Trump says US struck drug-linked site in Venezuela: ‘We hit them very hard’

President Donald Trump said Monday that the U.S. military carried out a strike on Venezuelan territory, which he described as the first land-based attack in an escalating conflict tied to alleged narco-terrorism.

Trump made the remarks to reporters at the White House before a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said the strike targeted a dock area that he claimed was used to load boats transporting drugs.

‘Two nights ago we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard.’

“It doesn’t matter, but there was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs, so we hit all the boats, and now we hit the area,” Trump said. “It’s the implementation area — that’s where they implement. And that is no longer around.”

When asked by a reporter whether additional strikes had occurred inside Venezuela, Trump declined to comment.

The Pentagon provided no details and referred all questions to the White House.

The president offered further details during a radio interview with WABC, saying the strike occurred two nights earlier and targeted what he described as a major shipping facility.

“We just knocked out — I don’t know if you read or you saw — they have a big plant or big facility where they send the, you know, where the ships come from,” Trump said. “Two nights ago we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard.”

The operation would represent the first direct U.S. strike on Venezuelan land during the current confrontation. The Trump administration has previously ordered strikes against vessels it says are operated by narco-terrorist groups smuggling drugs into the United States.

Critics of the administration have questioned those allegations and accused the U.S. government of acting unlawfully, including claims by human rights organizations that the strikes could constitute war crimes. Administration officials have rejected those accusations.

Tensions escalated earlier after the United States seized a Venezuelan oil tanker that administration officials alleged had violated U.S. embargo restrictions. Trump later ordered what the administration described as a full blockade of tankers traveling to and from Venezuela.

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In response, Venezuelan officials announced military exercises that they said were intended to prepare the country to defend against a possible U.S. invasion aimed at removing President Nicolás Maduro from power.

Trump has previously said the United States could take military action to reclaim oil interests that were nationalized by Venezuela’s socialist government decades ago.

“It’s about — they took our oil, they took it, and they also sent millions of people in here from jails into our country,” Trump said in the WABC interview. “Some of the worst people on Earth.”

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