President Donald Trump said this Monday (29) that the United States had reached a port area in Venezuela where, he said, drugs were being loaded onto ships. If confirmed, this action would be the first American attack on Venezuelan soil since the start of tensions between the two countries in August, against the backdrop of an American military offensive in Caribbean waters.
Trump made the statements while hosting Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at his residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
“There was a big explosion in the dock area where they were loading the boats with drugs. They’re loading the boats with drugs. We hit all the boats and now we’ve hit the area,” Trump said, without providing further details.
On Friday (26), Trump had already said in a radio interview that the United States destroyed “a major facility” last week as part of his government’s campaign against Venezuela, apparently referring to an American attack on a site linked to drug trafficking.
American authorities then claimed that Trump was referring to a facility linked to drug trafficking in Venezuela, which had been destroyed, without giving details. Military officials said they had no information to share. The CIA, a U.S. intelligence agency with a long history of interference in Latin America, and the White House had no comment.
During the interview with John Catsimatidis, a Republican billionaire and supporter of the president who owns the WABC radio station in New York, the two men discussed the US military’s campaign to disrupt drug trafficking from Latin America by attacking boats suspected of carrying narcotics.
“They have a big factory or a big facility where the ships are coming from,” Trump said, without specifying where that location was and without explicitly identifying Venezuela as the target. “Two nights ago we destroyed it.”
U.S. officials have declined to provide details about where the president said he was hit, where he was, how the attack was carried out or what role the alleged facility played in drug trafficking. There have been no public reports of an attack by the Venezuelan regime or other authorities in the region.
Although some authorities have called the attacked facility a drug production site, it is unclear what role the facility may have played in narcotics trafficking. Venezuela is well known for its role in drug trafficking, particularly cocaine produced in Colombia, but is not a major producer of narcotics.
Trump has been promising ground attacks in Venezuela for weeks, as part of a campaign of increased pressure against dictator Nicolás Maduro, accused of being involved in drug trafficking networks.
Trump authorized the CIA to begin planning covert operations in Venezuela months ago. The United States has been carrying out military attacks against ships in the Caribbean and the Pacific since September. The administration says the ships are carrying cocaine.
The U.S. operations have killed at least 105 people and have been called extrajudicial killings by critics who say the U.S. military has no legal basis to attack civilians. The government has defended the attacks by saying the United States is in conflict with what it calls narcoterrorists who can only be stopped by military force.
These boat attacks were initially developed as a two-phase operation. The second stage, which has not yet been officially announced, would include attacks on drug facilities in Venezuela, sources familiar with the matter said.
Early in the offensive, Trump announced what he called a blockade of Venezuela, while the United States began attempting to intercept oil tankers, cutting off a vital source of revenue for the Maduro government.
Trump has publicly acknowledged that he authorized the CIA to plan operations in Venezuela. It’s unclear exactly what operations Trump envisioned for the agency, but they could include both sabotage and psychological operations designed to pressure Maduro into making a mistake.
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