On Sept. 2, 2025, Donald Trump made an unexpected announcement that he seemed rather excited about. In a statement published to his social media platform, the president said the U.S. military had carried out a strike on a civilian boat in the southern Caribbean, killing 11 people who the Republican claimed were gang members who were part of an international drug trade.
Trump’s online missive, which included 11 exclamation points, featured a short black-and-white video of what appeared to be a speedboat on fire after a bright flash of light.
The list of questions that soon followed was not short. Was the strike legal? Who were the victims? Were they guilty of anything? Was there any evidence to support the president’s assertions? Could the boat have been stopped through nonlethal means?
One year later, none of those questions has been answered, though the strikes have continued. In fact, according to a New York Times tally, there have now been 68 deadly U.S. military strikes on civilian boats, which have claimed the lives of 227 people.
“I don’t think there’s really even a colorable argument that this isn’t mass murder,” MS NOW’s Chris Hayes argued on the first anniversary of the scandalous policy.
The host is hardly the only critic. Democratic Rep. Adam Smith, the ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, issued a lengthy statement to mark the occasion, noting that the Republican administration has withheld evidence, legal rationales and cost estimates related to the policy, among other things. Smith’s statement added:
Never before in my over 20 years on this committee have I seen such a staggering lack of transparency on behalf of an administration and DoD to meaningfully inform Congress of the use of lethal military force. It is especially troubling given the strong bipartisan agreement that the flow of illegal narcotics into the U.S. poses a serious risk to the health and well-being of Americans that demands government action.
But that action should be taken legally with law enforcement in the lead. And we must also reduce drug demand by countering drug dealing and addiction in our communities through local and state law enforcement and public health initiatives. Much as the previous wars on drugs failed to deliver lasting results, we can’t bomb our way out of the drug crisis now.
Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, issued a statement of his own, calling the administration’s policy flatly “illegal.” The senator added:
I have always advocated for tough, lawful action against cartels and drug trafficking. But drug traffickers are criminals, not terrorists waging war on this country. In the United States, we arrest and prosecute criminals; we don’t summarily execute them on sight. Every American and member of Congress who believes in the rule of law should be outraged and demanding accountability from the Trump administration.
We cannot bomb our way out of a drug crisis. We tried that for decades and it failed. What we need now is law enforcement in the lead, honest accounting from the Pentagon, and a Congress willing to do its job.
Not surprisingly, Republicans acknowledged the anniversary in a very different way. Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin, for example, told Newsmax on Wednesday morning, “There’s a lot of people that are complaining about the missile strikes against these drug boats. Well, guess what? Those are saving Americans’ lives.”
There’s an important argument to be had about this ends-justify-the-means approach to the use of military force, but there’s a related problem the GOP congressman might not have noticed: The evidence suggests the deadly boast strikes have not reduced the amount of cocaine entering the U.S.
For now, the White House doesn’t seem to care about the underlying question of efficacy. A recent New York Times report noted that deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller chairs bimonthly meetings, apparently called “wins” meetings, at which administration officials are expected to report on various successes.
The Pentagon’s death toll from boat strikes is reportedly “regularly highlighted” as “one of the biggest” such accomplishments.
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