The U.S. military started attacking boats off the coast of Venezuela on Sept. 2, killing 17 people in what leaders say is an effort to thwart drug smuggling.
“A lot of drugs are coming out of Venezuela,” Trump said Sept. 14. “Venezuela is sending us their gang members, their drug dealers and drugs.”
On Sept. 20, Trump said“Thousands of people are dying because of those boatloads of drugs, fentanyl and a lot of other drugs.”
Trump has focused on Venezuela in his second presidency. In March, while invoking an 18th century deportation law, Trump said Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro has directed Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, to use warlike actions against the U.S., including drug trafficking. In late August, the U.S. deployed warships to the waters off Venezuela, and on Sept. 15, Trump added Venezuela to the United State’s annual list of major drug transit and production countries.
“In Venezuela, the criminal regime of indicted drug trafficker Nicolás Maduro leads one of the largest cocaine trafficking networks in the world, and the United States will continue to seek to bring Maduro and other members of his complicit regime to justice for their crimes,” the official determination said.
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Experts in crime, drugs and Venezuela say the South American country plays a minor role in trafficking drugs that reach the U.S.
“The reality is that while Maduro’s government is an authoritarian corrupt regime, drug trafficking from Venezuela is relatively minor compared to other countries in the region such as Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala and Mexico,” said David Smilde, a Tulane University sociologist who studies violence in Venezuela.
Phil Gunson, senior analyst for the Andes Region at International Crisis Group, a conflict resolution think tank, said the Trump administration has conflated several situations to reach the conclusion that a cartel runs Venezuela in order to justify U.S. military action. An April U.S. intelligence report cast doubt on the notion that Tren de Aragua is run by Maduro.
“For all the many sins of the Maduro dictatorship, there is no evidence to suggest that it is engaged in a war of terror against the US, or that it is using drugs and violent criminals to undermine the US government,” Gunson said.
What has the Trump administration said about why it has struck Venezuelan boats?
Trump announced Sept. 2 that the U.S. military had struck a vessel in the southern Caribbean, killing 11 people on board. He said the military had identified the people on board as “Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists.”
The State Department designated Tren de Aragua a terrorist organization in February.
InSight Crime, a think tank focused on crime and security in the Americas, said in a September report that it found “no evidence to date that Tren de Aragua is involved in transnational drug trafficking.” The gang’s criminal activities center on human smuggling and trafficking, extortion and “micro-trafficking,” the selling of drugs in neighborhoods where the gang has a foothold.
Therefore it’s “exceedingly unlikely” that the people killed in the U.S. boat strikes are Tren de Aragua members, Smilde told PolitiFact.
The government hasn’t provided evidence about the boats’ passengers or contents.
“All you have to do is look at the cargo that was spattered all over the ocean, big bags of cocaine and fentanyl all over the place,” Trump told reporters about the second boat.
Bags of drugs are not clearly visible in aerial video Trump has shared on Truth Social of the first two strikes.
PolitiFact asked the White House for its evidence that Venezuela was sending drugs to the U.S and that the boats were carrying drugs. The White House did not respond with evidence.
The White House also did not answer questions about what drugs Venezuela is sending to the U.S. or how many drugs seized in the U.S. come from Venezuela.
After the first attack, some legal experts told PolitiFact that the military action was illegal under maritime law or human rights conventions and the attack contradicted longstanding U.S. military practices.
Does fentanyl in the U.S. come from Venezuela? Drug trafficking experts say no.
Most U.S. overdose deaths are because of fentanyl, a synthetic, often deadly opioid frequently present in illicit street drugs.
Most illicit fentanyl in the U.S. comes from Mexiconot Venezuela, and is made with chemicals from Chinese labs. It enters the U.S. mainly through the southern border at official ports of entry, and it’s smuggled in mostly by U.S. citizens.
“There is no evidence of fentanyl or cocaine laced with fentanyl coming from Venezuela or anywhere else in South America,” Smilde said.
U.S. fentanyl overdose deaths recently have dropped. From May 2024 to April 2025, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 43,000 synthetic opioid deaths, most of which were from fentanyl, down from nearly 70,000 in the previous similar period.
“The United States has been suffering an enormous overdose crisis driven by opioids and fentanyl in particular in recent years,” said John Walsh, director for drug policy and the Andes at the Washington Office on Latin America, a group advocating for human rights in the Americas. “I would say it has zero to do with anything in South America or the Caribbean.”
What role does Venezuela play in trafficking cocaine to the U.S.?
Venezuela acts as a transit country for some cocaine trafficking in part because its neighboring country, Colombia, is the world’s main cocaine producer. However, most of the cocaine that enters the U.S. doesn’t go through Venezuela, Gunson said. Instead, it takes a more direct route.
Cocaine bound for the U.S. tends to leave Colombia via its Pacific coast, through Central America and Mexico, Smilde said. Venezuela is east of Colombia on the Atlantic Ocean.
A 2024 DEA fact-sheet says 90% of cocaine reaching the U.S. is produced in Colombia and enters the U.S. via Mexico. The report doesn’t mention Venezuela.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro talks to high-ranking officers during a military ceremony on his inauguration day for a third term in Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 10, 2025. (AP)
What role does Maduro play in drug trafficking?
In August, the U.S. State and Justice departments increased the reward for Maduro’s arrest to $50 million.
“For over a decade, Maduro has been a leader of Cartel de los Soles, which is responsible for trafficking drugs into the United States,” the news release said. In July, the Department of Treasury designated Cartel de los Soles a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization.
Cartel de los Soles isn’t a literal, concrete or hierarchical drug-trafficking organization. It describes a “system of corruption wherein military and political officials profit by working with drug traffickers,” InSight Crime said in an Aug. 1 report. For example, military officials might protect drug traffickers from arrests or ensure their drug shipments are able to get through.
The name Cartel de los Soles is a decades-old “tongue-in-cheek way of referring to the true fact that military officials were involved in drug trafficking,” Smilde said. “Soles” means sun, and Venezuelan military uniforms have suns instead of stars.
Experts said the Venezuelan government tolerates illicit activities, including drug-trafficking, in exchange for officers’ political loyalty, because the government can’t pay them adequate salaries.
But to use that evidence to say “Maduro or any other government official is the head of a drug cartel is false or at minimum stretches these words beyond recognition,” Smilde said.
