US hit second boat carrying drugs from Venezuela, Trump says

Nick Wadhams, Bloomberg News on Sep 15, 2025

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President Donald Trump said the U.S. struck a second vessel ferrying drugs from Venezuela, showing his determination to proceed with an aggressive strategy that’s ratcheted up tensions with the country and prompted questions about its legality.

U.S. forces “conducted a SECOND Kinetic Strike against positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists” in the US Southern Command’s area of responsibility, Trump wrote in a social media post. “The Strike occurred while these confirmed narcoterrorists from Venezuela were in International Waters transporting illegal narcotics.”

The post included a link to a video that showed a vessel rolling in the waves in unidentified waters. After several seconds it is consumed by a massive fireball. Trump said the attack “resulted in 3 male terrorists killed in action.”

Trump ordered the strike about two weeks after the U.S. military said it killed 11 people in a strike on a boat that was also allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela. That move spiked tension with Venezuela and prompted criticism from some of Venezuela’s neighbors as well as scholars who argued that the U.S. had been under no immediate threat and the strike may not have been legal.

The latest strike is almost certain to raise similar questions. In the video that Trump posted to social media on Monday, the vessel appears not to be moving. There’s also no indication of where it was headed.

Trump has referred to the earlier strike as military action and argued it was “consistent with my responsibility to protect Americans and United States interests abroad and in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests.”

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