(NewsNation) — President Donald Trump threatened land strikes in Venezuela and elsewhere “very soon,” the latest escalation in attacks on accused drug traffickers after rounds of controversial boat strikes.
“We’re going to start doing those strikes on land, too. You know, the land is much easier … And we know the routes they take,” Trump said Tuesday. “We know everything about them. We know where they live. We know where the bad ones live. And we’re going to start that very soon, too.”
Trump said such strikes aren’t necessarily limited to Venezuela, adding that any nation where illicit drugs are made or moved could be “subject to attack” by the U.S. military.
Land strikes would serve to escalate the administration’s attacks on alleged drug trafficking operations, which have included strikes on more than 20 boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. More than 80 people have been killed.
A bipartisan group of senators is threatening a war powers fight if Trump goes ahead with land operations without a formal vote by Congress.
Also responding to the threats are Latin American leaders, including Colombian President Gustavo Petro, whose country was mentioned by Trump as a potential land strike target during a Cabinet meeting Tuesday.
“Do not threaten our sovereignty, because you will awaken a jaguar,” Petro wrote on social media.
Venezuela strikes raise war crime concerns
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has defended himself from accusations of war crimes stemming from one such attack on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean.
The White House now says Navy Vice Adm. Frank Bradley, not Hegseth nor the president, personally ordered a second follow-up strike on Sept. 2, which reportedly killed remaining survivors in the water.
Administration and military officials have insisted Bradley was within his authority and the law in the strikes.
Hegseth called the campaign self-defense against “narco-terrorists,” even as the Pentagon temporarily paused new strikes.
“President Trump always has our back, we always have the back of our commanders who are making decisions in difficult situations, and we do in this case and all of these strikes,” he said.
“They’re making judgment calls and ensuring that they defend the American people. They’ve done the right things. We’ll keep doing that. And we have their backs,” Hegseth added.
Trump has attempted to distance himself from the second strike altogether, telling reporters he would not have wanted survivors targeted.
Lawmakers are seeking a complete video, audio and paper trail on who knew what and when as they work to determine whether the survivors killed by the second strike posed a threat.
Bradley is scheduled to give a classified briefing Thursday to the committees that oversee the military as both parties investigate whether the rules of war were broken.
NewsNation’s Anna Kutz contributed to this report.