The U.S. Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, reaffirmed on Monday the military offensive against organizations that Washington considers narco-terrorists, stating that "there are no fishing rods, no fishermen, no fishing boats, only drug traffickers and narco-terrorists."
The statement was made during an event at the Mar-a-Lago complex in Palm Beach, Florida, where Hegseth accompanied President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
"With each attack, we save American lives," emphasized Hegseth, defending the policy of preemptive strikes and the strengthening of Operation Southern Spear, deployed in the Caribbean and the Pacific.
The statements come after weeks of intensification of the military campaign ordered by Trump against what Washington refers to as "transnational narco-terrorist organizations," directly targeting the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela.
On November 29, Hegseth had already publicly defended the “effectiveness and lethality” of the attacks, after The Washington Post and CNN revealed allegations of executions of survivors during an operation off the Venezuelan coast.
On that occasion, the Secretary of War accused the press of "fabricating stories to discredit the military" and reiterated that the actions "comply with American and international law."
On December 17, SOUTHCOM confirmed another lethal kinetic attack in the eastern Pacific, under direct orders from Hegseth. Four men were killed when a vessel purportedly operated by drug traffickers was destroyed in international waters as part of this operation.
The Pentagon assures that the targeted sites are part of drug and arms trafficking networks operating between Central and South America, routes where operations of cartels allied with Caracas have also been detected.
Operation Southern Spear, launched in September 2025, has deployed warships, fighter jets, and autonomous drones in the Caribbean and the Pacific, totaling thousands of personnel.
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