Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned on Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s administration is “going to wage war” on drug cartels by continuing to launch strikes against narco-terrorist vessels.
The U.S. military struck down a cartel vessel on Tuesday that belonged to Tren de Agua in the southern Caribbean, which had been transporting drugs. During a press conference, Rubio said the administration is prepared to launch more strikes on “narco-terrorist organizations” that threaten the safety and well-being of Americans.
“What will stop [the cartels] is when you blow them up. When you get rid of them,” Rubio said. “So they were designated as what they are, they are narco-terrorist organizations. So the same information and the same intelligence mechanisms, maybe with a higher focus, was used to determine that a drug boat was headed towards, eventually, the United States, and instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders, they blew them up. And it’ll happen again … The President of the United States is going to wage war on narcoterrorist organizations.”
WATCH:
Trump designated a variety of Latin American cartels as foreign terrorist organizations in early August and authorized the military to launch strikes against the groups. The most recent strike was carried out by U.S. Southern Command in international waters, where three Aegis-class missile boats are stationed to combat the cartels’ trade routes.
The ship carried 11 cartel members who were confirmed dead, Trump announced.
Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro has made cryptic threats toward the U.S. in response to the administration’s actions, stating that his country will “defend our seas, our skies and our lands” and calling the U.S.’ deployment “an outlandish, bizarre threat of a declining empire.”
Since Trump deemed certain cartels as terrorist organizations, Mexico extradited 26 fugitives to the U.S. on Aug. 13, including top leaders of several cartels.
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