Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine landed in the U.S. territory six days after the Pentagon announced the United States had struck a boat of "narcoterrorists" off of Venezuela's coast, killing 11 people. While Trump claimed the vessel was carrying narcotics to the United States, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro denied the accusation.
Puerto Rico's governor, Jennifer Gonzalez-Colon, greeted Hegseth and Caine when they landed Monday and said she was "honored to welcome" them.
"We thank POTUS Trump and his administration for recognizing the strategic value Puerto Rico has to the national security of the United States and the fight against drug cartels in our hemisphere, perpetuated by narco-dictator Nicolas Maduro," Gonzalez-Colon wrote Monday in a post on X.
"We are proud to support America First policies that secure our borders and combat illicit activities to protect Americans and our homeland," she added.
The Department of Defense, renamed last week by President Donald Trump as the Department of War, shared photos of Hegseth talking to troops.
"Secretary Hegseth and Chairman Caine met with our warriors in Puerto Rico and on the USS Iwo Jima," the department wrote in a post on X.
"Our warfighters are the STRONGEST and MOST LETHAL fighting force on Earth."
Hegseth spoke to nearly 300 U.S. troops at Muniz Air Base in Carolina, Puerto Rico, where he called them "American warriors." The Pentagon had not announced his trip in advance.
In the past few weeks, the United States has moved up to eight warships, an attack submarine and thousands of Marines into the Caribbean. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said more strikes against drug cartels are possible.
Since the administration's strike on Sept. 2, Democrats have questioned Trump's war powers authority.
"We have far more questions than we have answers about this strike," said House Intelligence Committee ranking member Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., who co-sponsored a resolution to check Trump's war powers after June's Iran strikes. "Under what legal authority can the president order a lethal strike on a vessel that posed no threat to the United States?"
Gonzalez-Colon said the administration is targeting the source of what has become a security threat.
"President Trump's leadership in the fight against narco-trafficking places Puerto Rico -- our nation's Caribbean border -- at the forefront of our security and interests," Gonzalez-Colon said.
"For the first time, I believe we are confronting the problem at its root, striking directly at the source of the drug flow."
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