by WorldTribune Staff, September 21, 2025 Real World News
One day after ordering Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to destroy a Venezuelan drug boat and post the video online, President Donald Trump on Saturday said Venezuela must immediately take back its prisoners from the U.S.
In a post to Truth Social, the president wrote:
“We want Venezuela to immediately accept all of the prisoners, and people from mental institutions, which includes the Worst in the World Insane Asylums, that Venezuelan ‘Leadership’ has forced into the United States of America. Thousands of people have been badly hurt, and even killed, by these ‘Monsters.’ GET THEM THE HELL OUT OF OUR COUNTRY, RIGHT NOW, OR THE PRICE YOU PAY WILL BE INCALCULABLE!”
As part of his administration’s effort to crack down on illegal drug trafficking over the borders and inside the nation, Trump has signed executive orders targeting the flow of fentanyl across the northern and southern borders that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.
In a Sept. 15 Presidential Determination sent to Congress, the State Department identified 24 countries as major drug transit or major illicit drug producing countries for fiscal year 2026: Afghanistan, Bahamas, Belize, Bolivia, Burma, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela.
Trump stated: “Transnational organized crime’s trafficking of fentanyl and other deadly illicit drugs into the United States has created a national emergency, including a public health crisis in the United States that remains the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 44. More than 40 percent of Americans know someone who has died from an opioid overdose, and in 2024 the United States averaged over 200 deaths daily due to illicit drugs. This remains unacceptable, and my Administration is deploying every aspect of American power and unprecedented resources to defeat this threat to our Nation.
“While the United States will devote all necessary resources to punish criminals enabling the production, transportation, and smuggling of illicit drugs across our borders, I will also call on countries where these drugs originate and transit to fulfill their obligations and shut off these supplies – or face serious consequences.”
The president pointed to China as “the world’s largest source of precursor chemicals fueling illicit fentanyl production.”
“For too long,” Trump continued, China “has enabled illicit fentanyl production in Mexico and elsewhere by subsidizing the export of the precursor chemicals needed to produce these deadly drugs and failing to prevent Chinese companies from selling these precursors to known criminal cartels. For this reason, I took bold action to hold Beijing accountable by implementing an additional 20 percent tariff on the PRC for their failure to enact tangible, consequential reforms to stem the flow of precursor chemicals.”
As for Venezuela, Trump said “the criminal regime of indicted drug trafficker Nicolas Maduro leads one of the largest cocaine trafficking networks in the world, and the United States will continue to seek to bring Maduro and other members of his complicit regime to justice for their crimes. We will also target Venezuelan foreign terrorist organizations such as Tren de Aragua and purge them from our country.”
Trump Administration targets Drug ‘transiting’ and ‘producing’ nations, starting with Venezuela added by Editor Two on
View all posts by Editor Two →