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pacific ocean
Trump's ‘Slaughter at Sea Continues’ as US Military Kills 6 More in Eastern Pacific
"No telling what a military that engages in a monthslong killing spree outside the law might do," said one policy expert.
Mar 09, 2026
With the Trump administration's unprovoked war on Iran spiraling out of control, sending oil prices skyrocketing and leading to war crimes allegations against the US, the public's attention has largely shifted away from the White House's bombings of boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean—but the killings of six men on Sunday made clear that the administration has no intention of ending its deadly attacks on boats it claims, without providing evidence, are involved in drug trafficking.
US Southern Command said in a social media post Sunday evening that at the direction of Gen. Francis Donovan, it had struck a vessel "operated by designated terrorist organizations."
The announcement echoed previous communications about lethal boat strikes since last September, claiming that the vessel "was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations," but pointing to no evidence the US forces used to make that determination.
The bombing was the 42nd strike carried out by the Trump administration in six months, according to Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America.
The New York Times reported that at least 156 people have now been killed in the boat strikes, while Isacson placed the number at 158. He emphasized that the victims' "guilt for a noncapital crime" remains unknown.
Drug trafficking in the Latin America region has typically been treated as a criminal offense, with US law enforcement agencies sometimes working with the Coast Guard to intercept boats suspected of carrying illicit substances to the US, arresting those on board, and conviscating the drugs.
Under President Donald Trump's second administration, the Department of Defense has insisted boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific pose an imminent threat to the US and that an influx of drugs from Latin America qualifies as an attack on US soil.
The deadly bombings the Pentagon has carried out as a result have led legal experts to accuse Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and others involved in the strikes of war crimes and murder.
Trump claimed to Congress in October that the US is in an "armed conflict" with drug cartels in Venezuela, but Congress has not authorized attacks on boats or inside Venezuela.
Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have introduced war powers resolutions to stop the attacks from continuing, but they have been voted down, with the vast majority of Republicans rejecting them. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) joined the GOP in voting down one of the resolutions in the Senate.
A day before the latest strike, Trump met with Latin American leaders at the "Shield of the Americans" summit in the Dominican Republic and urged them to join the United States' fight against drug cartels, calling them an "unacceptable threat to national security."
Forces from the US and Ecuador also joined in carrying out military operations against criminal organizations in the South American country last week.
Although Trump's claims that drugs are being trafficked to the US from Venezuela and that the country's government was participating in the criminal enterprise have underpinned the boat bombings, Venezuela has not been found to be a major source of drugs that arrive in the US. After invading the country in January, the president quickly pivoted to discussions on taking control of Venezuela's vast oil reserves.
Brian Finucane, senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, suggested Sunday that Trump's continued boat strikes show the White House is unlikely to be bound by international law as it continues to threaten countries in Latin America, such as Cuba, and carries out its war on Iran.
"The slaughter at sea continues," said Finucane. "No telling what a military that engages in a monthslong killing spree outside the law might do."
On Friday, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is scheduled to hold its first-ever hearing on the legality of the US boat strikes, following a push for action from human rights groups.
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Death Toll Up to 128 People as Trump Pentagon Commits Two More Killings at Sea
"They killed more than 127 people aboard boats, in 33 attacks, in five months," said one analyst. "And the amount of cocaine found at the US land border keeps increasing."
Feb 06, 2026
Just over a week after the families of two Trinidadian men sued the Trump administration over the boat bombings that killed their relatives, the US Department of Defense killed two more people in the eastern Pacific Ocean, bringing the total death toll to at least 128 in the White House's operation that it claims is targeting drug traffickers.
The US Southern Command said in a social media post that at the direction of Cmdr. Gen. Francis L. Donovan, "Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by designated terrorist organizations."
As with the other dozens of strikes the Pentagon has carried out in the Pacific and the Caribbean Sea since September, Southern Command did not provide evidence for its claim that "narco-terrorists" were killed in the attack or that the vessel was traveling "along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations."
The White House has persistently claimed that the boat strikes are aimed at stopping drug cartels based in Venezuela from sending drugs to the US, but international and domestic intelligence agencies have not identified Venezuela as a major player in the trafficking of illicit substances—particularly not of fentanyl, the leading cause of overdoses in the US.
President Donald Trump has claimed the US is in an "armed conflict" with drug cartels. Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle have unsuccessfully sought to pass war powers resolutions to stop the administration from attacking vessels and targets in Venezuela.
Dozens of strikes preceded the Trump administration's invasion of Venezuela and abduction of President Nicolás Maduro, whom the White House has accused of being directly involved with drug trafficking. Since attacking Venezuela, though, administration officials have all but admitted their goal in the South American country is to take control of its oil supply.
The killings of nearly 130 people in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have been denounced as extrajudicial "murders" by numerous legal experts, and a top military lawyer at the Pentagon warned officials in August, weeks before the operations began, that carrying out the strikes could expose military top brass as well as rank-and-file service members to legal liability.
In the case of at least one bombing in September, the official who oversaw the strike told Congress that the boat was found to have been headed to Suriname, not the United States. One vessel had turned back toward Venezuela, away from the US, when it was struck.
The strike on Thursday was announced soon after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed that "some top cartel drug-traffickers... have decided to cease all narcotics operations INDEFINITELY due to recent (highly effective) kinetic strikes in the Caribbean.” Hegseth did not provide evidence for the claim.
Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America emphasized on Thursday that after killing more than 127 people in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, the administration has nothing to show for the operation but "a collection of gruesome videos" of the bombings.
"The amount of cocaine found at the US land border keeps increasing," he said, citing Customs and Border Protection statistics.
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4 More Killed in Pacific Boat Strike as White House Ramps Up Demands for Venezuelan Oil
President Donald Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro cries uncle," said White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in a recent interview.
Dec 18, 2025
Hours after US House Republicans voted down a war powers resolution Wednesday aimed stopping the Trump administration from continuing its attacks on "presidentially designated" terrorist organizations, the death toll of the Pentagon's continued boat strikes was brought to 99 with the latest bombing in the Pacific Ocean.
US Southern Command reported Wednesday night that at the direction of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the military had killed four people in a "kinetic strike on a vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization in international waters."
As with the rest of the more than two dozen bombings that the administration has carried out in the Caribbean and Pacific since September, the Pentagon said that intelligence had confirmed the boat was "engaged in narco-trafficking operations."
The White House has not released evidence that the boats it's targeted were carrying drugs. In the past, the US military has been involved in intercepting vessels suspected of drug trafficking and charging passengers with a criminal offense, but President Donald Trump has insisted the US is engaged in an armed conflict with drug cartels in the Western Hemisphere, including in Venezuela.
US and international intelligence agencies have not found Venezuela to be a significant source of drugs flowing into the US and have found the country to play virtually no role in the trafficking of fentanyl, the biggest cause of drug overdoses in the US.
The latest boat bombing came a day after Trump announced a "total and complete blockade" on oil tankers approaching and leaving Venezuela, accusing the country of stealing "Oil, Land, and other Assets" from the US.
Venezuela nationalized its petroleum sector in 1976, taking control of its own vast oil reserves. Previously, US-based companies had largely controlled the country's oil industry. In 2007, then-President Hugo Chavez further pushed out US oil giants such as Exxon Mobil when he nationalized foreign oil projects in Venezuela.
Stephen Miller, a top adviser to Trump, accused Venezuela's government of "theft" on Wednesday.
“American sweat, ingenuity, and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela,” Miller said in a social media post. “Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property. These pillaged assets were then used to fund terrorism and flood our streets with killers, mercenaries, and drugs.”
Regarding the blockade, Trump also said Wednesday that Venezuela "illegally took" US energy rights.
While the administration has insisted for months that its deadly boat strikes are aimed at stopping drug trafficking, comments from White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in an extensive Vanity Fair interview released Tuesday further confirmed that the White House aims to take control of the South American country.
Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro cries uncle," said Wiles.
Brian Finucane, senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, said Wednesday night's boat strike amounted to "more premeditated killing outside of armed conflict."
"There's a word for that," he said.
Legal experts have said the repeated, lethal bombings of boats have been part of a campaign of extrajudicial killings and have warned Hegseth and others involved in the attacks could be liable for murder.
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