The Pentagon denounced a “highly provocative move” from the Venezuelan military after it deployed two F-16 fighter jets to fly near a U.S. Navy destroyer.
The armed aircraft on Thursday flew over the USS Jason Dunham, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, while sailing through international waters in the Caribbean, an official told Reuters. The Dunham is one of seven U.S. warships deployed to the Caribbean, carrying more than 4,500 sailors and Marines.
U.S. officials described the move as a show of force, days after President Donald Trump ordered a deadly U.S. military strike against an alleged Venezuelan drug boat in the Caribbean Sea.
In a Truth Social post accompanied by a video of the attack on Tuesday, Trump said the strike killed 11 suspected Tren de Aragua gang members on board the vessel, which he said was headed for the U.S.
In a statement on X Thursday, the Defense Department – soon to be renamed the Department of War – accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of deploying the fighter jets “to interfere with our counter narco-terror operations.”
“The cartel running Venezuela is strongly advised not to pursue any further effort to obstruct, deter or interfere with counter-narcotics and counter-terror operations carried out by the US military,” the Pentagon added.
The Trump administration has not offered any legal rationale for its decision to blow up the suspected drug vessel, rather than seizing it and apprehending its crew. Congress had not authorized any armed conflict against Tren de Aragua, which in February the U.S. designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization, or Venezuela.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth defended the decision during an appearance on Fox & Friends on Wednesday, claiming without providing evidence that U.S. officials “knew exactly who was in that boat” and “exactly what they were doing.”
“President Trump is willing to go on offense in ways that others have not seen,” he continued.
On Thursday, he continued to back the move, declaring: “The poisoning of the American people is over.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at a news conference in Mexico City that attempts to seize drug shipments in recent years failed to discourage cartels and traffickers.
“What will stop them is when you blow them up, when you get rid of them,” he said.
A former senior federal law enforcement official told the New York Times said the attack marked a “significant change” in the military’s anti-narcotics operations.
“In all of my years of doing this, I’ve never seen the U.S. military say, ‘OK, this is a drug shipment,’ and then just blow it up,” he told the newspaper.
Earlier this week, President Maduro accused the U.S. of attempting to carry out regime change in Venezuela as it continues to build up U.S. naval forces in and around the southern Caribbean. Officials in Caracas have questioned the U.S.’s motives and suggested the deployment could be a pretext for a military invasion.
Maduro warned he would respond in kind to any attack by warships patrolling near the Venezuelan coast.
“In the face of this maximum military pressure, we have declared maximum preparedness for the defence of Venezuela,” he said, adding that he would declare a “republic in arms,” without providing further details.
The Trump administration contested that the mobilisation of its warships was part of a broader operation to thwart Latin American drug cartels.
