President Trump has again shown the backbone this country needs by authorizing U.S. forces to strike illegal drug-running vessels operating out of Venezuelan waters, a decisive response after months of being told to wait. The administration has publicly acknowledged multiple kinetic strikes in the southern Caribbean since early September, pushing back against cartel networks that have been poisoning American families with fentanyl and other narcotics.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed the latest action, saying U.S. forces struck a boat near Venezuela on October 3, killing four alleged traffickers and removing another floating threat from the smuggling lanes. President Trump posted footage and forcefully warned cartel networks that the United States will hunt down the poison headed for our streets, a message long overdue after years of open-border appeasement.
These hits are not isolated: the administration reports that at least two dozen alleged traffickers have been killed across several strikes, beginning with the first operation announced on September 2. For those who still shrink from calling the scourge what it is—an assault on American lives—consider that the casualties are the result of criminal enterprises that traffic killer drugs to our neighbors and children.
Of course, the predictable chorus of hand-wringers and partisan critics immediately objected, whining about legalities and demanding hearings while the body bags pile up back home. Maduro and his cronies in Caracas fulminate about sovereignty while their own country becomes a launching pad for death, and human-rights groups lecture us from a safe distance as fentanyl tears through towns across the heartland. Those objections ring hollow to any parent who lost a child to the overdose crisis.
Experts who have spent time on the ground watching cartel operations, like investigative journalist Katarina Szulc, have repeatedly warned that these organizations behave like militarized, transnational criminal enterprises and that half-measures only encourage escalation. Szulc’s reporting on cartel infiltration across North America underscores why bold, targeted action is necessary to disrupt supply lines before more Americans die.
This is a wake-up call for Congress and every lawmaker who spent years tolerating the open-border policies and soft-on-crime agendas that got us here. If Washington wants fewer dead Americans and safer communities, it should fund the mission, secure the border, and back commanders who are doing the job. The choice is clear: stand with the families being ripped apart by drug cartels, or stand with the politicians who enable the cartels with excuses and empty hearings.
