US President Donald Trump on Monday said the United States carried out a strike last week on a “dock area” in Venezuela that was allegedly being used by drug traffickers to load narcotics onto boats, raising fresh questions about Washington’s expanding counter-narcotics campaign in the region.

Speaking to reporters in Florida, Trump said the operation resulted in a major explosion and the destruction of infrastructure used to facilitate drug shipments.

“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump said. “So we hit all the boats, and now we hit the area — it’s an implementation area, that’s where they implement, and that is no longer around.”

If confirmed, the strike would represent the first known US land-based military action inside oil-rich Venezuela under the Trump administration. The president did not clarify which US agency conducted the operation, declining to say whether it was carried out by the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or another entity.

Venezuela’s government has not issued an official response to Trump’s remarks.

US media outlets later provided additional details about the reported operation. CNN, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter, reported that the CIA conducted a drone strike earlier this month on a port facility along Venezuela’s coastline. The target was described as a remote dock believed by US officials to be used by the Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua to store drugs and transfer them onto boats for international shipment.

According to the report, no individuals were present at the site when the strike occurred, and there were no casualties. The sources added that US Special Operations Forces provided intelligence support for the mission, though they were not directly involved in the strike itself.

Trump had first disclosed the operation during a radio interview with WABC on Friday, saying his administration had destroyed what he described as a major drug-related facility in Venezuela.

“We just knocked out — I don’t know if you read or you saw — they have a big plant or big facility where the ships come from,” Trump said during the phone interview. “Two nights ago, we knocked that out, so we hit them very hard.”

The reported strike comes amid a broader escalation of US counter-narcotics operations in the Caribbean region. For several months, Washington has significantly increased its military presence in waters near Venezuela as part of what the White House has labeled an anti-narco-terrorism campaign.

Since September, US forces have reportedly sunk around 30 vessels suspected of transporting illegal drugs in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. According to official figures cited by US authorities, these operations have resulted in more than 100 deaths, though details surrounding those incidents remain limited.

Venezuela has consistently accused the United States of using drug trafficking allegations as a pretext to pursue regime change and expand its military footprint in Latin America. Caracas has repeatedly denied US claims that its territory is being used for large-scale narcotics trafficking with state complicity.

On Friday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said his government was open to dialogue with Washington, provided talks are conducted on the basis of mutual respect and without US interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs.

The reported strike underscores rising tensions between the two countries and highlights the increasingly aggressive posture adopted by the United States in its regional counter-narcotics strategy.