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From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

President Trump orders an airstrike on a speedboat in the Caribbean that he says was carrying narcotics traffickers heading toward the United States.

As the White House flexes its military might toward Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro.

Meantime, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong-un have a friendly meeting at a military

parade in Beijing, which Trump seems to think was a visual intended for U.S. consumption.

Welcome. I'm Kyle Peterson with the Wall Street Journal. We're joined today by my colleagues on the editorial page, columnist Mary Anastasia O'Grady, and editorial board member Kate Batchelder O'Dell.

President Trump posted a video online Tuesday showing a small vessel exploding, and this is part of what he said on truth social. The strike occurred

while the terrorists were at sea in international waters, transporting illegal narcotics

heading to the United States. No U.S. forces were harmed in this strike. Please let this serve as a

notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America.

And here is Donald Trump explaining a little bit more about his thinking in the Oval Office on Wednesday.

What was found in that boat and why were the men killed instead of taking it?

On the boat, you had massive amounts of drugs. We have tapes of them speaking. It was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people. And everybody fully understands that. In fact, you see it. You see the bags of drugs all over the boat. And they were hit, obviously. They won't be doing it again. And I think a lot of other people won't be doing it again when they watch that tape. They're going to say, let's not do this. We have to protect our

country and we're going to. Venezuela has been a very bad actor. They've been, as you know,

they've been sending millions of people into our country, many of them, Trin de Aragua,

some of the worst gangs, some of the worst people anywhere in the world in terms of gangs.

And we had some in Washington, D.C.

We took care of them very quickly, but they're out of here.

They've gone.

...