WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said in an interview with WABC radio in New York that the U.S. had “knocked out” a Venezuelan facility, a move that would be a major escalation in U.S. military strikes to counter alleged drug-trafficking by the South American country.
The apparent attack follows months of U.S. military pressure, including dozens of strikes on boats in international waters. The White House has claimed that the boats carried drugs, though officials have not provided evidence.
In the short phone interview on Friday, Trump responded to a comment about Venezuela by touting the administration's attacks on alleged drug boats before referring to a strike on a "big plant or big facility" that he said took place two nights earlier.
"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," Trump said in the interview. "Two nights ago we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard."
Trump did not provide further details about the apparent attack on the facility, which if correct would be the first known land strike in the U.S. counternarcotics efforts against Venezuela. NBC News has not independently confirmed the strike. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the president's remarks.
The administration has ramped up pressure on Venezuela in recent months. In October, Trump confirmed that he had authorized the CIA to take unspecified action in Venezuela, an unusual acknowledgement about covert action. The president told White House reporters that he took the action because the country "emptied their prisons into the United States of America," a frequent accusation he has made without providing evidence, and also because of narcotics trafficking.
In a December phone interview with NBC News, Trump declined to rule out a war with Venezuela. Days earlier, he ordered a blockade of "sanctioned oil tankers" to and from the country and the military seized an oil tanker off of Venezuela's coast.
In the interview with WABC radio, the station's owner, John Catsimatidis, argued that "Venezuela is going to provide a lot more oil to the United States of America if Maduro leaves," referring to Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
"Well, it's about a lot of things," Trump said. "It's about that. It's about, you know, they took our oil, they took it, and they also sent millions of people in there from jails into our country, from jail, some of the worst people on Earth."
Trump then went on to talk about drug trafficking, which the administration has consistently pointed to as the rationale behind the boat strikes.
