Trump's week in review: Defense Dept. rebranded; TPS revoking draws ire of Evangelical group

1. US conducts strike against Venezuelan drug cartel

In a statement posted to Truth Social Tuesday, Trump announced that U.S. military forces "conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterroists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility” earlier that morning.

As Trump explained, “TDA is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of [Venezuelan President] Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere.”

“The strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States,” Trump added. “The strike resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action. No U.S. Forces were harmed in this strike. Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!” 

In a statement Thursday, the U.S. Department of Defense announced that “two Maduro regime military aircraft flew near a U.S. Navy vessel in international waters” in “a highly provocative move” that was “designed to interfere with our counter narco-terror operations.”

The Defense Department urged “the cartel running Venezuela” to refrain from pursuing “any further effort to obstruct, deter or interfere with counter-narcotics and counter-terror operations carried out by the U.S. military.” 

This week’s strike follows Trump’s designation of drug cartels like Tren de Aragua as foreign terrorist organizations in an executive order he signed on the first day of his presidency. 

Identifying cartels as “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” the executive order established it as “policy of the United States to ensure the total elimination of these organizations’ presence in the United States and their ability to threaten the territory, safety, and security of the United States through their extraterritorial command-and-control structures, thereby protecting the American people and the territorial integrity of the United States.”