President outlines next phase of anti-cartel campaign while Defense Secretary tells hemispheric military chiefs U.S. strategy has shifted to an offensive posture.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
President Donald Trump said the United States will soon escalate its campaign against drug trafficking organizations by launching “very hard” land-based strikes following a series of U.S. military operations targeting suspected smuggling vessels at sea.
In an interview released Tuesday with Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, Trump said recent maritime operations have significantly disrupted narcotics flows.
“By knocking out those boats, we have dropped drugs, fentanyl, about 33 percent,” he said, referencing more than two dozen U.S. military strikes against drug-trafficking boats operating in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.
The president indicated that targeting maritime routes was a deliberate first step.
“If you hit them on land, they go to the boats,” Trump said. “Now we’re gonna hit them on land. We’re gonna hit them very hard on land.”
The remarks follow confirmation from U.S. Southern Command that another suspected drug-smuggling vessel was struck Feb. 9, leaving two individuals dead and one survivor. In a public statement, the command said Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a “lethal kinetic strike” on a vessel operated by designated terrorist organizations.
“Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations. Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” the post said. “Two narco-terrorists were killed and one survived the strike.”
Video released by the command showed a boat underway before explosions appeared near the vessel.
Southern Command said earlier in the week that another boat transiting known trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific had also been struck, resulting in two suspected narco-terrorists killed.
Administration officials have argued the operations are necessary to reduce the flow of narcotics, including fentanyl, into the United States.
Separately, U.S. forces have seized several oil tankers suspected of transporting sanctioned Venezuelan crude in recent weeks. On Monday, officials confirmed the military pursued a vessel from the Caribbean and boarded it in the Indian Ocean.
In early January, a U.S. operation in Venezuela resulted in the capture of Nicolás Maduro, who faces charges including drug trafficking. He later appeared in a New York court and pleaded not guilty.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who met with Trump earlier this month, has criticized the U.S. strikes. Some Democratic lawmakers also raised objections in December after video surfaced of a September strike that killed 11 suspected drug smugglers.
Trump did not provide a timeline for potential land strikes but reiterated in January that operations could extend into Mexico to target cartels, which he said are responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in the United States annually.
The administration has designated several major Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, along with gangs including MS-13 and Tren de Aragua.
“The cartels are running Mexico,“ Trump said in a Fox News interview days after Maduro’s capture. ”It’s very sad to watch and see what’s happened to that country.”
At the Pentagon on Wednesday, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the U.S. military has shifted to an offensive posture in confronting drug-trafficking networks.
“Under President Trump, for the first time in history, the Department of War is on offense against narco-terrorists in our hemisphere,” Hegseth said, according to excerpts shared publicly by Joseph M. Humire, the U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary of War for Homeland Defense and the Americas, in a post on X.
Hegseth delivered the remarks at the opening of the inaugural Western Hemisphere Chiefs of Defense Conference, hosted by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine and the Joint Staff. The gathering brought together senior military leaders from 34 nations.
Hegseth credited Trump’s leadership and what he described as an “unwillingness to accept the status quo” with refocusing U.S. defense policy on regional threats.
“We must work together to prevent any adversary or criminal actor from exploiting your territory or using your infrastructure to threaten what [former President] Teddy Roosevelt once called ‘permanent peace in this hemisphere,’” Hegseth said.
According to The New York Times, more than 30 nations were represented at the conference, including European allies with territories in the region.
Gen. Francis L. Donovan of U.S. Southern Command is seeking expanded cooperation to dismantle trafficking networks across Latin America and the Caribbean. Gen. Gregory M. Guillot of U.S. Northern Command has emphasized the use of advanced surveillance technology to strengthen border security and disrupt smuggling routes.
The meeting centered on Trump’s updated national security and defense strategies, which prioritize border enforcement, counter-narcotics operations and transnational criminal organizations in the Western Hemisphere.
Administration officials say the shift reflects a broader doctrine that places the Americas at the center of U.S. security policy.
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