Trump weighs plans to target cocaine facilities | Political News

President Donald Trump is reportedly contemplating plans to target drug smuggling routes and cocaine facilities on the ground in Venezuela as the Pentagon continues to amass army belongings in the Caribbean, GWN reported, citing three U.S. officers.

Tensions rose additional on Friday after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the Navy’s most superior plane service strike group presently stationed in Europe to the Caribbean area. U.S. forces have been amassing in the area for the past a number of months as the administration continues army strikes against suspected drug boats in worldwide waters. Trump has also licensed the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela.

However, according to the officers, Trump has not made the ultimate determination on whether or not to go ahead with the plans and hasn’t ruled out diplomatic resolutions. This is despite the admission ending diplomatic talks with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in latest weeks.

According to the report, the operations would target facilities that manufacture cocaine, despite Venezuela not being a major producer of the drug.

“There are plans on the table that the president is considering” concerning operations on targets inside Venezuela, one administration official told GWN, including that “he hasn’t ruled out diplomacy.”

The second official, who was reportedly instantly concerned with some of the discussions, told the outlet that many proposals had been offered to Trump. A 3rd official said the planning is going on across all sectors of the federal government, but the main target at the best ranges is presently going after the medicine inside Venezuela.

Trump, in latest weeks, has escalated his rhetoric concerning finishing up land strikes inside Venezuela, while the army continues strikes against the boats allegedly smuggling narcotics Caribbean. The strikes have so far focused a whole of 10 boats and killed at least 43 people since the U.S. started its marketing campaign last month, according to Hegseth.

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Hegseth said earlier Friday that the South American gang, the Tren de Aragua gang, was working the vessel during the most latest strike. The tempo of the strikes has quickened in latest days from one every few weeks when they first started to three this week.

Hegseth ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike group to deploy to U.S. Southern Command to “bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a social media post.

Deploying an plane service is a major escalation of army energy in a area that has already seen an unusually large U.S. army buildup in the Caribbean Sea and the waters off Venezuela.