One source with inside knowledge explained the president’s mindset: “The president understands the clear and present danger posed by narco-terrorists and their enablers,” the person said to the New YorkPost.
“The president also doesn’t view this as ‘regime change’ because the Venezuelan people already voted for that change. He sees it as using American might to restore safety, security, law and order to the hemisphere.”
Adding to the pressure, the Justice Department slapped a whopping $50 million bounty on Maduro last month for heading up the “Cartel de los Soles,” a corrupt network that’s pumped hundreds of tons of cocaine and other poisons into America since the early 2000s, lining their pockets with blood money. Trump summed up the Venezuelan threat bluntly: “Venezuela has been very bad, both in terms of drugs and sending some of the worst criminals anywhere in the world into our country,” Trump stated.
“… We’re getting them out rapidly, but it’s caused a tremendous problem, and Pete and all of the people that are working very hard to rectify the stupidity of the Biden administration allowing these people to pour into our country with open borders. Think of it: opened-up prisons, drug dealers, drug lords, everything coming out of Venezuela. And we said, ‘We’re not going to put up with it anymore. Venezuela has been one of the worse actors in the whole group, and we have a group of pretty bad actors.’”
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