The U.S. military conducted its first-ever strike on a drug cartel vessel in the Pacific Ocean on Monday, according to a bulletin posted by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on X:
Yesterday, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel being operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization and conducting narco-trafficking in the Eastern Pacific. The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking transit route, and carrying narcotics.
There were two narco-terrorists aboard the vessel during the strike, which was conducted in international waters. Both terrorists were killed and no U.S. forces were harmed in this strike. Narco-terrorists intending to bring poison to our shores, will find no safe harbor anywhere in our hemisphere. Just as Al Qaeda waged war on our homeland, these cartels are waging war on our border and our people. There will be no refuge or forgiveness—only justice.
Little is known about this latest strike — the eighth kinetic operation against drug traffickers since the administration shifted from a law enforcement model to a military enforcement strategy in early September. According to available reports, the attack took place in the Pacific Ocean, east of a line stretching from Ecuador’s northern border to Panama’s northern border.
The move marks an expected expansion of the campaign that had previously focused on Caribbean routes. Pacific traffickers are now facing the same level of pressure, a development likely to unsettle regional players.
Among them is Colombia’s leftist president and former guerrilla fighter, Gustavo Petro, who has increasingly acted as a political shield for cartel operations — a convenient posture given that cocaine production has surged by more than 50 percent since he took office in 2022.
Tensions spiked over the weekend after Petro appeared to flirt with calls for the assassination or overthrow of President Trump, following the administration’s decision to halt aid to Colombia. The rhetoric underscores just how volatile the region has become as the U.S. intensifies its crackdown on transnational narcotics networks.
Petro also led the outcry over claims that a “harmless Colombian fisherman” was aboard a drug-running vessel destroyed in mid-September — an incident that, curiously, went unnoticed for nearly a month before suddenly surfacing in the media.
I deeply believe that these strikes are part of a broader, coordinated effort — one designed to force the cocaine supply chain in Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, which together account for 100 percent of global production, to either move overland into the United States or rely on existing commercial ports.
That shift would drastically increase interception rates and expose trafficking operations that have long relied on remote maritime routes. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’ve already begun targeting drug-running aircraft as part of the same campaign, or will soon.
It’s also impossible to separate these strikes from the geopolitical picture. This strategy likely includes an effort to destabilize the Petro and Maduro regimes — both of which have turned a blind eye to cartel activity while cozying up to Beijing and Moscow.
