Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that President Donald Trump will “wage war” on narcoterrorists, one day after the United States military destroyed a drug-carrying ship operated by a foreign terrorist organization off the coast of Venezuela.
The precision strike killed 11 Tren de Aragua cartel members on board the vessel. The operation represented a dramatic, albeit expected, escalation after the Trump administration moved to target Latin American cartels by deploying a few Navy destroyers and several thousand Marines to the Caribbean region.
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Doubling down on the administration’s efforts to eliminate cartels’ drug trafficking operations, Rubio defended Tuesday’s strike.
“This one was operating in international waters, headed towards the United States to flood our country with poison,” he said at a press conference in Mexico. “Under President Trump, those days are over.”
Rubio underscored the importance of taking a more aggressive stance against cartels, explaining that simply preventing the drugs from reaching their destination is not enough.
“Interdiction doesn’t work because these drug cartels, what they do is they know they’re going to lose 2% of their cargo. They bake it into their economics,” he told reporters. “What will stop them is when you blow them up and you get rid of them.”
Rubio traveled to Mexico City on Wednesday to strengthen cooperation between the two North American neighbors on combating illegal immigration and countering narcoterrorism. During his visit, the State Department reaffirmed the U.S.’s commitment to collaborating with Mexico.
“The two governments have established a high-level implementation group to meet regularly and follow-up on mutual commitments and actions taken within their own countries,” the U.S. and Mexico said in a joint statement, “including measures to counter the cartels, strengthen border security, and eliminate clandestine border tunnels, address illicit financial flows, enhance collaboration to prevent fuel theft, increase inspections, investigations, and prosecutions to stop the flow of drugs and arms.”
Rubio has actively posted on social media about the strike, including a brief video showing the moment that the airstrike hit the boat.
The U.S. military is strengthening its presence in the waters near Central and South America, particularly concentrating its resources near Venezuela. The country’s leader, Nicolas Maduro, has denounced the U.S. military’s anti-drug trafficking efforts in the region.
While Maduro hasn’t specifically addressed Tuesday’s strike yet, a lower-level Venezuelan official suggested the video that Rubio posted showing the strike was generated by artificial intelligence.
Like Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth teased that the U.S. military was exploring the possibility of other strikes on drug cartels traveling through international waters.
HEGSETH WARNS ADDITIONAL STRIKES ON DRUG CARTELS COULD COME AFTER 11 KILLED
“This is a deadly serious mission for us, and it won’t stop with just this strike,” Hegseth said on Fox & Friends Wednesday morning. “Anyone else trafficking in the waters who we know is a terrorist will face the same fate, and it is important to protect our homeland and hemisphere.”
“President Trump is willing to go on offense in ways others have not been,” he added.