WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Tuesday the President said the US carried out a strike in the Caribbean against an alleged drug-carrying boat from Venezuela. The President is using this as a warning to others trying to smuggle drugs into the US.
In a social media post by President Donald Trump, it shows a boat traveling at sea and then a flash of light bursts over it. The President says military forces struck the boat and claims it was carrying drugs.
“We have a lot of drugs pouring into our country coming in for a long time and we just- these came out of Venezuela and coming out very heavily from Venezuela,” said the President on Tuesday.
The President said on a social media post: “The strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States. The strike resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action. No U.S. Forces were harmed in this strike. Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!”
The strike comes at a time of heightened tensions with Venezuela. The administration accuses Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of leading a drug ring. They also put a 50-million dollar bounty on his head.
Other reporting states in recent weeks, the US sent warships off the Venezuelan coast in a show of force and to help deter drug trafficking.
“Drugs and the guns are really creating a problem in our communities,” said US Virgin Islands Governor Albert Bryan, Jr. “We don’t manufacture any drugs in St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John and we don’t manufacture any cocaine either and yet we always seem to be in the midst of it. It creates an incredible disruption for the public and of course safety.”
Governor Bryan said for years they’ve asked for additional resources to help with this issue.
“What I think is particularly interesting though is we haven’t really seen a real US-Caribbean agenda in a long time,” said Gov. Bryan. “Here you have South America and Venezuela; you have the Trump administration taking notice of the Caribbean. If you can remember back a few years ago there was a lot of Chinese investment in the Bahamas and Jamaica and nobody was saying a word. Now we have active warships and deployed people actually taking the war on drugs seriously and moving into the Caribbean.”
We asked the Pentagon and USNORTHCOM if the US is building up their presence in the Caribbean, including in the US territories, but we couldn’t get a direct answer.
