Trump administration announces 16th deadly strike on an alleged drug
boat
[November 05, 2025]
By KONSTANTIN TOROPIN
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced yet another
deadly strike on a boat accused of ferrying drugs in the eastern Pacific
Ocean, coming the same day an aircraft carrier began heading to the
region in a new expansion of military firepower.
The attack Tuesday killed two people aboard the vessel, Hegseth said,
bringing the death toll from the Trump administration's campaign in
South American waters up to at least 66 people in at least 16 strikes.
President Donald Trump has justified the strikes by saying the United
States is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels and claiming the boats
are operated by foreign terror organizations. The administration has not
provided evidence or more details.
“We will find and terminate EVERY vessel with the intention of
trafficking drugs to America to poison our citizens,” Hegseth posted
while on a trip to Asia.
Lawmakers from both parties have pressed the Trump administration for
more information on who is being targeted and the legal justification
for the strikes given that Congress has not authorized military action.
United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk last week called for the
U.S. to halt the attacks and “prevent the extrajudicial killing of
people aboard these boats.”
The latest strike comes as the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier has
left the Mediterranean Sea on its way to the Caribbean after Hegseth
ordered it to the region more than a week ago. It will join an already
robust buildup of American planes, ships and thousands of troops in
Latin America.
A defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ship
movements, confirmed that the Ford and the destroyer USS Bainbridge
crossed through the Straits of Gibraltar and into the Atlantic on
Tuesday.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a joint press
conference with South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back,
following the 57th Security Consultative Meeting at the Defense
Ministry in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee
Jin-man, Pool)
The Ford originally deployed with five destroyers, but it’s not
clear if all of them will go to the Caribbean. Two of the other
destroyers in the Ford’s strike group, the USS Winston Churchill and
the USS Mahan, are in the Mediterranean now, with the Mahan in port
at Rota, Spain.
The other two destroyers, the USS Forrest Sherman and the USS
Mitchener, are in the Red Sea, the official said.
With the strikes and military assets in the region expanding,
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who has been charged with
narcoterrorism in the United States, has said the U.S. government is
“fabricating” a war against him.
During a interview that aired Sunday on CBS' “60 Minutes,” Trump was
asked if the U.S. was going to war with Venezuela. He responded: “I
doubt it. I don’t think so. But they’ve been treating us very badly,
not only on drugs.”
Norah O’Donnell, in the interview conducted Friday, also asked Trump
if Maduro’s days were numbered.
“I would say yeah. I think so, yeah,” the president said. Trump
would not say whether or not he would order land strikes in
Venezuela.
In the latest strike, a video Hegseth posted to social media has a
gray box obscuring a boat that appears in the water before it's
blown up. The footage then cuts to the vessel engulfed by flames.
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