On September 23, United States President Donald Trump delivered an unhinged diatribe at the United Nations in New York. For almost an hour, he variously attacked the UN itself, the “con job” of climate science and the “double-tailed monster” of Europe’s immigration and energy policies. Another of his targets was people he’s already been killing: those riding boats in the Caribbean.
“To every terrorist thug smuggling poisonous drugs into the United States of America, please be warned that we will blow you out of existence,” Trump said, providing some false and imaginary numbers: “I believe we lost 300,000 people last year to drugs—300,000—fentanyl and other drugs. Each boat that we sink carries drugs that would kill more than 25,000 Americans.”
“Let’s put it this way: People don’t like taking big loads of drugs in boats any more,” Trump bragged. “There aren’t too many boats that are travelling on the seas by Venezuela. They tend not to want to travel very quickly any more. And we’ve virtually stopped drugs coming into our country by sea. We call them the water drugs.”
“Hell, I wouldn’t go fishing right now in that area of the world!” Vance quipped at a press conference.
The claims are ludicrous but the lethal attacks are real. On September 19, a US missile struck another boat in the Caribbean, killing its occupants. It was the fourth attack of the month. The first strike, on September 2, killed 11.
“Hell, I wouldn’t go fishing right now in that area of the world!” Vice President JD Vance quipped at a press conference. The people killed so far—murdered, experts say—may indeed have been fishing, or transporting rice or other goods.
Ethan Nadelmann, the founder and former director of the Drug Policy Alliance, said the strikes are a shocking executive overreach in the drug war. “It’s so over the line that even John Yoo has objected,” he told Filter, referring to the MAGA-adjecent UC Berkeley law professor, who authored the Bush-era “Torture Memos.”
Yoo published a September 23 op-ed saying the administration dangerously conflated crime-fighting and war. “Americans have died in car wrecks at an annual rate of about 40,000 in recent years; the nation does not wage war on auto companies,”he wrote. “American law instead relies upon the criminal justice or civil tort systems to respond to broad, persistent social harms.”
“It’s outrageous,” Nadelmann said.
The US has ramped up its military presence in the Caribbean, including vessels carrying Tomahawk cruise missiles and a nuclear-powered submarine.
On September 15, the administration also escalated tensions in the region by designating Colombia as noncooperative in the drug war for the first time in 30 years—though it held off, for now, on associated sanctions that would result in major aid cuts.
“I’d love to know what SOUTHCOM thinks about all this,” said Nadelmann, who authored the book Cops Across Borders: The Internationalization of U.S. Criminal Law Enforcement (1993). He noted that the US Southern Command works in close collaboration with Latin American counterparts and needs to maintain good relationships.
“Drug traffickers live in Miami, New York, Paris, Madrid and Dubai,” said Colombian President Petro. “Many have blue eyes and blond hair, and they don’t live on the boats.”
President Gustavo Petro of Colombia has been clear about what he thinks of the US strikes. “Drug traffickers live in Miami, New York, Paris, Madrid and Dubai, he told Colombian radio station La FM. “Many have blue eyes and blond hair, and they don’t live on the boats where the missiles fall. Drug traffickers live next to Trump’s house in Miami.”
Petro has previously said that drug policy should be approached as a public health, rather than a military issue—an approach the Trump administration is sabotaging with massive health funding cuts.
“We have to end the disastrous policy that blames farmers [for cocaine production] and doesn’t ask why in some societies people consume drugs until they kill themselves,” Petro told a 2023 conference. He has criticized the drug war and crop eradication, and called for the legalization of cocaine.
Petro is livid about the country’s redesignation. He reiterated that the drug trade is driven by demand, not supply, and wondered why his people have to suffer to prevent “North American society from smearing their noses in cocaine.”
He added that he viewed redesignation as a means to influence Colombia’s 2026 election. “The Colombian people will reply if they want a puppet president … or a free and sovereign nation.”
“A lot of US allies do a poor job of suppressing the drug trade, but they don’t get re-designated, they’ll merely get a rap on the knuckles.”
Though the Trump administration’s move is ostensibly aimed at curbing US drug use, it’s suspected of punishing Petro for his left-wing politics and criticisms of Trump’s drug war and violent immigration crackdowns.
Nadelmann observed that throughout the history of the drug war, left-wing critics have framed US drug interdiction as merely a front to manipulate Latin American politics and economics. “It’s true in some isolated cases,” he said, “but by and large, the US was very, very devoted to going after drugs.”
In this instance, however, Nadelmann said it’s clear the real targets are the politics of Colombia’s president, as well as Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. “A lot of US allies do a poor job of suppressing the drug trade, but they don’t get re-designated, they’ll merely get a rap on the knuckles.”
What Trump’s extreme actions do have in common with past efforts to restrict supply is simply that they don’t work.
“The drug trade is too profitable. The cartels will either pay people more to smuggle drugs by boat or find alternative routes, even use submarines,” Nadelmann said. “It will have no long-term impact on drug use in the United States.”
Photograph via the White House/X
