Hegseth Says US Strikes Another Drug Boat in the Pacific

The latest strike announced by the administration in the Pacific comes amid a larger push to crack down on drug trafficking in the region.

A still from footage of a strike on an alleged drug boat in the Eastern Pacific on Oct. 29, 2025. @SecWar/X

U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced on Wednesday that the United States carried out a lethal strike on an alleged drug-trafficking boat in the Pacific, continuing a recent surge of anti-drug U.S. military activity in the region.

“Earlier today, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War carried out a lethal kinetic strike on yet another narco-trafficking vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO) in the Eastern Pacific,” Hegseth wrote in a post on X.

He said all four men aboard the vessel, whom he described as narco-terrorists, were killed in the strike.

A video attached to the post shows a small craft, which appears to have been a single-motor boat or similar vessel, floating before being destroyed in a single strike.

Hegseth said the vessel targeted in the strike, like others the U.S. military has recently targeted, was “known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics.”

The strike happened in international waters, Hegseth said, and no U.S. forces were harmed.

“The Western Hemisphere is no longer a safe haven for narco-terrorists bringing drugs to our shores to poison Americans,” Hegseth said. “The Department of War will continue to hunt them down and eliminate them wherever they operate.”

Earlier in October, the U.S. announced two strikes on gunboats in the same region on similar grounds.

On Oct. 22, the administration announced that it had carried out two strikes on suspected drug boats in the Pacific.

On Monday, the administration announced the 11th—and so far, the largest—strike, which targeted three gunboats and killed a total of 14 people.

This comes as part of an administration crackdown on maritime drug trafficking both in the Americas and in the Pacific.

Other U.S. strikes since September have targeted vessels operating in the Caribbean Sea. These strikes coincide with a larger buildup of forces in the region.

The Trump administration has raised pressure against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, accusing him of backing cartels in his country. Maduro has denied the accusations.

Some U.S. lawmakers have raised questions about the legal justifications and intelligence assessments guiding recent U.S. strikes. In turn, the Trump administration notified Congress that U.S. forces are fighting a “non-international armed conflict“ with drug cartels, which the administration referred to as “unlawful combatants.”

Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused U.S. forces of striking an innocent fishing vessel operating in the Caribbean in September.

Writing in an Oct. 18 social media post, Petro said that the vessel, which U.S. forces struck on Sept. 15, was adrift and had its distress signal up due to an engine failure. Petro also said the boat was “presumably” operating within Colombia’s territorial waters, and called on U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate the matter.

The U.S. president, in turn, alleged that Petro is an “illegal drug leader.” Trump also announced plans to cut U.S. funding to Colombia and raise tariffs against the South American country.

Ryan Morgan contributed to this report.