PALM BEACH, Fla. – President Donald Trump seemingly revealed that the U.S. has “knocked out” a dock facility along a shore tied to Venezuela. In an interview with WABC radio in New York over the weekend, Trump appeared to confirm the move.
“We just knocked out – I don’t know if you read or you saw – they have a big plant or big facility where they send the, you know, where the ships come from,” he said in the interview. “Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So, we hit them very hard.”
Trump declined to reveal if the U.S. military or CIA conducted the strike or its location.
“I know exactly who it was, but I don’t want to say who it was. But you know it was along the shore,” he said.
When questioned by reporters this week about “an explosion in Venezuela,” the president stated that the U.S. struck a facility where suspected drug-carrying vessels “load up.”
“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load boats up with drugs,” the president said. “They load the boats up with drugs, so we hit all the boats and now we hit the area. There’s where they implement. And that is no longer around.”
The attack follows months of U.S. military pressure. It is a part of an increasing effort to intercept boats headed to the U.S. that the Trump administration states are smuggling drugs.
Along with the strikes, the U.S. has sent warships, increased military presence in the zone, and captured two oil tankers.
The U.S. military announced another strike on December 29. The strike was against a boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing two people. The attacks in total have killed at least 107 people. With a total of 30 strikes since early September, according to the Trump administration.
