Wreckage from Trump’s Venezuela boat strike reveals it was smuggling drugs the president calls ‘tremendously positive’
Burning debris from a US attack on a drug ship in the Caribbean has washed ashore, revealing that the ship’s contents may not have been as deadly as President Donald Trump’s team claimed.
The New York Times reported What appears to be the first physical evidence from operations against alleged narcoterrorism appears to contain numerous empty packages bearing traces of substances that have the appearance and smell of marijuana.
The report found no evidence or traces of fentanyl, cocaine or other more lethal narcotics that Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth claimed the Caribbean attacks targeted.
Marijuana is legal in 40 of the 50 US states, and it is not the drug Trump said he was targeting in his Central and South American military campaign.
Additionally, earlier this month the president signed an executive order to reclassify marijuana from the most restrictive drug category. Moving from Schedule I to Schedule III loosens research limits but stops short of legalization at the federal level.
At the Oval Office signing ceremony on December 18, Trump said it was ‘legitimate’ to use the drug to treat medical problems.
“This will have a very positive impact,” Trump said of his order to reclassify marijuana.
The White House and Pentagon did not immediately respond to the Daily Mail’s request for comment on whether they could confirm whether debris found on land in Colombia was from US strikes.
The first known wreckage from a drug boat attack that washed up off the coast of Colombia last month appears to prove the ship was carrying marijuana, according to the New York Times
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on December 18, 2025, reclassifying marijuana from the most severe Schedule I illicit substance to the less serious Schedule III
Last week, Trump announced in a radio interview that the United States had begun ground offensives in Venezuela, signaling an escalation of the campaign that began last fall.
The president later confirmed on Monday that the US had struck ‘the dock area where they were loading the boats with drugs’ along the Venezuelan coast on Christmas Eve.
Attacks on boats that the Trump administration said were smuggling drugs — although it offered no evidence of that — began Sept. 2. Since then, the operation has destroyed 30 ships and killed more than 105 people in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.
According to the Times, on Nov. 6, Erika Palacio Fernández recorded the sound of a booming explosion off the coast as she saw smoke rising from the horizon in what appears to be the only independently verified video of the aftermath of the Trump administration’s airstrikes.
Two days later, charred debris and two bodies arrived on Colombia’s Guajira Peninsula; Including packages containing marijuana residue, the Times reported.
Critics of Trump’s hawkish attacks on ships have alleged that the administration has engaged in war crimes and questioned the legality of attacks off the coast of Venezuela and in international waters.
These voices grew louder after it was revealed that the September 2 attack involved two separate attacks, the second of which killed two survivors hanging from the wreckage of the destroyed ships.
Now, the revelation that the only wreckage of the drug boats washed ashore contained evidence of weed has further fueled the criticism.
Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth have not provided Americans with conclusive evidence that ships shot down by U.S. forces in the Caribbean and Eastern Atlantic contained illegal drugs such as fentanyl or cocaine.
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Without clear evidence, should military force be used against people suspected of drug trafficking?
‘The first physical evidence of boat attacks in the Caribbean washed ashore and it contained marijuana. It’s not cocaine. It’s not fentanyl. But it is a substance that is legal in 40 of the 50 US states,” wrote X user and veteran John Jackson.
Another user, TV and film director and producer Morgan J. Freeman, described the strikes as ‘WAR CRIME!!!’ he declared. New information regarding the contents of the ship.
‘This is just cold-blooded murder,’ said one X user.
Someone brought up the new drug classification for marijuana.
‘Didn’t he *just* lower the crime level of marijuana?’ they questioned. ‘So citizens face less scrutiny for possession, but will a boat in the Caribbean owning it cause them to get a double-take?’
‘Make this make sense, man.’
