'Venezuela has been a very bad actor,' Trump says, threatening escalation

The Trump administration is warning would-be drug traffickers that they will meet the same fate as those killed in a boat the U.S blew up Tuesday in the southern Caribbean, a dramatic escalation in the drug war and the White House's bitter feud with Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.“Venezuela has been a very bad actor,” President Donald Trump said Wednesday in the Oval Office

The Trump administration is warning would-be drug traffickers that they will meet the same fate as those killed in a boat the U.S blew up Tuesday in the southern Caribbean, a dramatic escalation in the drug war and the White House's bitter feud with Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

“Venezuela has been a very bad actor,” President Donald Trump said Wednesday in the Oval Office.

The U.S.’s offensive posture in the region is raising questions about its ultimate goal — and how U.S. intelligence agencies were so certain that the boat contained drugs and members of the notorious Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

“We have tapes of them speaking,” Trump said. “It was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people.”

Though the president’s specific intentions regarding Maduro are unclear, the U.S. seems to have two objectives: stemming the flow of illegal drugs from Venezuela and placing debilitating pressure on the Venezuelan leader.