In a dramatic escalation of its campaign against drug trafficking, the United States military launched a nighttime strike on a suspected drug-running boat in the Caribbean Sea, killing six men believed to be members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang. The operation, directed by President Donald Trump and announced by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on October 24, 2025, marks the tenth such strike since early September and the first conducted under the cover of darkness, according to multiple reports from the Associated Press, BBC, Fox News, and CBS News.
Hegseth took to social media Friday, sharing a striking video of the attack: a small vessel, motionless in the water, suddenly engulfed in a fiery explosion as a projectile descends from above. "Six male narco-terrorists were aboard the vessel during the strike, which was conducted in international waters — and was the first strike at night," Hegseth wrote. "All six terrorists were killed and no U.S. forces were harmed in this strike." The video, marked unclassified, quickly circulated online, fueling both support and concern about the U.S. military’s expanding role in the region.
This latest action brings the total death toll from U.S. maritime strikes to at least 43 since September, a figure confirmed by both the Associated Press and BBC. The pace of operations has accelerated sharply, with three strikes occurring in just one week—two in the eastern Pacific Ocean and one in the Caribbean—widening the operational theater beyond South America’s northern waters. The Trump administration has identified at least four of the targeted boats as originating from Venezuela and directly linked to Tren de Aragua, a violent gang born inside a Venezuelan prison and now designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S.
President Trump has made no secret of his administration’s intent. In a roundtable with homeland security officials at the White House, he declared, "I think we're just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK? We're going to kill them, you know? They're going to be like, dead." Earlier this month, Trump formally declared drug cartels to be unlawful combatants and said the U.S. was in an "armed conflict" with them, invoking the same legal authority used after the September 11 attacks. He further warned that land-based operations could be next: "The drugs coming in by sea are like 5% of what they were a year ago, less than 5%. So now they're coming in by land... and even the land is a concern, because I told them, that's going to be next. You know, the land is going to be next. And we may go to the Senate, we may go to the Congress and tell them about it. But I can't imagine they'd have any problem with it."
Hegseth’s rhetoric has echoed this hard line, drawing direct comparisons to the post-9/11 war on terror. "If you are a narco-terrorist smuggling drugs in our hemisphere, we will treat you like we treat Al-Qaeda. Day or NIGHT, we will map your networks, track your people, hunt you down, and kill you," he posted alongside the strike video. Secretary of State Marco Rubio added, "If people want to stop seeing drug boats blow up, stop sending drugs to the United States."
Yet, the dramatic increase in strikes and the aggressive language from Washington have sparked a heated debate in Congress and across the Americas. Lawmakers from both parties have questioned the legality and oversight of the operations. On September 10, a group of 25 Democratic senators wrote to the White House, alleging the administration had struck a vessel "without evidence that the individuals on the vessel and the vessel's cargo posed a threat to the United States." Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, has argued that such military actions require congressional approval, warning of the dangers of bypassing due process and citing Coast Guard data showing that many boats boarded on suspicion of drug trafficking are ultimately found innocent.
Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat from Arizona, told CBS News that the administration struggled to explain the legal rationale and constitutionality of the strikes during a briefing to Congress. He also pointed out that the Caribbean trafficking routes are predominantly used to move cocaine to Europe, not the United States, raising further questions about the direct threat posed to U.S. interests.
Internationally, the strikes have raised tensions with South American leaders. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a frequent target of Trump’s ire, accused the U.S. of using the anti-drug campaign as a pretext for regime change. On October 23, Maduro praised Venezuelan security forces and civilian militias for conducting defense exercises along 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) of coastline, asserting that "100% of all the country’s coastline was covered in real time, with all the equipment and heavy weapons to defend all of Venezuela’s coasts if necessary." Meanwhile, Colombian President Gustavo Petro urged the U.S. to shift its focus from low-level traffickers to cartel leaders, telling CBS News, "Killing the workers of the business is easy, but if you want efficiency, you have to capture the bosses of the business." Petro has also called for a criminal investigation into Trump and U.S. officials, alleging that an innocent Colombian fisherman was killed in one of the operations.
Elizabeth Dickinson, senior analyst for the Andes region at the International Crisis Group, told the Associated Press that many in the region view the strikes as more about asserting U.S. power than genuinely combating drugs. "An expression that I’m hearing a lot is ‘Drugs are the excuse.’ And everyone knows that. And I think that message is very clear in regional capitals. So the messaging here is that the U.S. is intent on pursuing specific objectives. And it will use military force against leaders and countries that don’t fall in line."
Still, some U.S. lawmakers and officials defend the administration’s approach. Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, a longtime foreign affairs voice, said, "It’s about time." He argued that while Trump "obviously hates war," he is not afraid to use targeted military force when necessary. Senators Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton have also publicly backed the strikes, calling them a justified show of force against narco-terrorists.
As the U.S. military presence grows in the Caribbean and beyond—with supersonic bombers flying near Venezuela and a visible increase in naval assets—the world is watching to see whether this marks a new chapter in America’s decades-long war on drugs or the start of something even more consequential. With the Trump administration drawing on post-9/11 legal precedents and facing mounting scrutiny at home and abroad, the future of these controversial operations—and their impact on U.S.-Latin American relations—remains uncertain.
One thing is clear: the stakes, and the rhetoric, have never been higher in the fight over the Caribbean’s troubled waters.
