Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth threatened to go to war with Venezuela and promised the Pentagon would continue to conduct military operations against alleged Latin American cartels. 

In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Hegseth said, “The only person that should be worried is [Venezuelan President] Nicolás Maduro … who is effectively a kingpin of a narco-state.” The Trump administration claims Maduro is the leader of multiple cartels designed as terrorist organizations. 

President Donald Trump has authorized the military to target suspected members of cartels. The US has deployed multiple warships and thousands of Marines to the Caribbean Sea. Those forces attacked a boat after it departed Venezuela on Tuesday. Trump claims the strike killed 11 members of a cartel. 

Hegseth said the Pentagon will conduct more strikes. “We’ve got assets in the air, assets in the water, assets on ships, because this is a deadly serious mission for us, and it won’t, it won’t stop with just this strike,” he explained. “Anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narco-terrorist will face the same fate.”

The Financial Times reported that the Trump administration is considering strikes inside Venezuela. “One possibility highlighted by experts is that Trump may decide to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles from Navy destroyers or the submarine at targets inside Venezuela,” the outlet explained. “These could include cocaine-producing laboratories or bases for Colombian Marxist guerrillas involved in the drug trade and operating from Venezuela.”

Last week, Axios reported that a US official said the goal in Venezuela could be removing Maduro from power. “This could be Noriega part 2,” they said, referring to the 1989 US invasion of Panama that removed Manuel Antonio Noriega from power.