President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that United States forces had struck a drug-carrying vessel in the southern Caribbean, after it departed from Venezuela. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X that the ship was run by a "designated narco-terrorist organization" and called the action a lethal strike.

Washington's aims in the region are not entirely clear after fatally striking a drug-carrying vessel earlier this week, analysts say.

As U.S. warships and troops gather in the Caribbean, Mr. Maduro threatened an “armed fight” in response to any military action. He also appealed for peace.

US President Donald Trump is escalating his “maximum pressure” campaign against the socialist government of Venezuela with the deployment of warships, aircraft and troops to the southern Caribbean. On Sep.

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that the United States carried out a strike in the southern Caribbean against a drug-laden vessel that had departed from Venezuela.

The Trump administration is warning would-be drug traffickers that they will meet the same fate as those killed in a boat the U.S blew up Tuesday in the southern Caribbean, a dramatic escalation in the drug war and the White House's bitter feud with Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

President Trump’s top diplomat, a former Florida senator, has depicted Venezuela as a vestige of the communist ideology in the Western Hemisphere.

The Trump administration has offered few details about a U.S. military strike on a boat in the Caribbean Sea that it has asserted killed 11 Venezuelan drug traffickers, fueling questions as to whether it violated maritime law or human rights conventions.