"Just as Al-Qaeda waged war on our homeland, these cartels are waging war on our border and our people." U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth referred thusly less than a year ago to the Latin American drug cartels against which the U.S. military claims to have been fighting since September 2025 with attacks on vessels in the Caribbean and the Pacific. A year after the operation dubbed Operation Southern Lance began, the results are practically nil, and the Pentagon itself has admitted that the offensive has not served to stop the entry of cocaine into the United States. Nevertheless, the attacks continue and often people with no connection to drug trafficking die.

A series ofUS attacks on suspected drug traffickers in the eastern Pacific on Monday killed 14 people and left one survivor, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday on X. According to Hegseth, Mexican authorities have taken over the rescue operation for the sole survivor of the three attacks, which took place on Monday.

As Trump's tariff war continues to add new and increasingly absurd chapters, it is highly recommended to readIndo-Pacific, by Juan Manuel López Nadal, who throughout his long diplomatic career has served as Spain's ambassador to Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, and Laos, and as consul general in Hong Kong. This Mallorcan diplomat now uses his accumulated experience to write an absorbing book, which, with clear prose, describes the world from an angle we are not used to considering, but which is where the keys to power in global politics lie. In fact, the full title of the book is Indo-Pacific. Axis of global geopolitics.

On Wednesday night, when the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia announced the creation of a new alliance to defend their interests in the seas separating the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, the three heads of government were at pains not to mention one name: China. The American, Joe Biden, even declined to answer questions about the role that the Asian giant had played in making this decision. But despite the silence - evidently agreed on between the three executives - no one is unaware that the real objective of this alliance is to curb the expansionist ambition of Xi Jinping's government and, specifically, to confront its dominance in this maritime area that has been a source of dispute for years. Hence the cries of rejection and discomfort that were quickly heard from Beijing, accusing Washington of playing "Cold War" strategic games.