The U.S. military struck an alleged drug-carrying boat in the eastern Pacific on Thursday, marking the 38th vessel to be struck over the last five months in Latin American waters, and the second this year.
Two people were killed in Thursday’s operation, U.S. Southern Command said in a post on X. The military alleged the boat was operated by a designated terrorist organization and was traveling on “known narco-trafficking routes.” It didn’t name the boat’s operator, but the Trump administration has listed several Latin American drug cartels as terrorist groups.
Southern Command shared a brief unclassified video of a boat exploding and bursting into flames.
The military has now struck at least 38 vessels across 36 airstrikes since early September, killing at least 128 people in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific.
The pace of the boat strikes has slowed significantly since Jan. 3, when U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whom the Trump administration accuses of working with drug trafficking groups. Just two vessels have been struck since then, including a boat that was hit in the Pacific on Jan. 23, and the one that was struck on Thursday.
President Trump has argued the boat strikes are necessary to quell narcotics trafficking. His administration has told Congress the U.S. is in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels, and the alleged smugglers who crew the boats are “unlawful combatants.”
Critics, including Democratic lawmakers, argue the strikes are legally unjustified and accuse the administration of failing to produce enough evidence that the boats were carrying drugs toward the U.S. Revelations last year that two survivors of the campaign’s first strike on Sept. 2 were killed by a follow-on attack also drew steep criticism.
Congressional Democrats have also broadly criticized the Trump administration’s military buildup near Central and South America, including the boat strikes and Maduro’s capture, noting that Congress hasn’t authorized the use of military force. The administration has asserted that the operations are legal and don’t require approval from lawmakers. Democrats have introduced resolutions that aim to limit military operations in the region, but they have failed to pass.
