The US carried out a “lethal” military strike on a cartel boat transporting drugs from Venezuela, Donald Trump announced.

On his orders, US forces “shot out a boat, a drug-carrying boat – lots of drugs in that boat,” the president told reporters at the White House.

“We have a lot of drugs pouring into our country, coming in for a long time, and these came out of Venezuela, and coming out very heavily from Venezuela. A lot of things are coming out of Venezuela. So we took it out.”

In a later Truth Social post, Mr Trump said he ordered the strike after the vessel was positively identified as a Tren De Aragua (TdA) boat.

He said TdA is a “designated Foreign Terrorist Organisation, operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States”.

Mr Trump shared a short video showing what he said was a “kinetic strike” on the cartel boat, killing 11 gang members.