'It won't stop': Trump administration telegraphs more military action against drug cartels

The US on Wednesday said it would conduct more military action against Venezuelan drug smugglers, a day after the Pentagon hit a boat allegedly carrying drugs for the criminal group Tren de Aragua.

US President Donald Trump said he had ordered a military operation against members of the Venezuelan gang. Tuesday's strike, which hit a fast boat carrying “massive amounts of drugs” that was crossing international waters in the Caribbean, killed 11 “terrorists”, Mr Trump said.

“We have to protect our country and we're going to,” Mr Trump said.

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the strike showed the President is “willing to go on offence in ways that others have not been”.

“We're not going to allow this activity. You're poisoning our people. We've got incredible assets and they are gathering in the region,” Mr Hegseth told Fox News. “It won't stop with just this strike.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is on an official trip to Mexico and Ecuador this week, echoed those sentiments, saying the US could “blow up” more cartel-linked vessels.

"The President of the United States is going to wage war on narcoterrorist organisations," he said. "This one was operating in international waters, headed towards the United States to flood our country with poison, and under President Trump, those days are over."

“[Tren de Aragua] were the first to export themselves out of Venezuela, and they did so with a very specific criminal model where they expanded along migrant routes,” Chris Dalby, director of World of Crime and author of Tren de Aragua: the Guide to America's Growing Criminal Threat, told The National.

“Eight million Venezuelans have left their home in the last decade, and it has been extraordinarily proficient at victimising and criminalising these millions every step of the way.”

But Mr Dalby added the group is “very misunderstood” by the US government.

“They do not compete with the Mexican groups, the Colombian groups in the international cocaine and fentanyl trade,” Mr Dalby said. “So the allegations by the White House yesterday that those 11 men in the ship were in Tren de Aragua are ludicrous, because it would literally be against everything we've seen from this group.”

Regardless of who the boat actually belonged to, the Trump administration has taken a hard line on drug trafficking since the President took office in January.

He has designated Tren de Aragua and several other drug cartels in Latin America as foreign terrorist organisations, which initiates financial asset freezes and immigration restrictions for members. The US has also sent eight warships and a submarine to the Caribbean to battle drug trafficking and secure maritime routes.

What will the US do next?

The possibility of direct US intervention to combat drug activity in the Caribbean has raised concerns across Latin America, particularly in Mexico, where many of the cartels listed as FTOs operate. Last week, a fist-fight broke out in the Mexican Congress after an intense debate over accusations of support for US intervention.

US interventionism is a touchy subject in Latin America, where covert operations in the Cold War era resulted in civil wars and brutal dictatorships that killed hundreds of thousands of people accused of ties to communist movements.

It is as yet unclear how the US push to battle drug trafficking will develop, but Washington's campaign against Yemen's Houthis earlier this year might provide some clues.

The Houthis, a rebel group that took control of large parts of Yemen in 2014, began to carry out strikes on international shipping in the Red Sea in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza after the war with Israel began. Missile launches and drone attacks have sunk several ships and killed a number of crew over the past two years of conflict.

Under former president Joe Biden, the US sent naval assets to the Red Sea to protect ships and deter the attacks, to limited success. When Mr Trump came into office, the US redesignated the Houthis as an FTO and started daily bombings on the group's assets in Yemen.

The success of the strikes, which the Houthis say killed scores of civilians, is debatable. The two sides declared a truce in May, but the Houthis soon after continued attacks on shipping and on Israel. The Houthis declared in July that they planned to “escalate their military support operations”.

“Trump has been very clear that he wants to turn the war on drugs into the war on terror with similar tactics as were used in the Middle East against Al Qaeda, ISIS, now the Houthis, where the US can – with impunity and with very little legal identification – strike at targets that are considered threats,” Mr Dalby said. “By naming them terrorists, he has essentially legalised that ability to do so.”

But Mr Dalby cautioned against comparing too closely the situation of the Houthis to Tren de Aragua and other groups operating in Latin America.

“There is no organisation, militarily, in Latin America that is close to the Houthis,” he said, adding that it is doubtful any group would be able to organise and launch all-out attacks on US assets like the Yemeni rebels did on several occasions in the Red Sea.

This is particularly true for Tren de Aragua, which Mr Dalby says has become a “brand for hire” that has lost any semblance of top-down control. Still, it is a useful scapegoat for the Trump administration, which has used it as a means of drumming up support for his campaign against illegal immigration.

Mr Trump has railed against Venezuela and its president, Nicolas Maduro, over support for drug trafficking groups and the rise in undocumented Venezuelan immigrants going to the US.

The strike on the drug trafficking vessel, and promises of more to come, as well as growing calls for the detention of Mr Maduro may indicate a drive to initiate regime change in Venezuela among the more hawkish elements of the Trump government.

Last month, the US announced a $50 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Mr Maduro, and in the weeks since, Republicans have urged the Trump administration to double the reward. Others have called for the US to directly intervene to detain Mr Maduro.

“The Trump administration knows exactly where Nicolas Maduro is. He is currently sitting inside Miraflores” Presidential Palace, right-wing influencer Laura Loomer said on X. “That’s where he is right now. Send in the troops.”

Mr Dalby viewed the attack as having “reactivated a generation of US interventionism” that could preface a land strike or incursion in Venezuela.

“I would expect an escalation. I would expect more boats to be targeted like that. And of course, then the million-dollar question, will he [Mr Trump] dare do that on land? Would he do that in Venezuela? Would he do that in Mexico? I think it's a strong possibility,” Mr Dalby said.

“The more plaudits that Trump gets, even from his own echo chamber, I think he'll be encouraged to do more and more.”