Overview

• President Trump and senior officials said a U.S. military strike destroyed a speedboat in international waters off Venezuela, killing 11 people the White House identifies as Tren de Aragua members.
• Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking in Mexico City, warned such lethal actions will continue, arguing destruction of suspected narco boats is more effective than interdictions.
• The administration says the vessel carried drugs bound for the United States but has released no corroborating evidence, and news reports note shifting official descriptions of the boat’s destination.
• U.S. deployments include multiple Aegis destroyers and an amphibious ready group with thousands of sailors and Marines repositioned to the southern Caribbean for expanded counternarcotics operations.
• Venezuela decried the buildup as a threat and mobilized forces, while legal and human-rights critics—and Senator Rand Paul—question the strike’s legality and the bypassing of traditional law-enforcement standards.