Donald Trump warned on Tuesday that any country he believes is making drugs destined illegally for the US is vulnerable to a military attack.
Asked if only Venezuela was in the Pentagon’s crosshairs, Trump said he saw any country producing drugs for contraband as fair game, echoing previous saber-rattling directed at Mexico.
“If they come in through a certain country, or any country, or if we think they’re building mills, whether its fentanyl or cocaine … anybody doing that and selling it into our country is subject to attack.
Not just Venezuela,” Trump said, adding that he “heard” Colombia was “making cocaine, they have cocaine plants”.
“We’re going to start doing those strikes on land, too,” he said.
Donald Trump warned on Tuesday that any country he believes is making drugs destined illegally for the US is vulnerable to a military attack.
During a Q&A session at the White House, the US president stated that military strikes on land targets inside Venezuela, which he has accused of narco-terrorism, will “start very soon.”.
The exchange with reporters followed a lengthy cabinet meeting at which Trump and Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, moved to put the responsibility with a navy admiral for the extrajudicial killing of two survivors of an attack on an alleged drugs smuggling boat in September.
Asked if only Venezuela was in the Pentagon’s crosshairs, Trump said he saw any country producing drugs for contraband as fair game, echoing previous saber-rattling directed at Mexico.
“If they come in through a certain country, or any country, or if we think they’re building mills, whether its fentanyl or cocaine .. Anybody who does that and sells it in our nation faces retaliation. Not just Venezuela,” Trump said, adding that he “heard” Colombia was “making cocaine, they have cocaine plants”.
The conflict, which started with targeted attacks on ships his administration identified as involved in drug trafficking but did not provide evidence to the public, is now on the verge of expanding into a wider regional conflict. Trump then declared that military action inside Venezuela was imminent.
“We’re going to start doing those strikes on land, too,” he said.
“You know, the land is much easier, much easier. And we know the routes they take. We know everything about them. We know where they live. We know where the bad ones live, and we’re going to start that very soon too.
“We’re going to drive those numbers so low once we begin that. The “.
Hegseth provided contradictory explanations of his actions during the cabinet meeting in the wake of the September 2 double strike on the purported drug boat, which the House and Senate armed services committees are looking into as potentially unlawful.
Hegseth told the cabinet meeting on Tuesday that although he “watched that first strike,” he did not “stick around for the hour or two hours” that followed, when two survivors who were clinging to the boat were shot at a second time and killed.
This went against what he said to Fox News the day after the attack, when he claimed to have seen the entire operation in real time without claiming to have only seen a portion of it.
