A screengrab of a video posted by U.S. Southern Command to X on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, of a boat strike conducted by Joint Task Force Southern Spear in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. (U.S. Southern Command)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military conducted a strike Wednesday on an alleged drug boat in the eastern Pacific, killing four people.
The vessel was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route in the eastern Pacific and engaged in narco-trafficking operations, according to a U.S. Southern Command post published on X, which also said that no U.S. forces were harmed in the operation.
The latest strike comes on the same day that the House rejected two measures aimed at stopping President Donald Trump from carrying out additional strikes on suspected drug boats or attacking Venezuela without congressional approval.
Wednesday’s strike is the second operation this week. The U.S. has conducted a total of 26 known strikes in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility since Sept. 2. The death toll from the strikes is up to at least 99 people.
Lawmakers on Wednesday said it was imperative for Congress to weigh in as Trump threatens land strikes inside Venezuela and uses the military to carry out strikes against alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, many near Venezuela.
Lawmakers this week received several classified briefings on the narcoterrorism campaign. Democrats are continuing to push for the public release of unedited videos showing the initial Sept. 2 strike and a controversial follow-up strike that killed two survivors.
The U.S. military has steadily amassed troops, naval and air assets in the Caribbean Sea to strike alleged drug traffickers.
Trump warned on social media Tuesday that the massive buildup of military assets near Venezuela — the largest in decades — “will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in October announced the deployment of the Ford Carrier Strike Group. The USS Gerald R. Ford, along with accompanying ships USS Mahan, USS Bainbridge and USS Winston S. Churchill arrived last month, concentrating nearly 20% of the Navy’s deployed warships in the region.
The strike group joined other ships in the Caribbean, including the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group and its embarked Marine expeditionary unit. Also patrolling the region are guided-missile cruisers USS Gettysburg and USS Lake Erie.
Trump this year designated several drug cartels as terrorist organizations, including Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua. His administration has asserted that the U.S. is in an “armed conflict” with cartels and will treat their members as combatants.
Reporter Svetlana Shkolnikova contributed to this report.
