"In the two months since the strikes began, the administration has consistently offered the same explanation: The U.S. has a fentanyl-overdose problem, and those boats are a source of the drug. The federal government has stuck to that line despite the Drug Enforcement Administration and Department of Homeland Security saying that most of the fentanyl brought into this country comes from Mexico, not through the Caribbean. Anyone with further questions is out of luck."
"Experts on Central and South America are playing a lively foreign-policy guessing game about the administration's real aims. Does President Donald Trump see regime change in Venezuela as unfinished business from his first term? (The U.S. indicted the country's president, Nicolás Maduro, in 2020 on drug charges and called his election last year " illegitimate.") Is this about Secretary of State Marco Rubio's siding with the Venezuelan opposition?"
U.S. forces have destroyed 14 boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, killing at least 57 people, and the administration cites fentanyl trafficking as justification. Federal agencies such as the DEA and DHS say most illegal fentanyl enters through Mexico rather than the Caribbean. There have been no public presidential policy explanations and Pentagon press access was curtailed, causing many outlets to give up press passes. Analysts debate motives: regime change in Venezuela, influence from Secretary Rubio, or immigration-control aims from Stephen Miller. The operations risk shifting drug interdiction from law enforcement to military action, eroding established rules on stops, searches, and use of lethal force.
Read at The Atlantic
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