U.S. President Donald Trump speaks next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu upon arrival for meetings at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., December 29, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
By Magan Crane (Bloomberg) — President Donald Trump said the US struck a facility inside Venezuela, in what would be a significant escalation in its campaign against alleged drug trafficking operations there.
“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump told reporters Monday, confirming comments from last week.
Trump’s reference to an attack within Venezuela would mark the first time the US has announced a land strike in the country. The administration has raised pressure on the government of Nicolas Maduro by bombing boats in the region and implementing a blockade to disrupt the country’s oil exports.
The Venezuelan government didn’t respond to requests for comment on Trump’s remarks on Monday — unusual compared with its more vocal and defiant responses to US interventions in the Caribbean in recent months.
Trump said he had spoken with Maduro “pretty recently,” but dismissed the conversation as unproductive.
“Nothing much comes of it,” he said of their phone calls.
Trump said in a radio interview on Friday that the US had hit a target the day before Christmas.
“They have a big plant, or a big facility where the ships come from. Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard,” he said in the interview.
Trump had warned for weeks that he was ready to expand the military campaign by striking targets on land.
© 2025 Bloomberg L.P.
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