Colombia’s far-left President Gustavo Petro and Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro on Monday once again condemned the United States’ drug enforcement efforts after the U.S. military struck down a second Venezuelan boat reportedly transporting drugs in Caribbean international waters.
President Donald Trump announced in a Monday evening Truth Social post that U.S. military forces conducted a second “kinetic strike” against “positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility.”
President Trump detailed that the strike occurred “while these confirmed narcoterrorists from Venezuela were in International Waters transporting illegal narcotics” headed to the United States, killing three men on board the vessel.
The White House published unclassified footage of the strike on X:
President Trump further revealed in remarks on Tuesday morning that a third boat was also struck, “but you saw two,” and called upon Maduro to stop sending members of the Tren de Aragua terrorist organization and drugs into the United States.
The strike against the vessel comes days after the United States previously struck another Venezuelan drug-laden boat, resulting in the deaths of 11 suspected Tren de Aragua members. The actions are part of President Trump’s ongoing efforts to combat Latin American drug cartels in Caribbean international waters and curb the flow of drugs entering the United States.
As part of these efforts, the U.S. Department of State announced on Monday that Trump submitted a Presidential Determination to Congress designating Afghanistan, Bolivia, Burma, Colombia, and Venezuela as “having failed demonstrably during the previous 12 months” to adhere to their obligations under international counternarcotics agreements and to take the efforts required by the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act to fight drug trafficking.
In the case of Colombia, the State Department cited the record surge of coca leaf and cocaine production under the administration of Gustavo Petro — a cocaine advocate accused by former members of his government of suffering from drug addiction.
The Determination pointed out Maduro’s multiple indictments and ongoing role in the Cartel of the Suns, stressing that the U.S. “will continue to seek to bring Maduro and other members of his complicit regime to justice for their crimes.” It also states that the U.S. will “purge” Tren de Aragua from its territory.
For Bolivia, the determination noted that, although its government has taken some “positive steps” to increase cocaine seizures and work with U.S law enforcement, much work remains “for Bolivia to consistently uphold its counterdrug commitments and ensure that it is not a safe haven for narcotrafficking groups to thrive.”
President Petro responded to both the latest military strike and President Trump’s determination during a ministerial cabinet meeting on Monday. Petro condemned the strike as “murder” and complained, “If there are Latin Americans here who grant the U.S. government the right to murder defenseless Latin Americans” they are “nothing more than cipayos,” a pejorative regional term to describe someone at the service of “foreign interests.”
“Even if they are carrying cocaine, killing three passengers on an unarmed and unarmored boat with a missile is murder,” Petro said. “The U.S. government is killing Latin American people on their own land, because it is territorial waters, they have no right to do so.”
The Colombian president responded to the U.S. Presidential determination by claiming that the Colombian military will “stop depending” on U.S. equipment.
“The United States must stop forcing us and stop pressuring us to move from voluntary to forced substitution. Be warned, that is over, no more dead police officers. We will see how we do it. No more handouts or gifts,” Petro said.
Petro also published remarks on social media in which he accused the U.S. embassy in Bogotá of “lying” and claimed that what is needed to reduce coca leaf crops is to reduce cocaine demand in the U.S. and Europe.
“You begin with a factual lie, gentlemen of the U.S. embassy. The growth of coca crops is occurring under the Duque administration, and with forced fumigation. It is U.S. policy that has failed,” Petro wrote. “In order to reduce coca leaf cultivation, what is needed is not glyphosate sprayed from planes, but a reduction in the demand for cocaine, primarily in the U.S. and Europe.”
Although Nicolás Maduro has not publicly commented on the second Venezuelan drug-laden vessel struck by the U.S. at press time, the dictator lashed out against the “threat” of the United States’ drug-fighting efforts during a press conference hours before President Trump’s announcement on Monday.
Maduro once again claimed, without evidence, that the U.S. military deployment in the Caribbean is part of a plot to “invade” Venezuela and oust him from power and called for President Trump to demand a “high-level” investigation on the footage of the first strike video because, according to him, it is “fake” — an unfounded assertion first espoused by his Communications Minister Freddy Ñáñez this month.
“The first thing that needs to be said is that the U.S. president must investigate who gave him that false information. It was very serious that they put statements in his mouth that no U.S. agency has confirmed, such as the figure of 11 deaths. That was never announced by any U.S. institution, only by him,” Maduro said.
Bolivian Deputy Defense Minister Jaime Mamani, speaking on behalf of the outgoing socialist government of President Luis Arce, rejected the State Department’s Determination, which, according to him, “means nothing.” He reportedly claimed that the United States does not have the authority to evaluate the anti-drug policies of other nations.
“The United States is not a recognized body for evaluating drug policies in other countries. Bolivia is part of the United Nations, which is the entity responsible for this task,” Mamani reportedly said. He pointed out that Bolivia has lost its U.S. drug-fighting certification 18 times since the outgoing socialists expelled the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) from the country in the late 2000s.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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