US defense chief warns drug traffickers of lethal strikes at sea
"Right now, the world is seeing the strength of American resolve and stemming the flow of lethal drugs to our country. Here again, we've been focused and here we've been clear," Hegseth said during a speech at the 2025 Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California.
He added, "If you're working for a designated terrorist organization and you bring drugs to this country in a boat, we will find you and we will sink you. Let there be no doubt about it,” defending the operations amid increasing bipartisan scrutiny over their legality.
Hegseth emphasized that the US is taking a hemisphere-wide approach to combating cartels.
"The days in which these narco-terrorists, designated terror organizations, operate freely in our hemisphere, are over. These narco-terrorists are the al-Qaeda of our hemisphere, and we are hunting them with the same sophistication and precision that we hunted al-Qaeda. We are tracking them, we are killing them, and we will keep killing them so long as they are poisoning our people with narcotics," he said.
The Pentagon reported that 21 strikes on alleged drug vessels have occurred so far in the Western Hemisphere, resulting in 82 deaths of so-called “narco-terrorists.” Hegseth stressed that the campaign is not conducted in isolation, noting that regional governments increasingly recognize cartels as shared adversaries. "We're not doing this on our own. Throughout our hemisphere, our allies and partners recognize that these narco-terrorists threaten them as well.
So we're working together, sometimes overtly, sometimes not, and we'll keep doing so for ... a more stable hemisphere for all of us. But make no mistake .... In our hemisphere, there is no safe haven for narco-terrorists," he added.
Reports indicated that some allied nations, including the UK, have halted intelligence-sharing on suspected drug vessels in the Caribbean, citing concerns over legality. US Secretary of State dismissed such reports as “fake news.”
Legal experts and members of Congress have questioned the legality of the strikes, highlighting a lack of verified evidence that targeted vessels carried drugs and criticizing the summary execution of those aboard, who were not given a chance to prove their innocence.
During a closed-door congressional session discussing a follow-up strike on a Venezuelan drug boat, some Democrats and Republicans expressed concern that targeting survivors could amount to a war crime. Republican Sen. Jim Justice of West Virginia said a “two-blow” operation made him “uncomfortable” and deemed any strike on survivors “unacceptable,” though most in the administration’s party have supported the operations.
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