US Strike Destroys Drug Boat, Kills 11 Tren de Aragua Members
Daily News Article — Posted on September 4, 2025
(by Zoe Hussain and Shane Galvin, NY Post) – President Trump shared dramatic footage of the US military obliterating a boat carrying drugs and Tren de Aragua [terrorists] off the coast of Venezuela on Tuesday.
The video showed the small boat being blown [up in] international waters and exploding into flames after it was struck by a single missile, killing all aboard.
Trump said the boat was occupied by 11 “Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists” and was en route to the US when it was blown to smithereens.
“TDA is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“No U.S. Forces were harmed in this strike. Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!”
This is the first known attack on a cartel since Trump authorized the military to carry out such operations earlier this year.
The region is a major exporter of cocaine, but initial statements did not reveal the type of drug or drugs that the boat was smuggling.
Trump in late August deployed three guided-missile destroyers and about 4,000 Marines to the Venezuelan coast — prompting Maduro, the country’s authoritarian left-wing leader, to mobilize millions of militia members and claim an invasion was imminent.
The Trump administration has branded the Cuba-aligned strongman, in power since 2013, as a drug cartel leader and fugitive from justice.
The US government in early August offered a $50 million reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest.
On Monday, Maduro accused the US of seeking a regime change in his country amid a naval buildup in the Caribbean.
“They are seeking a regime change through military threat,” Maduro told journalists, officials and uniformed military brass in Caracas, echoing comments last week by his government’s representative at the United Nations.
“Venezuela is confronting the biggest threat that has been seen on our continent in the last 100 years,” Maduro said. “A situation like this has never been seen.”
Maduro said Venezuela was “super prepared” and would not bow to threats from the US.
A source close to the administration told The Post Tuesday in response to the strike:
“Maduro’s reign of terror is ending. And President Trump’s historic mission to secure the Western Hemisphere is just getting started.”
On Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in an interview that the United States will keep assets positioned in the Caribbean and strike anyone “trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narco terrorist.”…
Hegseth [said] he watched the strike live [and that] the video was “definitely not artificial intelligence,” as Venezuela’s Communications Minister Freddy Ñáñez claimed in a post on social media. Hegseth said that he could not elaborate on how the operation had been carried out, but said it was a “precision” attack.
“We knew exactly who was in that boat, we knew exactly what they were doing, and we knew exactly who they represented, and that was Tren de Aragua … trying to poison our country with illicit drugs,” Hegseth said.
Secretary Hegseth did not say how the government identified the boat or those aboard it. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Tuesday that he believed the drugs were headed toward Trinidad and Tobago or another country in the Caribbean. Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, praised the strike in a statement issued late Tuesday, The Associated Press reported.
Hegseth said Wednesday that the strike shows that “President Trump is willing to go on offense in ways that others have not been” when dealing with drug smugglers.
“You want to try to traffic drugs, it’s a new day,” the defense secretary said. “It’s a different day, and so those 11 drug traffickers are no longer with us, sending a very clear signal that this is an activity the United States is not going to tolerate in our hemisphere.”
Hegseth said that assets will remain in the region, and that further strikes may be forthcoming.
“This is a deadly, serious mission for us and it won’t stop with just this strike,” he said. “Anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narco-terrorist will face the same fate.”
Compiled from reports published at NYPost on Sept. 2 and CBS News by Kerry Breen on Sept. 3. Reprinted here for educational purposes only. May not be reproduced on other websites without permission.
Questions
NOTE TO STUDENTS: Before answering the questions, read the "Background" and watch the videos under "Resources" below.
1. How many countries in the world do not accept Socialist Nicolas Maduro as the legitimately elected leader of Venezuela?
2. For what reasons is the U.S. State Department offering a $50 million reward for Nicolas Maduro? Be specific.
3. What is a narcoterrorist?
4. What action did the U.S. take against Tren de Aragua narcoterrorists this week? - Where did this take place?
5. a) What crimes did President Trump accuse Tre de Aragau (TDA) gang members and Nicolas Maduro of being responsible for, in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday?
b) What warning did the president give in the same post?
6. Venezuela is a major transit country for cocaine, primarily from neighboring Colombia, due to its long and porous border. This is a key reason for increased U.S. counter-narcotics activity in the area.
U.S. officials have long accused top Venezuelan officials, including Maduro, of colluding with drug traffickers and terrorist groups like the FARC. In March 2020, Maduro and 14 other officials were charged in the U.S. with narco-terrorism and corruption. The Trump administration is focused on disrupting drug operations tied to the Venezuelan regime.
In August 2025, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi stated that U.S. authorities had seized 30 tons of cocaine linked to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his associates. Bondi also specified that nearly 7 tons of this cocaine was directly connected to Maduro himself.
a) What is your reaction to the destruction of the drug trafficking boat and the Tren de Aragua narcoterrorists aboard? Explain your answer.
b) Ask a parent or grandparent the same question.
Background
Venezuela is a dictatorship, not a democracy: While it was once a stable democracy in Latin America, the country has transitioned into an authoritarian regime under the leadership of Hugo Chávez and his successor, Nicolás Maduro. This shift is characterized by electoral fraud, suppression of human rights, and a lack of free press, leading to its poor ranking on international measures of freedom and civil liberties. (from Google AI Overview)
From Perplexity AI's answer to question: "How did the socialist policies of Chavez and Maduro destroy Venezuela's economy?":
- The socialist policies of Hugo Chávez (president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013) and his successor Nicholas Maduro severely damaged Venezuela's economy through aggressive nationalization, rigid price and currency controls, and unsustainable social spending that created market distortions, shortages, and hyperinflation.
- Chávez's government seized over a thousand companies across key sectors—agriculture, oil, utilities, banking, manufacturing, and food distribution — replacing experienced management with political appointees.
- State control led to inefficient operations, collapsing production, and frequent blackouts and water shortages as government-run enterprises could not deliver basic services or maintain infrastructure.
- Food production dropped 75% in two decades while the population rose by 33%, creating a recipe for chronic shortages and hunger.
- ...The socialist policies of Chávez and Maduro destroyed Venezuela's economy by undermining private enterprise, causing market failures, diminishing production, fueling corruption, and creating a dependence on spending that collapsed when oil revenues fell.
Nicholas Maduro:
- Since 2019, more than 50 countries, including the United States, do not recognize socialist leader Nicolás Maduro as the legitimate president of Venezuela, particularly since his contested re-election in 2024 and his previous disputed election in 2018.
- In March 2020, Maduro was charged in the Southern District of New York for narco-terrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.
- After initially offering a reward offer of up to $15 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Maduro in 2020, the Department of State on January 10, 2025, increased the reward offer to up to $25 million.
- On August 7, 2025, the Department announced the further increase in the reward offer to up to $50 million after the Department of Treasury sanctioned Cartel of the Suns* as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist on July 25, 2025. As leader of Cartel of the Suns, Maduro is the first target in the history of the U.S. State Department's Narcotics Rewards Program with a reward offer exceeding $25 million. (state.gov)
On July 25, 2025, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned the Venezuelan cartel headed by illegitimate president Nicholas Maduro:
- Based in Venezuela, the *Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns) is headed by Nicolas Maduro Moros and other Venezuelan high-ranking individuals in the Maduro regime who corrupted the institutions of government in Venezuela, including parts of the military, intelligence apparatus, legislature, and the judiciary, to assist the cartel’s endeavors of trafficking narcotics into the United States.
- The cartel’s name is derived from the sun insignias often portrayed on the uniforms of Venezuelan military officials.
- The Cartel de los Soles supports Tren de Aragua in carrying out its objective of using the flood of illegal narcotics as a weapon against the United States. Additionally, the Cartel de los Soles has provided support to the Sinaloa Cartel of Mexico. (treasury.gov)
Read a 2019 article on Venezuela - and scroll to bottom for videos and further links on Maduro's authoritarian rule.