At least 61 people have been killed in 14 U.S. military strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean since early September. Here, we will address what is known about the targets of the strikes, the trafficking of illicit substances from South and Central America to the U.S., and what experts are saying about the legality of the Trump administration’s escalation of the war on drugs.
Reviving an unfounded claim he has made for several years, President Donald Trump on Sept. 5 overstated the number of Americans who died in 2024 of drug overdoses, saying that he believed 300,000 or “350,000 people died last year from drugs.” A spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told us the provisional number of drug overdose deaths in 2024 was 79,383, and an expert in addiction medicine told us Trump’s number was “a gross exaggeration.”
In virtually all of his recent speeches, former President Donald Trump has been citing a reported drop in crime in Venezuela as evidence that the economically and politically beleaguered country is sending its criminals to the U.S. Experts in and out of Venezuela told us there is no evidence to back up Trump’s claim.