Nine months into the Trump administration’s deadly campaign against so-called drug boats, there is a pattern to the strikes. And a glaring anomaly.
The U.S. military has conducted more than 60 attacks, resulting in over 200 extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. In almost all the strikes, between one and four people lost their lives. In only one strike did the death toll of a single boat reach double digits: the first attack on September 2, 2025.
Since then, experts, lawmakers, and even military officials behind the scenes have been asking a simple but haunting question: Why was that boat packed with 11 people?
Not everyone trafficked in this way is a slave, they smuggle people sometimes who wouldn’t otherwise be able to leave their country. I’d rather not get blown up. And it is pretty simple, they are killing any boaters they want for the purpose of terrorism, they could simply not do that.