The US attacks a ship for the first time in the Pacific, extending military pressure in Latin America.

WashingtonThe United States has launched a new military attack against an alleged drug boat, but this time it was in Pacific waters. instead of the Caribbean, off the Colombian coast. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told X on Wednesday that the two crew members of the vessel died and compared them to the terrorist group al-Qaeda. "Narco-terrorists intent on bringing poison to our shores will find no safe harbor but in our hemisphere. Just as al-Qaeda waged war on our homeland, these cartels are waging war on our border and on our people," he wrote.

Once again, the United States is unilaterally executing people, without presenting any evidence against them and only under the justification of having internal information linking them to drug trafficking. The only framework the Trump administration is using to operate outside its borders is an executive order signed by the president in which he classified certain cartels as terrorist organizations.

Washington has been beating the drums of war against Venezuela for weeks, while now it is also extending its covert military pressure campaign under the guise of the drug war to Colombia, just after President Gustavo Petro denounced such US operations.

Despite not identifying the alleged drug traffickers as Colombian, the operation in international waters of the Pacific near the Colombian coast coincides with the latest clash between Petro and Donald Trump. Over the weekend, the US president accused the Colombian leftist leader of being a "drug kingpin" for denouncing Washington's military attacks in the Caribbean, near the coast of Venezuela.

First complaints from relatives

"US officials are determined to murder and violate our maritime sovereignty," Petro wrote, following one of the first complaints against the US government for attacks in the Caribbean. Petro highlighted that one of the men killed in one of the September military operations against an alleged drug boat was a Colombian fisherman, Alejandro Carranza, 40. Carranza's family has denied the White House's accusations. "Why did they take his life like this?" lamented his wife, Katerine Hernández, to AFP.

Since Trump launched operations in the Caribbean, the US military has killed more than 30 people, and several complaints have emerged against the White House from relatives of fishermen who were allegedly victims. Chad Joseph, a 26-year-old originally from Trinidad and Tobago who now lives in Venezuela, could be another of those killed at the hands of the United States in its alleged war on drugs.

Joseph's mother, Lenore Burnley, explained to the The New York Times that the last time she heard from her son was when he told her he was going to take a short boat trip home. He hasn't returned yet, and Burnley fears the worst. Chad Joseph's family is one of the first to publicly declare that they believe one of their loved ones was aboard one of the downed boats, and warns that a neighbor was traveling with him who has also disappeared.

Until now, all military attacks had focused on the Caribbean waters off the Venezuelan coast—on the other side of the continent—in a clear gesture of pressure on Nicolás Maduro's regime, who has seen how the US has also deployed warships to the edge of its waters and has deployed warships.

As he did with Petro, Trump also accused Maduro of having ties to the Cartel of the Suns and allowing drug trafficking within his country, although Venezuela is far from being one of Latin America's main drug exporters. In the case of Petro, Trump has also punished Bogotá by freezing all economic aid to the country. Still, it is unclear what impact this suspension will have, since much of the US's foreign financing was completely blocked long ago with the government's initial cuts.

The US president's accusations add a new episode to the series of ties with the Colombian leader, whose visa was revoked by the US in September after he participated in a pro-Palestinian demonstration at the UN General Assembly in New York.