The Pentagon said the U.S. military attacked another ship believed to be carrying drugs, this time in Pacific waters.
Two people aboard the vessel were killed and no U.S. troops were harmed, according to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Hegseth added that the vessel was known to U.S. intelligence and is believed to be transporting drugs along known trafficking routes in international waters.
The strike is the eighth U.S. strike on a suspected drug vessel since September 2, but the first in the Pacific region.
President Donald Trump has said he has legal authority to continue bombing ships on the high seas, but could go to the U.S. Congress if he decides to expand targeting on land.
“We can do that, and if we do it by land, we can get back to Congress,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
He said his administration was “completely prepared” to expand counter-drug operations on land, which would mean a serious expansion.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio added from Trump’s Oval Office: “If people don’t want to see their drug boats blow up, stop sending drugs to the United States.”
Video of the strike appears to show a long, blue speedboat moving through the water in accordance with U.S. regulations.
Hegseth wrote in
“There will be no refuge or forgiveness. There will be only justice,” he added.
The Trump administration said in a recently leaked memo to U.S. lawmakers that it determined it was involved in a drug trafficking organization and a “non-international armed conflict.”
At least 34 people have been killed in U.S. attacks on alleged drug ships, including a recent attack on a semi-submersible vessel in the Caribbean.
Two men survived last week’s strike and were extradited to Colombia and Ecuador.
The Ecuadorian government later released one person. – identified as Andrés Fernando Tufiño – said there was no evidence of a crime. Another man from Colombia is reportedly still hospitalized.
U.S. President Donald Trump and administration officials have repeatedly justified the airstrikes as a necessary drug control measure to combat drug trafficking organizations designated as terrorist organizations by the United States.
CBS reported, citing a Pentagon official, that the attack occurred in international waters near Colombia.
Speaking from the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump defended the operation as a “national security matter.”
News of the strike comes amid heightened tensions between the Trump administration and the Colombian government led by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, whom he has described as a “thug and a bad guy.”
“He better watch or we will take very serious action against him and his country,” Trump said. “He led his country into a death trap.”
On Sunday, President Trump denounced Petro as an “illegal drug leader” who “strongly promotes the mass production of drugs in large and small sectors throughout Colombia.”
Trump added that the United States would no longer provide subsidies to Colombia, historically one of its closest allies in Latin America.
Colombia and neighboring Ecuador have a vital Pacific coastline that experts use to ship drugs north through Central America and Mexico toward the United States.
Estimates from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) show that most of the cocaine destined for U.S. cities transits the Pacific Ocean.
Drug seizures in the Caribbean, where most of the confirmed U.S. attacks so far have occurred, account for a relatively small percentage of the total, although U.S. officials have warned they are increasing.
So far, U.S. officials have provided few details about the identities of those killed in the strike or what drug trafficking organizations they were affiliated with.
As part of this operation, approximately 10,000 U.S. troops and dozens of military aircraft and ships were deployed to the Caribbean.
