The 2 survivors of an American military strike on a suspected drug-carrying vessel within the Caribbean will probably be sent to Ecuador and Colombia, their home countries, President Donald Trump said Saturday.
The military rescued the pair after striking a submersible vessel Thursday, in what was not less than the sixth such attack since early September.
“It was my great honor to destroy a really large DRUG-CARRYING SUBMARINE that was navigating towards the US on a well-known narcotrafficking transit route,” Trump said in a social media post. “U.S. Intelligence confirmed this vessel was loaded up with mostly Fentanyl, and other illegal narcotics.”
After Trump’s announcement, the Pentagon posted on X a transient black-and-white video of the strike. Within the clip, a vessel could be seen moving through the waves, its front portion submerged inches below the water’s surface. Then, several explosions are seen, with not less than one over the back of the vessel.
The Republican president said two people onboard were killed — yet another than was previously reported — and the 2 who survived are being sent to their home countries “for detention and prosecution.”
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With Trump’s confirmation on his Truth Social platform of the death toll, meaning U.S. military motion against vessels within the region have killed not less than 29 people.
The president has justified the strikes by asserting that the US is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels. He’s counting on the identical legal authority utilized by the George W. Bush administration when it declared a war on terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks, and that features the power to capture and detain combatants and to make use of lethal force to take out their leadership. Trump can also be treating the suspected traffickers as in the event that they were enemy soldiers in a conventional war.
The repatriation avoids questions for the Trump administration about what the legal status of the 2 would have been within the U.S. justice system. It may sidestep a number of the legal issues that arose out of the detention of enemy combatants in the worldwide war on terrorism in addition to challenges to the constitutionality of the present operation.
To some legal scholars, Trump’s use of such military force against suspect drug cartels, along along with his authorization of covert motion inside Venezuela, possibly to oust President Nicolás Maduro, stretches the bounds of international law.
On Friday, Trump appeared to confirm reports that Maduro has offered a stake in Venezuela’s oil and other mineral wealth in recent months to attempt to stave off mounting pressure from the US. Venezuelan government officials have also floated a plan by which Maduro would eventually leave office, based on a former Trump administration official. That plan was also rejected by the White House, The Associated Press reported.
The strikes within the Caribbean have caused unease amongst members of Congress from each parties and complaints about receiving insufficient information on how the attacks are being conducted. But most Republican senators backed the administration last week on a measure that will have required Trump’s team to get approval from Congress before more strikes.
Meanwhile, one other resolution to be considered would prevent Trump from outright attacking Venezuela without congressional authorization.
© 2025 The Canadian Press