U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated in Mexico City on Wednesday that intercepting drug shipments “no longer works” and warned that Washington will again attack vessels like the one the U.S. military destroyed the day before in Caribbean waters near Venezuela. “Instead of intercepting it, we destroyed it. And we’ll do it again,” Rubio said in a joint press conference with Mexican Foreign Minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente. Rubio, who insisted that the attack took place “in international waters,” stated that the cartels “are earning billions of dollars” from their operations and that they “don’t care” about the losses caused by the interceptions, making the use of force necessary to deter drug trafficking.
The Secretary of State noted that the Trump administration has designated these groups as “narco-terrorists” and will act to eliminate the drug trafficking that threatens the United States. Rubio’s visit comes amid Washington’s offensive against transnational drug trafficking, which has entailed the deployment of a large military contingent to the Caribbean, which destroyed the aforementioned vessel, which, according to the U.S., belonged to the Venezuelan-based transnational criminal gang Tren de Aragua. These actions by Washington have drawn condemnation from Venezuelan authorities, who have accused the United States of trying to force the overthrow of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s government with this operation.
CBS reports on the situation below:
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