Category World News

In the days following its deadly attack on a vessel allegedly transporting Venezuelan drug smugglers through international waters, the administration of US President Donald Trump sent a unified message: The United States will not hesitate to strike so-called “narco terrorists”.

“Instead of interdicting [the vessel], on the president’s orders, we blew it up,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday.

“And it’ll happen again. Maybe it’s happening right now,” he said.

Analysts say this new strategy represents a major escalation in how the US approaches Latin American criminal organisations, one that relies on the public signalling and dubious legal practices that undergirded US attacks across the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia as part of the so-called “Global War on Terror“.

With little indication that the Republican-dominated US Congress will be willing to check Trump’s approach, observers warn that Tuesday’s “kinetic strike” that killed 11 alleged members of Venezuela-based Tren de Aragua gang could open a new phase and theatre for extrajudicial military killings.

“They are repurposing the ‘war on terror’ for entirely new sets of supposed enemies in a way that is radically inappropriate,” Brian Finucane, a senior adviser for the US programme at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera.

“Now the supposed terrorists are in our own backyard in the Caribbean, and now they say they’re drug smugglers.”

‘Performative and gratuitous’

The public messaging campaign stretches back to Trump’s first term, when he pondered bombing drug labs in Mexico, a pugilistic approach to Latin American cartels embraced by some segments of the Republican Party.

Shortly after Trump took office in January, his administration moved to formalise its rhetoric, designating several Latin America-based cartels as “foreign terrorist organisations”. The label increases penalties for collaborators and legal mechanisms to sanction and boost surveillance for designated groups, but does not on its own afford greater presidential power to take unilateral military action.

Finucane saw Tuesday’s strike as the latest drive in a campaign to shift public perception of Latin American criminal gangs from profit-driven criminal entities to coordinated foreign actors seeking to destabilise the US.

It is a message that dovetails with Trump’s portrayal of migrants travelling to the US as violent criminals, which has further underpinned his domestic deployment of federal agents across the country.

Finucane described the US strike as “performative and gratuitous use of military power”.

“For decades, the US Navy and Coast Guard worked together on interdicting vessels, stopping them at sea, taking the purported smugglers into custody and prosecuting them through law enforcement channels,” he said.

“There is no indication of why that wasn’t possible here. So the blowing up of this vessel was entirely unnecessary. It was also literally performed in the sense that Trump posted on Truth Social a video of the attack, essentially a snuff film.”

‘Blow them up’

For its part, the US administration has offered few details on why the military used deadly force, beyond blatantly pointing to the message it sends to drug smugglers.

Speaking on Fox News on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that Tren de Aragua was seeking to “poison” the US with drugs.

“It won’t stop with just this strike. Anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narco-terrorist will face the same fate,” Hegseth said.

He maintained that the Trump administration was certain of the identities of those on board the attacked vessel, without providing further details of the strike.

Rubio, speaking during his visit to Mexico, said simply that stopping and arresting drug smugglers – known as interdiction – had proven ineffective. He said the targeted smuggling boat was heading to Trinidad and Tobago, with the drugs likely bound for the US.

“What will stop them is when you blow them up, when you get rid of them,” Rubio said.

Trump, speaking from the White House on Wednesday, said there were “massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people, and everybody fully understands that”.

Alleged gang members may not be the only intended audience, according to Nathan Jones, a nonresident scholar in drug policy and Mexico studies at the Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston, Texas.

“I think the signalling may be more important to governments in the region, particularly the Mexican government,” said Jones, noting that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has sought to strike a careful balance between cooperating with the Trump administration and protecting her country’s sovereignty.

Following reports that Trump had authorised the military to target certain Latin American cartels in August, Sheinbaum said that any US “invasion” was “off the table”.

A day after the strike, Rubio visited Sheinbaum in Mexico, with the pair agreeing to boost cooperation to target cartels.

“They don’t want those types of US military kinetic operations happening on their sovereign territory,” Jones said.

“So they’re going to be taking affirmative steps, certainly symbolically, to show the Trump administration they’re doing everything we can on this.”

Domestic legal justification

Meanwhile, Trump’s administration has not yet elucidated its justification for the strike under domestic US law. Any legal authority remains, at best, extremely murky, analysts said.

Throughout the “Global War on Terror”, US presidents have relied on a mix of executive power and Congressional actions to justify – often tenuously – strikes on targets outside of active conflict zones.

Under the US Constitution, only Congress can declare war, but presidents can unilaterally take some military actions prior to receiving congressional approval. The limits of those actions have been heavily debated.

Many of the aerial attacks and drone campaigns that defined the past two decades relied on the so-called Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress in 2001, which gives the president authority to use “all necessary and appropriate force” against entities and individuals behind the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Even under the widest interpretation of the legislation, it would not apply to Tren de Aragua, which the Trump administration has dubiously claimed is directly aligned with the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, or other criminal gangs.

The US president’s constitutional war powers, meanwhile, typically apply only to alleged “combatants”, not alleged criminals, the International Crisis Group’s Finucane explained.

“Being a drug smuggler, by itself, does not render you a combatant or an enemy fighter,” Finucane said.

“And if they don’t fall into that category for law of war purposes, then they’re civilians. And the intentional targeting of civilians is a war crime.”

Praise from Republicans

Presidential war powers also require reporting to Congress and intelligence briefings related to underlying justifications. Congress can then pass legislation to rein in the president’s actions.

But to date, many top Republicans have so far indicated little appetite to do so.

Instead, they have leaned into Trump’s rhetoric, with Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Chairman Jim Risch on Tuesday praising what he called Trump’s “decisive action towards these criminals”.

Senator Tom Cotton echoed Trump’s language in his praise, hailing the strike against “terrorists”.

Democrats have, in turn, been relatively muted in their response, although the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee has called for the administration to “brief Congress immediately and spell out its legal justification, if they have one, for this strike”.

All told, the Trump administration appears to be “trying to normalise something that is illegal”, according to Adam Isacson, the director of defence oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).

That carries several risks, including dangers for civilians such as fishermen and migrants who travel in international waters. It also raises the spectre of strikes on sovereign territory or regional escalation.

“This is turning up the heat on the frog in hot water and making it a few degrees hotter, and seeing how many members of the Republican leadership go along with it,” Isacson said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intervention on Wednesday, when a Polish reporter questioned whether the president had done enough to pressure him into putting an end to Russia’s hostility in Ukraine, at a time when Europe and Ukraine are trying to persuade Trump to impose sanctions or other punitive measures against Russia as Moscow continues to invade Ukraine.

He then pushed back at the reporter, listing measures he’d taken against Russian and threatening consequences if Moscow did not agree to peace.

The interaction came just a day before Trump spoke with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after he met with European leaders on Thursday in a separate European summit in Paris to discuss security reassurances for Ukraine in the event of a peace deal. The meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy has not yet been disclosed in detail.

What are the current findings from Trump’s second US presidency regarding how effectively this conflict has been resolved.

Didn’t Trump promise to end the Russia-Ukraine war in just a day?

Yes . In fact, the president has vowed to end a number of global conflicts and has argued that his efforts merit recognition.

But, despite promising repeatedly during his election campaign last year that he would end the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours of resuming the US presidency, the war rages on.

The two parties are still far from reaching a truce as several territorial concessions-related discussions continue.

Trump has pushed for a meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin, but it hasn’t happened, with Ukraine accusing Russia of abstaining in order to prolong the conflict.

At the end of his visit to China on Wednesday this week, however, Putin stated that while he was not against such a meeting, there might not be any point to it. Andrii Sybiha, the country’s foreign minister, has vehemently rejected his suggestion to meet with Zelenskyy in Moscow.

What has Trump said this week about Putin?

President Trump made the comments about Putin following a meeting with Polish President Karol Nawrocki, who was in the US to seek more American troop presence in his country, which borders Ukraine, in case of a Russian incursion into its own territory.

At the press conference that followed the meeting, Trump gave a detailed account of his efforts to put an end to the conflict in Ukraine. The US president, however, clearly reacted when a reporter suggested that he had not done enough to pressure Putin into ending the conflict in Ukraine.

He pushed back at the suggestion, saying he had done several things. Trump added that if Moscow didn’t follow Putin’s lead, there would be consequences and that he would continue to press him into making a decision.

Trump said, “We’ll either be happy or unhappy with whatever his decision is,” referring to Putin. “And if we’re unhappy about it, you’ll see things happen”, he said, without gving details of potential consequences.

Trump also made a number of repeats of his previous assertions that Israel and Iran had won seven wars, including those involving Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, India, Thailand, and Cambodia. He continued, adding that he had initially believed that the friendly relations between Putin and him would make it easier to press him into bringing the Ukraine war to an end.

“But you never know with war … I have no message to President Putin. When Trump was questioned about his communication with the Russian leader, Trump responded, “He knows where I stand, and he’ll make a decision either way.”

What steps has Trump taken to impose sanctions on Russia?

Tariffs against India

Trump cited the high trade tariffs he has imposed on India for buying Russian oil as one of his methods of pressure on Putin at the press briefing on Wednesday. In July, as part of Trump’s ongoing tariff wars, the US first levied a 25% survie on India, the fifth-largest nation in the world and a close ally of Russia. That rate was then doubled as punishment for trading with Russia.

India has been hit severely by the 50 percent tariffs that went into effect on August 27. Experts say they will greatly reduce Indian exports to the US, its biggest trading partner, and potentially affect thousands of jobs. The economic impact on India could be in the billions. Pharmaceuticals, gemstones, carpets, clothing, and jewelry are the main products India exports to the US. US levies on India are among the highest Trump has imposed.

Trump’s action was not retaliated against by India. New Delhi has, however, strengthened ties with Russia and China, both of which are US adversaries, signaling its dislike for Washington. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited China this week for a security forum. In China, he also took a limousine ride with Russian President Putin.

Trump, however, stated on a radio program on Wednesday that he was not concerned about a Russia-China axis attacking the US. He did express disappointment in Putin, however, adding that the US wanted to “help people live” in Ukraine.

sanctions against Russia’s allies?

Trump has suggested that other Russian allies may also be prepared to receive additional “secondary sanctions” from the US, such as the higher tariffs imposed on India.

“You’re going to see a lot more. After the initial tariffs on India were implemented, Trump stated in the Oval Office on August 8 that this was a taste. The White House hasn’t provided any more information, though.

Experts say China could be targeted next. This year, the US and China have engaged in a fierce trade war, both imposing more than 100 percent tariffs on each other at once. The US is currently imposing an average of 57.6 percent import taxes on all Chinese goods, while China has imposed an average of 32.6 percent import taxes.

Russia subject to additional sanctions

In the event that Putin and Ukraine don’t reach a peace, Trump has also threatened to impose even more sanctions on Russia. He renewed that threat on August 22, a week after hosting Putin at talks in Alaska.

According to Trump, “I’m going to make a decision as to what we do, and it’s going to be, it’s going to be a very important decision,” he told reporters. “Whether it’s massive sanctions or massive tariffs or both, or we don’t do anything, we just say it’s your fight.”

The US hasn’t imposed any additional sanctions on Russia since Trump took office this year. There were extensive US sanctions in place on Russia already, however.

Certain individuals, officials, and organizations have been prohibited from doing business since 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula. Prior to President Barack Obama’s resignation, Russia’s intelligence services, the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), the Federal Security Service (FSB), as well as four unnamed individuals and three businesses, were all fined for their involvement in Russian interference in the 2016 US elections. Two “Russian compounds” in New York and Maryland, where some of the interference work was done, were also shut down.

The US sanctioned Russian hackers, officials, and related organizations for other “malign” actions in the first year of Trump’s presidency in addition to those found to be responsible for the 2016 election interference. Names for well-known organizations included Kirill Shamalov, Putin’s ex-spouse, and a Russian state weapons company.

In August 2019, Trump approved additional sanctions forbidding the granting of loans to Russian entities or other assistance from Western monetary bodies like the World Bank. Due to concerns about the proliferation, licensing restrictions were also put in place for chemical or biological weapons that were exported to Russia.

Former US President Joe Biden’s administration expanded sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, including restrictions on sales of Russian oil, bank transactions, and the seizure of Russian-owned property abroad. Export controls were further imposed on US-made high-tech material being exported to Russia to reduce Moscow’s access to Western technology.

sales of weapons to NATO

Trump and NATO-led Europe reached a deal in July that would allow Ukraine to purchase more of its Patriot missile air defense systems. Trump said the weapons would be rapidly sent to the front lines of the war and that Ukraine’s European allies would pay for them.

The US State Department confirmed on August 28 that the US is planning to send $ 825 million worth of weapons to Ukraine as part of the deal. In addition to the necessary equipment, such as batteries and training software, Ukraine requested 3, 500 extended-range cruise missiles and 3, 350 GPS navigation systems, according to the statement.

“This proposed sale will improve Ukraine’s capability to meet current and future threats by further equipping it to conduct self-defense and regional security missions. The US statement read, “Ukraine will have no trouble absorbing these articles and services into its armed forces.”

The sale was pending congressional approval, the statement added. It was funded by Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands, as well as in part by the US.

What happens next?

Following his meeting with European leaders in Paris on Thursday, Zelenskyy called Trump.

Once a peace agreement is reached, the Paris summit aimed to reach agreement on security guarantees for Ukraine. The so-called coalition of the willing discussed measures like deploying a peace force to Ukraine, but no concrete announcements were made after the meeting. Steve Witkoff, the US ambassador to Paris, met with Zelenskyy, and was also there.

The Ukrainian leader previously stated that he would push for Russian sanctions against Trump. He also said there were “signals” that the US would act as a “backstop”, suggesting that the US may be willing to provide some form of protective support for Ukraine in the future. At a press conference in Copenhagen earlier this week where European ministers were gathered to discuss security, Zellenskyy made those remarks.

Following US strikes on a Venezuelan vessel that resulted in the deaths of 11 people on September 2, the Trump administration has announced plans to continue conducting military operations against Latin American drug cartels.

Venezuela, a nation of 30 million people, has a complex relationship with the United States, which has been impacted by political, security, and oil disputes.

Venezuela’s oil economy, which has the largest proven oil reserves in the world, generates only a small portion of its revenue today from crude exports, but nowhere else does that tension emerge more clearly.

Venezuela’s oil reserves are how much?

Venezuela has the largest known oil reserves, with an estimated 303 billion barrels (Bbbl) as of 2023.

Saudi Arabia is second with 267. 2 billion pounds, followed by Canada, which has a 164. 6 billion pounds, and Iran, which has 208. 6 billion pounds. These four nations collectively account for more than half the world’s oil reserves.

By comparison, the United States has about 55 Bbbl, which is ninth on the global scale. Venezuela’s reserves are, as a result, more than five times as large as those of the US.

About 1.73 trillion barrels of crude oil are estimated to be globally’s proven oil reserves, which measure the amount of crude oil that can be economically recovered using modern technology.

Venezuela’s oilfields are located where?

The Orinoco Belt, a vast region in Venezuela’s eastern region that covers roughly 55, 000 square kilometers (21, 235 square miles) is where the country’s oil reserves are concentrated primarily.

Extra-heavy crude oil is highly viscous and dense, making it much more expensive and difficult to extract than conventional crude. This region’s oil needs advanced methods like steam injection and blending with lighter crude to make it marketable.

Extra-heavy crude typically sells at a discount compared to lighter, sweeter crude because of its density and sulphur content.

PDVSA (Petroleos de Venezuela, SA), the state-owned oil company that oversees the majority of the Orinoco Belt operations, is the main oil producer in the nation. Venezuela’s ability to fully exploit its vast reserves has historically been hampered by ageing infrastructure, underinvestment, mismanagement, and the effects of international sanctions, all of which have led to a decline in its ability to do so.

Thanks to extensive government subsidies, Venezuela has some of the lowest gasoline (petrol) prices in the world. The cost of 95 octane gasoline is 0.84 Venezuelan bolivars per litre as of September 2025, or $0.04 per litre or $0.13 per gallon. This is slightly more expensive than gasoline does in Libya and Iran, two other important oil-producing nations, where the price is $0.03 per litre or $0.11 per gallon. For comparison, the average cost of gasoline is $ 1.29 per liter or $ 4.88 per gallon worldwide.

Venezuela exports how much oil?

Venezuela exported only $4.05 billion worth of crude oil in 2023, according to data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC). Saudi Arabia ($181 billion), the US ($125 billion), and Russia ($122 billion) are among the major exporters with this figure.

Venezuela exports smaller amounts of refined petroleum products, such as gasoline and diesel, despite its potential as a result of its ageing refinery infrastructure, technical difficulties, and sanctions.

Why have oil exports decreased over time?

Venezuela joined OPEC when it first started up on September 14, 1960, and was one of its founding members. A group of important oil-exporting nations, known as OPEC, collaborate to control supply and affect global oil prices.

After PDVSA was established in 1976 and foreign oil companies became nationalized, the nation was once a major oil exporter. Venezuela, one of America’s largest foreign oil sources, supplied roughly 1.5 to 2 million barrels per day to the United States in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

After Hugo Chavez was elected president in 1998, exports began to decline sharply as he rebuilt the nation’s oil industry, nationalized assets, restructured PDVSA, and gave domestic and political goals precedence over traditional export markets. Production decreased as a result of political instability, PDVSA mismanagement, and underinvestment in infrastructure.

When the Trump administration tightened sanctions in the US first in 2017 and then in 2019, the situation worsened under President Nicolas Maduro, Hugo Chavez’s replacement. Venezuela’s ability to export crude to the US was further hampered by these restrictions, which also limited access to international financial markets and further hampered Venezuela’s ability to export oil.

Venezuela’s oil trade almost completely stopped in the US as a result, and it moved much of it to China, where it became its main buyer, along with other nations like India and Cuba.

Venezuela’s oil exports reach nine-month highs.

The US Department of the Treasury granted Chevron, one of the largest multinational energy companies in the country, a short-term license to resume Venezuela’s limited oil production and exports after more than three years of oil shipments. Due to strict limitations on the amount of money that could be made from these activities, Chevron resumed some oil production and exports, but only on a temporary scale.

The Biden administration continued to renew Chevron’s license in 2023, allowing it to run limited operations in Venezuela. A wider plan included resuming operations as part of a pressured Venezuelan government to make political concessions as well as increase global oil supplies.

The Venezuelan government did not receive any direct benefits from the oil revenues, despite the license allowing Chevron to resume its cooperation with Venezuela’s state-owned oil company. However, the US sanctions kept the scope of operations restricted.

Following a successful campaign for re-election in January 2025, President Trump issued an executive order in March 2025 imposing a 25% tariff on all goods imported into the United States from any nation that directly or indirectly imports Venezuelan oil. In spite of US sanctions, this initiative was intended to put pressure on nations like China, Russia, and India, which had been boosting trade with Venezuela. The tariff attempted to isolate the Maduro regime economically while limiting the flow of Venezuelan oil into global markets.

Reliance Industries in India stopped purchasing Venezuelan oil, but China continued to import despite the threat of tariffs.