The U.S. military is turning up the heat against drug cartels in the southern Caribbean Sea, deploying several warships and other assets as tensions between Washington and Caracas escalate.

The spotlight on the buildup of U.S. forces in the region increased this week after President Trump announced that the U.S. military took out a boat with a “kinetic” strike, killing 11 people on board, whom U.S. officials said were members of Tren de Aragua, a group designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

The president said that the vessel departed Venezuela and was shot in international waters. Trump added that the vessel was en route to the U.S. and that no U.S. servicemembers were injured in the Tuesday morning operation.

“Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “BEWARE!”

On Friday, the president warned that if Venezuelan planes threaten U.S. assets in the region, they will be “shot down.”

When asked if the U.S. is seeking regime change in Venezuela, Trump told reporters at the White House that “we are not talking about that, but we are talking about the fact that you had an election which was a very strange election to put it mildly.”

“When I see boats coming in like loaded up the other day with all sorts of drugs, probably fentanyl mostly, but all sorts of drugs, we are gonna take them out and if people wanna have fun going on the........

© The Hill