Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has said that the United States has the authority to kill suspected drug smugglers after President Donald Trump ordered the blowing up of a Venezuelan boat that was thought to be carrying 11 drug dealers.
Trump said that the United States carried out a strike on 11 supposed “terrorists” from a Venezuelan gang. Many legal experts question the authority under which the president can carry out such strikes.
But Hegseth spoke to reporters on Thursday saying it had the authority to do so.
“We have the absolute and complete authority to conduct that,” Hegseth said. “First of all, just the defense of the American people alone.”
The Defense Secretary said that 100,000 Americans died a year because of drugs coming across the border.
“That is an assault on the American people,” he said. “I said we smoked a drug boat, and there's 11 Narco terrorists at the bottom of the ocean, and when other people try to do that, they're going to meet the same fate.”
Hegseth’s words echo those of Trump when the president posted a video of the strike on Truth Social and said “Please let this serve as notice to anyone even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE.”
Trump said that the suspected drug dealers were part of a cartel led by Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.
Maduro responded in kind by saying that “In the face of this maximum military pressure, we have declared maximum preparedness for the defence of Venezuela.”
The Trump administration has focused heavily on Venezuela going back to Trump’s first tenure in the White House, when it recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country’s president.
In addition, the Trump administration has also ramped up actions to clamp down on immigration and the Tren de Aragua gang, which the administration has labeled as a foreign terrorist organization.
“The strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in international waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States,” Trump said. “The strike resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action. No US Forces were harmed in this strike.”
The Trump administration has long faulted the Biden administration’s more lax policy toward the U.S.-Mexico border for causing drug overdoses, particularly from fentanyl. The president ran on a campaign of mass deportation of immigrants in the United States illegally.
Hegseth further explained the strike on Fox & Friends on Wednesday.
“We knew exactly who was in that boat, we know exactly what they were doing, and we know exactly who they represented,” he said. Hegseth said drug traffickers will “face the same fate.”
Alex Woodward contributed reporting
