President Donald Trump stated this week that the United States had struck a ship within the Caribbean that he claimed belonged to Tren de Aragua, a infamous organised crime gang, and was smuggling medication to the US.
The Trump administration has lengthy claimed that cocaine shipments from Venezuela are fuelling a drug overdose downside that plagues the US.
Here’s what is occurring between the US and Venezuela, and what information on the bottom inform us:
What motion is the US taking towards Venezuelan drug cartels?
The US assault on the Venezuelan boat on Tuesday got here only a few days after information reviews circulated about US warships advancing into Venezuelan waters.
Final month, The New York Instances reported that Trump had signed a secret directive instructing the Pentagon to make use of army power towards sure Latin American drug cartels designated by the US as overseas terrorist organisations.
Earlier in August, a number of information businesses reported that three US Aegis-class guided missile destroyer ships had headed to the Caribbean alongside different warships to counter narcotics trafficking.
The Reuters information company, quoting two nameless people who had been briefed on the deployment, reported that USS San Antonio, USS Iwo Jima, and USS Fort Lauderdale have been headed in the direction of the Venezuelan coast, carrying 4,500 US service members, together with 2,200 Marines.
The US Fleet Forces Command printed a information launch on August 14, saying sailors and Marines assigned to the Iwo Jima Amphibious Prepared Group had departed from Norfolk, Virginia and Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. The discharge didn’t explicitly state particulars of the mission or specify the place the group is being deployed.
What occurred within the US assault?
In his Reality Social publish on Tuesday, Trump stated 11 folks, whom he deemed “terrorists”, had been killed within the strike. “Please let this function discover to anyone even fascinated about bringing medication into the US of America,” Trump wrote.
The US didn’t present additional particulars on these killed.
Salvador Santino Regilme, an affiliate professor at Leiden College within the Netherlands, instructed Al Jazeera that deadly power in maritime interdiction should adjust to the best to life and the regulation enforcement necessity and proportionality requirements.
“UNCLOS and the 1988 UN Drug Trafficking Conference emphasise cooperation, boarding and consent mechanisms at sea, not abstract destruction. Any strike that kills suspected traffickers ought to set off a immediate, impartial, and clear investigation,” Regilme stated, referring to the United Nations Conference on the Legislation of the Sea.
Nevertheless, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio instructed the press after a gathering with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Wednesday that strikes on drug-carrying boats just like the one on Tuesday would proceed. He added that the US has tried to intercept such boats, however that strategy has not deterred them. “What’s going to cease them is if you blow them up,” Rubio stated.
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) September 4, 2025
How has Venezuela responded?
In response to the US deployment of warships, President Nicolas Maduro urged his supporters to affix militias to guard the nation, saying, “No empire will contact the sacred soil of Venezuela.”
One such armed group is the Bolivarian Militia, which is called after Simon Bolivar, who was a Caracas-born independence chief who liberated the modern-day Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and Bolivia from the Spanish Empire.
What does the US accuse Venezuela of?
The Trump administration claims Venezuela’s left-wing president is straight working with drug cartels and is concerned in cocaine trafficking. It has accused Tren de Aragua of serving as a “entrance” for the Maduro authorities. Trump designated Tren de Aragua as a “overseas terrorist organisation” on his first day within the Oval Workplace on January 20.
In 2020, throughout Trump’s first time period, Maduro was indicted by a US federal court docket on drug expenses, together with narcoterrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine.
On August 7, the US Division of Justice and the State Division doubled a reward for data resulting in Maduro’s arrest to $50m, accusing him of being “one of many largest narco-traffickers on the earth”.
“Formally, Washington frames the motion as a counter-narcotics strike towards Tren de Aragua and different ‘narco-terrorist’ networks,” Regilme stated.
“The transfer additionally extends a years-long coercive technique towards the Maduro authorities that dates to US narcoterrorism expenses in 2020, and it serves a home messaging objective – linking a hard-edged overseas coverage to drug management at dwelling.”
Maduro was elected for a second time period after profitable final yr’s disputed election. The US has not had a proper diplomatic relationship with Venezuela since 2019 and doesn’t recognise Maduro’s presidency as professional.
The US has additionally accused Maduro and his minister of inside, justice and peace, Diosdado Cabello, of collaborating with the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns), which Washington has additionally designated as a “terrorist” group. Like Maduro, Cabello is a member of the ruling United Socialist Occasion of Venezuela (PSUV).
In March, Trump invoked the 1798 wartime Alien Enemies Act, permitting him to detain and deport folks from a “hostile nation or authorities”. On the identical day, the Trump administration deported greater than 230 Venezuelan males to a maximum-security El Salvador jail, the Middle for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT).
On Tuesday, a US federal appeals court docket dominated that Trump couldn’t use the 1798 Act to deport suspected gang members.
Are the Trump administration’s allegations towards Venezuela true?
The Trump administration has not offered any proof linking Maduro to Tren de Aragua or another drug cartel, and the Venezuelan chief has denied the allegations.
The US intelligence neighborhood has additionally contradicted the Trump administration’s claims that there are hyperlinks between the Venezuelan authorities and Tren de Aragua.
A labeled evaluation by the Nationwide Intelligence Council launched in April repeatedly said that there was no proof of coordination between Tren de Aragua and any senior leaders within the Maduro administration, though it did state that the permissive setting in Venezuela allowed drug gangs to flourish.
The report drew enter from all 18 businesses that comprise the US intelligence neighborhood. All businesses, besides the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), agreed with the findings.
How a lot cocaine comes from Venezuela?
In keeping with the World Drug Report, printed by the UN Workplace on Medicine and Crime (UNODC) this yr, the worldwide manufacturing of cocaine reached a report excessive in 2023, exceeding an estimated 3,708 tonnes – a rise of practically one-third in contrast with the earlier yr.
The UNODC report exhibits {that a} majority of the coca bush, from which cocaine is derived, was cultivated in Colombia, adopted by Peru and Bolivia. The report additionally exhibits that a lot of the most important routes of cocaine trafficking in 2023 and 2024 into the US handed by way of Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, reasonably than Venezuela.
Venezuela is used as a “transit hall” for some Colombian cocaine shifting into the japanese Caribbean, Regilme stated. “However the dominant maritime pathway for US-bound cocaine stays the Japanese Pacific into Mexico and Central America, the place the most important interdictions happen. Current seizures underscore that sample.”
The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) launched an annual cocaine report in 2024, which recognized Colombia as the first supply of cocaine seized by the US. About 84 % of the cocaine seized within the US was discovered to be originating from Colombian coca. The report doesn’t point out Venezuela.