President Donald Trump signaled Thursday that his administration’s controversial crackdown on the drug trade, so far limited to boat strikes in international waters, will soon turn to attacks on cartel-linked targets by land.
“Our sea drugs, as they call them, they use the term sea drugs, 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,” Trump said during a roundtable with law enforcement officials at the White House.
“And even the land is concerned, because I told them that’s going to be next, you know, the land is going to be next,” Trump continued. “And we may go to the Senate, we may go to the, you know, Congress, and tell them about — but I can’t imagine they’d have any problem with it.”
The president directed War Secretary Pete Hegseth to inform Congress about the possible land strikes, which would escalate tensions with nations in the Caribbean, in particular Venezuela.
“While we’re here, I think it’s a good idea. Pete, you go to Congress, you tell them about it,” said Trump. “What are they going to do? Say, gee, we don’t want to stop drugs pouring in? They’re killing 300,000 people a year.”
Trump himself has done little to ease the growing tension among regional leaders. The president maintains that Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro and Colombian President Gustavo Petro are directly linked to the drug trade, and, on Wednesday, he described the influx of drugs as a “national security problem” while defending his legal authority to launch land strikes, presumably in South America.
Trump’s escalating attacks against cartels and other groups deemed foreign terrorist organizations are prompting concern on Capitol Hill, especially after a Pentagon strike that killed two people aboard an alleged drug boat in the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday expanded the campaign beyond the Caribbean Sea. A second strike on Wednesday killed three people in the eastern Pacific Ocean. In total, Trump’s strikes are believed to have killed more than 37 people.
Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, is pressuring House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to bring lawmakers back to Washington amid the government shutdown to hold a hearing on Trump’s strikes.
“They have failed to demonstrate the legality of these strikes, provide transparency on the process used, or even a list of cartels that have been designated as terrorist organizations,” he said in a statement this week. “We have also yet to see any evidence to support the President’s unilateral determinations that these vessels or their activities posed imminent threats to the United States of America that warranted military force rather than law enforcement-led interdiction.”
And while Republicans have largely approved of the president’s campaign, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a libertarian, claims the strikes “go against all of our tradition.”
“When you kill someone, you should know, if you’re not at war, not in a declared war, you really need to know someone’s name at least,” Paul said during a Sunday interview on Meet the Press, citing the administration’s failure to provide evidence supporting their claims that boats were carrying cartel members or narcotics. “You have to accuse them of something. You have to present evidence. So all of these people have been blown up without us knowing their names, without any evidence of a crime.”
At the roundtable, Hegseth defended the strikes as a necessity to protect the nation and diminish the drug cartels’ operations.
“They intimidate, they terrorize, they extort, they poison the American people. The president’s right — every boat we strike is 25,000 Americans whose lives are saved because of the drugs that were headed in our direction,” Hegseth said Thursday. “So our message to these foreign terrorist organizations is we will treat you like we have treated al Qaeda. We will find you. We will map your networks. We will hunt you down, and we will kill you.”
The Trump administration had previously informed Congress that the U.S. is directly engaged in “armed conflict” with drug cartels and has increased its military presence in the Caribbean in recent weeks. The U.S. deployed a squadron of Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II jets to Puerto Rico in September and an Air Force AC-130J Ghostrider in October, while Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drones have been spotted in the area for months.
Furthermore, roughly 10,000 Marines and sailors are operating in the region, along with eight warships, three amphibious assault ships, and a slew of Marine helicopters.
Reports that the administration sent B-1 bombers near Venezuela have further enflamed tensions, though Trump denied that reporting at the roundtable.
The president also claimed the administration would eventually go before Congress. “I don’t see any loss in going. There is no reason not to,” he told reporters. But Trump appeared hesitant to ask Congress for a declaration of war.
“Well, I don’t think we’re going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war. I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country,” he said. “We’re going to kill them. You know, they’re going to be like dead.”
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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, FBI Director Kash Patel, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles all attended Thursday’s event at the White House, touting the accomplishments of new Homeland Security Task Forces.
Fox News reported Thursday morning that they have already yielded more than 3,000 arrests of “foreign terrorists and cartel members, seized at least seven tons of narcotics, including 2 million fentanyl pills, and taken more than 1,000 illegal firearms off the streets.”
“The President’s Homeland Security Task Forces are a landmark achievement that highlights what the federal government can achieve with a leader like President Trump, who is willing to slash red tape, increase coordination, and put the safety of the American people first,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement. “The American people are safer today because of the HSTFs — and they’re just getting started.”