After touting the success of recent military strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean that killed dozens, President Donald Trump suggested Wednesday he is considering land strikes in Venezuela or elsewhere as a way of further targeting alleged shipments of illegal drugs. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump was asked by TIME if ground strikes were possible. “We are certainly looking at land now because we’ve got the sea under control,” Trump said.
The Trump administration has claimed to be in an armed conflict with drug trafficking organizations. The U.S. military has launched five known attacks against boats in the Caribbean since early September. Trump posted a video on Tuesday to his Truth Social account that he said showed “a lethal kinetic strike” by U.S. Southern Command that killed six men and destroyed a boat carrying narcotics just off the coast of Venezuela. Legal experts have described such strikes as illegal, as they would only be permitted during an armed conflict that posed a threat to the U.S.
Moving forward with air strikes in Venezuela or another country not at war with the U.S. would be yet another dramatic escalation of American war power in the Western Hemisphere by Trump following his decision to blow up boats carrying suspected drug shipments to the U.S. The U.S. Coast Guard already has legal authority to stop and board ships suspected of carrying drugs to the U.S. Asked Wednesday by TIME why he didn’t rely on the Coast Guard to stop and board these boats, Trump said, “because we’ve been doing that for thirty years and it’s been totally ineffective. They have faster boats. Some of these boats are, seriously, I mean they’re world-class speed boats, but they’re not faster than missiles.”
Trump claimed that the lethal military strikes have reduced the number of drug smuggling coming to the U.S. over water. “Right now would have, I would say, none coming in through the seas. In fact, I don’t know about the fishing industry, if you want to go fishing, but a lot of people aren’t deciding to go even go fishing. We’ve almost totally stopped it by sea. Now we’ll stop it by land.”
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