The U.S. military struck four vessels suspected of carrying drugs in the eastern Pacific, officials said Tuesday, a significant escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign against traffickers in the Western Hemisphere.
U.S. military strikes four alleged drug boats in eastern Pacific, killing 14
The latest operation in the eastern Pacific brings the total to nearly 60 killed in more than a dozen strikes since early September.
October 28, 2025 The Washington Post
Hegseth posted an announcement with video of three strikes showing the vessels exploding or bursting into flames. In one of the strikes, two boats were pulled alongside each other and seemingly stationary when they were hit.
Mexican officials from the Secretary of External Relations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
U.S. military forces have surged into the Caribbean Sea to support the military campaign, including a fleet of eight warships and an aircraft carrier and associated warships on their way from Europe. About 6,000 sailors and Marines are aboard the warships already in the Caribbean, with another 4,500 Navy personnel on the aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, and its escort ships.
The mission is further bolstered by advanced F-35 fighter jets deployed to Puerto Rico and overseen by a new joint task force activated in October under the command of a senior Marine Corps officer, Lt. Gen. Calvert Worth Jr.
President Donald Trump has accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of overseeing narcotics trafficking operations into the U.S., prompting speculation that the buildup is aimed at unseating Maduro through coercion or force.
Trump, speaking last week, said that “the land is next,” indicating military action may move ashore in coming days. Trump and Hegseth maintain that the Latin American drug trade is responsible for “poisoning” tens of thousands of U.S. citizens, thus granting them the prerogative to use deadly force.
Maduro, speaking on Venezuelan television, last week accused the Trump administration of “inventing a new eternal war” despite having “promised they would never again get involved in a war.”
Trump authorized the CIA to conduct covert missions inside Venezuela, a minor player in drug trafficking, officials and experts said. Colombia and Ecuador are by far the biggest producers and exporters of cocaine for the United States. Trump has said that some of the vessels were transporting fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, which is more commonly produced by cartels in Mexico.
The boat strikes began in August in the Caribbean, and initially appeared to focus on a route between Venezuela and the nearby island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, a transit hub for marijuana and cocaine heading to West Africa and Europe, rather than the United States, officials familiar with the matter have said.
The first U.S. strikes on boats in the eastern Pacific occurred last week, off the coast of South America, along what Hegseth referred to as a “known narco-trafficking route.” Without providing evidence, he called those aboard “terrorists” and said they were “known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling.”
The Trump administration has not made public any evidence verifying its claims that the targets of the attacks were confirmed drug smugglers or that the boats involved were in fact carrying illicit drugs. The precise locations of the recent boat strikes are also unclear.
Samantha Schmidt in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report.