President Trump on Tuesday said the amount of drugs coming into the U.S. by sea was down 91% since the military began striking drug boats in international waters.
Mr. Trump quantified the massive reduction in drug boat trafficking at a Cabinet meeting, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth credited the military strikes with saving American lives by stopping the flow of deadly narcotics.
“It’s hard to find boats to strike right now, which is the entire point, right? Deterrence has to matter, not arrest and hand over and then do it again, the rinse-and-repeat approach of previous administrations,” Mr. Hegseth said.
The Trump administration recently came under bipartisan scrutiny after the Navy executed multiple strikes on an alleged Venezuelan drug-running boat in early September. The second strike reportedly killed survivors of the initial attack.
Mr. Hegseth insisted the strikes would continue despite the outrage on Capitol Hill.
“We’ve only just begun striking narco boats and putting narco-terrorists at the bottom of the ocean because they’ve been poisoning the American people,” he said. “And Joe Biden tried to approach it with kid gloves, allowed drugs to come across the border.”
“And President Trump said, ‘No, we’re taking the gloves off.’ We’re taking the fight to these designated terrorist organizations, and it’s exactly what we are doing. So we’re stopping the drugs.”
Some military experts and lawmakers have said the so-called “double-tap” strike could constitute a war crime. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, Kansas Republican, vowed to conduct oversight on the military action.
The White House has maintained that the strikes were legal and conducted “in self-defense.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that Mr. Hegseth had authorized Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley to order a second strike on the boat, which reportedly killed survivors of the initial attack.
The military strikes on drug boats had provoked criticism before the double-tap strike. The U.S. has destroyed 22 vessels and killed at least 83 people.
