US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has confirmed another deadly American strike on a vessel accused of drug trafficking in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing two people aboard.
The attack, announced on Tuesday, is the latest in a string of 16 strikes carried out under the Trump administration’s anti-cartel campaign, which has so far killed at least 66 people across South American waters.
Hegseth said the US would continue to take aggressive action against what it calls “narco-terrorist vessels”, declaring:
“We will find and terminate every vessel with the intention of trafficking drugs to America to poison our citizens.”
President Donald Trump has justified the campaign by insisting the US is engaged in “armed conflict” with international drug cartels, though the administration has yet to provide evidence or legal details supporting that claim.
Lawmakers from both parties have since called for clarity on targeting procedures and the legal basis for the strikes.
The latest incident comes as the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, one of the most powerful warships in the US fleet, heads towards the Caribbean, marking a major expansion of American military presence in the region.
A defence official confirmed that the Ford and destroyer USS Bainbridge had crossed through the Straits of Gibraltar into the Atlantic, while other ships from the carrier’s strike group remained spread across the Mediterranean and Red Sea.
Video footage shared by Hegseth on social media showed a small boat in the water moments before it was obliterated in a fiery explosion, though the footage offered no independent verification of the target or its alleged link to drug trafficking.
The Pentagon has declined to release the identities of those killed or details of the evidence used to justify the strike.
