Pete Hegseth’s Year of Blowing Up Boats

On September 2, 2025—a year ago today—the Trump administration first drone-bombed a small boat in the Caribbean Sea. That strike killed 11 people. Then, according to members of Congress who saw classified footage of the attack, the drone circled back for a “double-tap” strike, killing two survivors as they clung to the wreckage.

Administration officials claimed without evidence that the attack was a necessary measure against alleged drug-smugglers.

As justification for the strikes, the administration has relied on and publicly cited a memorandum prepared by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. But it has kept the memo secret, despite pressure from lawmakers and civil society groups. And the bombs haven’t stopped: in the year since, the US military has launched 68 “boat strikes” that have killed at least 227 people.

The most recent strike, on August 25, killed four people the administration claimed were “narcoterrorists.” The military, according to the Associated Press, again offered no evidence that the vessel was carrying drugs.

“The United States is simply killing individuals unilaterally without any legal basis or process.”

The UN Human Rights Office released a statement on Wednesday condemning the strikes and stating trafficking drugs, even with evidence, would not justify extrajudicial murder.

“Drug trafficking is a law enforcement matter governed by international human rights law on the use of force. Calling it war does not make it one,” the statement reads. “No armed conflict exists with the United States under international humanitarian law, since there is no military combat between two sides. The United States is simply killing individuals unilaterally without any legal basis or process.”

While many of the strikes’ victims remain unidentified, some victims have been identified by their families as ordinary fishermen with no relationship to the drug trade. The families of Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo, two Trinidadian men killed in a US boat strike on October 15, 2025, are suing the Trump administration under the Death on the High Seas Act and the Alien Tort Statute.

“For a year now, the Trump administration has engaged in a terrifying, lawless killing campaign at sea and has yet to provide the public with anything beyond the most threadbare justifications,” said Jeff Stein, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project. “These strikes have devastated countless families, terrified communities, and, by the administration’s own admission, failed to achieve their purported goal of stopping drugs from entering into the United States.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said two weeks ago that he intends to expand his campaign to land in Latin America.

It will be “like you saw with the strikes on the drug boats,” Hegseth told reporters during an August military drill in the jungle in Panama. “Same effect on land. And so we’re working with Ecuador. We’re working with Colombia. We’re working with partners to bring the fight to the designated terrorist organizations on land. Anywhere you traffic drugs, or you threaten the American people, or our partners, you are a target, just like ISIS or Al-Qaeda.”