This image from a video released by US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appears to show an alleged drug-smuggling boat in the Eastern Pacific Ocean moments before a US military strike destroys it
The U.S. has been bombing suspected drug boats for about a year. AFP

The U.S. is planning to take its war against drug cartels to land, according to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

"We will defend our hemisphere from external threats to national sovereignty, whether from narco-terrorism or foreign malign actors. And we will deny adversaries the ability to position forces, or otherwise threaten capabilities, in our hemisphere," Hegseth said at the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition Conference.

He went on to single out Honduras and Guatemala for inviting the United States to partake in combined operations against "narco-terrorists" in their countries.

For the last year, the U.S. has bombed boats it claimed were transporting illicit drugs, such as fentanyl, into the U.S. According to the Associated Press, those strikes have resulted in the deaths of hundreds.

The effectiveness of the strikes has been brought into question. The Washington Post obtained a DEA briefing that seemed to do so. "Smugglers have adapted to the intensified pressure," the DEA briefing stated, according to the newspaper. "Price and availability have not been noticeably affected."

The briefing stated that traffickers adapted, switching from small, fast boats to slower, bigger boats that stick to the coastline. According to the DEA assessment, drug smugglers are also increasingly relying on airplanes to avoid U.S. efforts.

"When you squeeze the balloon on one side, it always expands on the other side," one DEA official told The Washington Post. "They always find the weak spots and exploit them."

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Drug overdose deaths in the U.S. have been on the decline, although the trend began in 2024 before the Trump administration began implementing its policies.

From 2023 to 2024, overdose deaths dropped from 110,000 to about 80,000 PBS reported. The 27 percent decline was the largest one-year decline ever recorded.

Experts told the outlet that more research needed to be done to understand why the decline was so steep in 2024. However, some of the factors they felt needed to be considered included increased availability of naloxone, more addiction treatment, shifts in how people use drugs, the impact of billions of dollars from opioid related lawsuits, and a decline in the drug user population following previous high years of overdose deaths.

PBS reported in 2025 that overdose deaths did fall significantly again to about 70,000 based on preliminary data, about a 14 percent drop. It was also the third year in a row that overdose deaths in the U.S. have fallen.