CIA Launches Drone Strike on Venezuela Soil in Trump’s Undeclared Battle on Maduro’s ‘Narcoterrorists’
The CIA has quietly taken President Donald Trump’s undeclared war on Venezuela to a new level, launching a drone strike on a port facility inside the country in what appears to be the first acknowledged U.S. attack on Venezuelan soil.
The U.S. hit a remote dock earlier this month that officials allege the Tren de Aragua gang used to stage drug shipments. No casualties occurred, according to unnamed officials speaking to CNN.
CNN reports that the strike destroyed a dock on Venezuela’s coast that U.S. officials claimed was used to store drugs and load boats headed out of the country. No personnel were present when the drone hit, the sources said. Two of those sources told CNN that U.S. Special Operations Forces provided intelligence support, but a spokesman for U.S. Special Operations Command, Col. Allie Weiskopf, flatly denied that, saying, “Special Operations did not support this operation to include intel support.”
Trump appeared to acknowledge the attack in a December 26 interview, bragging that the U.S. had knocked out a “big facility where ships come from” as part of his Venezuela campaign. Pressed again on Monday, he said the United States struck “in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” but refused to say whether the CIA or the uniformed military carried it out. “So we hit all the boats, and now we hit the area,” Trump told reporters. “It’s the implementation area, that’s where they implement, and that is no longer around.”
BREAKING: President Trump called in on the Cats & Cosby Show on December 26, where he suggested that the U.S. had already conducted a land strike in Venezuela on December 24.
“But every time I knock out a boat, we save 25,000 American lives. It’s very simple. And what’s… pic.twitter.com/BZntqm6Oy8
— TabZ (@TabZLIVE) December 28, 2025
CIA strike follows boat attacks and oil blockade
The CIA declined to comment on the operation, which CNN says could sharply escalate tensions with Venezuelan ruler Nicolás Maduro, already facing an aggressive U.S. pressure campaign. Washington previously destroyed more than 30 boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. Officials branded it a counter-narcotics effort, targeting vessels tied to Venezuelan traffickers. Trump also ordered a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers going to and from Venezuela, further tightening the economic screws.
Until this month’s strike, the U.S. limited hits to suspected trafficking boats in international waters—even as Trump repeatedly threatened strikes inside Venezuela itself. CNN reports Trump expanded CIA authorities earlier this year to conduct operations in Latin America, including inside Venezuela, while Pentagon rules constrained the military to sea targets only.
“Narcoterrorists” and a new drone war model
The administration has offered shifting rationales for its Venezuela campaign, from fighting drugs to forcing regime change. Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles told Vanity Fair that the boat strikes were meant to make Maduro “cry uncle,” not just interdict cocaine. Maduro has shown no sign of stepping down.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has openly framed the effort in war‑on‑terror terms and signaled it will continue. At the Reagan National Defense Forum, he declared that “these narcoterrorists are the al Qaeda of our hemisphere,” adding, “we are hunting them with the same sophistication and precision that we hunted al Qaeda.” Officials have likewise told lawmakers they plan to keep using the drone‑centric playbook honed in the Middle East—where the CIA also played a central role—now repurposed for Latin America under Trump’s expanded covert action authority.
“So our message to these foreign terrorist organizations is we will treat you like we have treated Al-Qaeda. We will find you, we will map your networks, we will hunt you down and we will kill you.”
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth issues stern warning to cartels smuggling drugs… pic.twitter.com/K7ZVhk5WHr
— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 23, 2025
One of CNN’s sources called the Venezuela dock strike a success because it demolished the facility and its boats, but also conceded it was “largely symbolic,” noting that traffickers use many other ports and that the blast drew little real‑time attention even inside Venezuela. That symbolism may be the point: a test of how far Trump can push clandestine warfare in the hemisphere under the banner of fighting “narcoterrorists,” with the CIA once again at the tip of the spear.