US forces carried out the strike on a speedboat the previous day, with Trump saying it killed 11 "narcoterrorists" from a gang he alleged was controlled by leftist Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

"You want to try to traffic drugs? It's a new day. It's a different day. And so those 11 drug traffickers are no longer with us, sending a very clear signal that this is an activity the United States is not going to tolerate in our hemisphere," Hegseth said on Fox News.

The Pentagon chief said he watched the strike live, but declined to give details on how it was conducted.

"We knew exactly who was in that boat. We knew exactly what they were doing, and we knew exactly who they represented, and that was Tren de Aragua," Hegseth said, referring to a gang that Washington designated as a terrorist organization earlier this year.

The United States has eight Navy ships in Latin America -- seven in the Caribbean and one in the Pacific -- that it says are involved in counter-narcotics efforts, but Maduro has cast their presence as a threat to his country.

Asked if regime change was the US goal in Venezuela, Hegseth said: "That's a presidential-level decision, and we're prepared with every asset that the American military has."