Overview

• Trump announced that U.S. forces destroyed a vessel in international waters off Venezuela and said six men were killed.
• He released a video showing an aerial munition hitting a speeding boat, which then exploded.
• Trump said intelligence linked the vessel to drug networks and described it as traveling on a known smuggling route.
• The strike follows several recent maritime attacks on suspected smugglers in the Caribbean, with reports of more than 20 deaths.
• U.S. media report the government is labeling certain cartels as terrorist organizations and classifying associated actors as unlawful combatants, a shift that critics say lacks transparent legal grounding.