WASHINGTON—With President Donald Trump announcing that he would look to target drug cartels on land, lawmakers like Florida Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna (R), who support direct targeting of Venezuelan drug cartels in open waters, are saying that they would support direct kinetic military action against the cartels on the mainland, but only if the targeting is backed by intelligence.
When asked whether or not the U.S. should continue to use military force to combat the drug cartels in Venezuela, Luna responded, saying that any group that is “killing Americans” is “fair game.
“Hey, if people are trafficking, you know, a weapon of mass destruction. IE, fentanyl, into this country, and they're killing Americans. I think that they're fair game on the open seas. I'm not for defending pirate narco traffickers,” Rep. Luna said in an interview with The Floridian.
Furthermore, the Congresswoman stated that she supports action on the mainland, but only if there is corroborating intelligence that can justify the need for a ground attack.
“If we have intelligence that shows that they're trying to bring harm, there's an imminent threat on Americans. I think that that is something to be considered, but I think that you have to look at all the intel that goes into that,” Luna continued.
Finally, when asked about rumors of a U.S. pivot toward focusing on Colombian cartel groups instead of Venezuelan groups, Luna said she has not heard of any recent developments, noting that such information is typically kept “close to the chest.”
“I haven't heard that, but yeah. I mean, frankly, I think right now, in addition to kind of everything else happening, there's a lot of intel that, you know, we kind of keep close to the chest,” she concluded.
Rep. Gus Bilirakis also recently expressed his support of the Trump administration's actions against the "real cancer" in Venezuela after the U.S. Navy completed a blockade of that country.
