Wisconsin Senator Backs Trump Admin’s Drug Boat Offensive

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin says he fully backs the military’s crackdown on Caribbean drug smuggling and that it’s the only way to deal a blow to the overseas drug trade.

Since early September, the administration has been carrying out deadly strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea it says are smuggling drugs into the United States.

Johnson told The Daily Signal’s Tony Kinnett that any drug smuggling crackdown has to hurt those involved in order to make a difference.

“One thing I learned when I was chairman of [the Homeland Security Committee], I went down to Southern Command, and you saw our interdiction efforts. At most, we interdict about 10% of the drugs coming into this country from places like Venezuela,” Johnson told The Daily Signal. “I come from manufacturing, and in manufacturing, 10% would be considered a scrap rate. It’s a cost of doing business.”

Some in the Senate, such as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., have raised concerns over the intelligence behind the devastating attacks on the vessels, saying that there is a risk that innocents could be killed.

Johnson, however, said that a meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reassured him that all of the attacks have been against verified drug smugglers.

“We had Secretary of State Marco Rubio come into the Senate luncheon. He told us we have exquisite intelligence on these things,” Johnson said. “We know exactly these are drug boats.”

He added, “One of the reasons you know that [is], if we were knocking out some luxury liners or something or innocent people being killed, you’d have that plastered all over the news. Nobody’s coming forward and being outraged by these people are being blown out of the water. By the way, boat smuggling has dramatically decreased.”

Johnson additionally sees the Caribbean campaign as a blow to the regime of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, whom he would like to see removed from power.

“This is by and large an act of war against the United States by a narcoterrorist state. You can’t deal with, you know, an illegitimate regime,” Johnson told The Daily Signal. “Hopefully, you can put pressure on them and have the Venezuelan people topple it.”

Tony Kinnett contributed to this report.

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