Will US military strikes slow drug overdose deaths? Experts say no

The U.S. military has carried out at least 22 attacks on suspected drug boats so far this year, leaving more than 80 people dead, according to an analysis by NPR. During a speech this week in Pennsylvania, President Donald Trump said the strikes are making Americans safer.

"Every boat that gets hit, we save 25,000 American lives and when you view it that way, you don't mind," Trump said.

But most experts on criminal cartels and deadly street drugs say military strikes on speedboats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific will have little or no impact on overdose deaths in the United States.

"Killing a drug mule has minimal effect on the flow of drugs, or the systems of criminal organizations," said Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on drug trafficking and addiction at the Brookings Institution.

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According to Felbab-Brown, the street drug fentanyl, which accounts for the vast majority of U.S. drug deaths, isn't produced in Venezuela, or smuggled in boats being targeted. "Whatever actions are taken in the Caribbean have no effect on fentanyl," she said. Cartels operating in the Caribbean region are heavily involved in cocaine trafficking, Felbab-Brown said, but much of that illegal product goes to countries other than the United States.

Others shared the view that the military strikes are likely to be ineffective and could even be counter-productive. "All we're doing is making the cartels come up with more potent and powerful forms of drugs to smuggle," said Jeffrey Singer, a drug policy expert at the Cato Institute.

His fear is that more cartels will shift drug production away from cocaine - a risky but far less lethal street drug — and will pivot to dealing deadlier synthetic substances such as fentanyl, methamphetamines and nitazenes that can be produced and smuggled more easily.

"The added risk makes it necessary for them to do that," Singer said.

The Trump administration's national security strategy, released last month, elevated the fight against "narco-terrorists" to a key Defense Department priority, calling for "the use of lethal force to replace the failed law enforcement-only strategy."

President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, seen here in a cabinet meeting on December 2, have justified the military strikes on civilian vessels in international waters as part of the national security strategy against "narco-terrorists."

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But many critics say the deadly strikes are based on unverified, false, or wildly exaggerated claims. Last month, for example, Trump justified the use of military force against alleged traffickers by saying "300 million people died last year from drugs, that's what's illegal."

In fact, drug overdose deaths in the U.S. have been dropping since at least 2023 and accounted for about 76,000 fatalities in a 12-month period according to the latest provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most experts believe historic improvements have been accomplished largely through better public health services and medical treatment for people experiencing addiction. They also credited more aggressive law enforcement, which led to a drop in fentanyl smuggling from Mexico last year. Cocaine, the drug predominately trafficked through the Caribbean, accounted for roughly 22,000 U.S. deaths in 2024, according to the latest provisional CDC data, a sharp decline from the year before.

Felbab-Brown and Singer also believe any deterrent effect of a "get tough" approach by the U.S. military will be lost because of what they view as Trump's pattern of freeing and pardoning high-level drug traffickers, gang leaders, and corrupt officials linked to the cartels.

People in a coffee shop in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, watch a TikTok video of former President Juan Orlando Hernández publicly thanking U.S. President Trump for pardoning him of drug trafficking and weapons charges.

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"Actions such as pardoning the former president of Honduras leads to the question, what is the point of the policy?" said Felbab-Brown.

Juan Orlando Hernández was convicted in federal court last year in New York on drug trafficking and weapons charges. Trump's decision to free him drew a sharp rebuke from Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who called the move "shocking."

"He was the leader of one of the largest criminal enterprises that has ever been subject to a conviction in U.S. courts, and less than one year into his sentence, President Trump is pardoning him, suggesting that President Trump cares nothing about narcotrafficking," Kaine said Sunday on CBS' Face the Nation.

Since returning to the White House, Trump has also pardoned the former leader of a drug gang called the Gangster Disciples and the creator of a criminal website called Silk Road used to traffic deadly drugs., His administration also returned key MS-13 drug gang informants to El Salvador.

During his first term, Trump also freed a high-level Mexican military official, Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda from U.S. custody and dropped all criminal charges, despite evidence of his close ties to what was then one of Mexico's deadliest drug cartels.

"I find it really difficult to understand. There is no steady principled focus on counter-narcotics policy," said Felbab-Brown.

Asked by Politico about the decision to pardon the former Honduran president, despite evidence he aided violent drug traffickers, Trump suggested without providing evidence that Hernández's prosecution by the U.S. Justice Department was politically motivated.

"There are many people fighting for Honduras, very good people that I know, and they think he was treated horribly, and they asked me to do it, and I said I'll do it," Trump said.

The Trump administration's militarized approach to drug interdiction does have support from some conservative drug policy experts. "We now need drastic action," said Andrés Martínez-Fernández at the Heritage Foundation.

He acknowledged drug deaths have ebbed from record levels, but said Trump's decision to designate cartels as terrorist organizations was long overdue. "Military action and these designations, beyond them being appropriate, are really necessary to confront these threats," Martínez-Fernández told NPR.

Martínez-Fernández said concern over Trump's repeated pardons of high-level drug gang leaders is "fair, to a degree," but he believes the use of targeted pardons along with military and diplomatic pressure may leverage better cooperation against the drug cartels from governments in the Western Hemisphere.

Felbab-Brown, at Brookings, said she too believes Trump's approach to the drug war has pressured some foreign leaders, including Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, to take more aggressive action against the cartels.

"The threat of tariffs as well as the designation of the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations created significant pressure on the Sheinbaum administration to push ahead on counter-narcotics cooperation," Felbab-Brown said, but added that the overall impact on drug trafficking will be minimal.

In an email to NPR, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly disputed the idea that military strikes are ineffective at disrupting the flow of drugs into the U.S. "The President is right – any boat bringing deadly poison to our shores has the potential to kill 25,000 Americans or more," Kelly said.

The statement echoes a claim repeated by Trump administration officials that street drugs might at some point be used as a chemical weapon, or a weapon of mass destruction, potentially killing large numbers of U.S. citizens.

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that a secret U.S. government memo authorizing military strikes in the Caribbean described fentanyl as a potential chemical weapon threat. NPR has not been able to independently verify the contents of the memo.

During a public appearance last month, U.S. border czar Tom Homan told Axios that he took part in a Department of Homeland Security briefing where officials discussed formally classifying fentanyl as a WMD.

"When I left that briefing, it was my understanding that they would push that recommendation up to the secretary," he said.

During a cabinet meeting with Trump earlier this year, Attorney General Pam Bondi argued that seizures of illegal drugs by federal agents during the first hundred days of Trump's second term had already "saved, are you ready for this media, 258 million American lives."

Drug policy researchers interviewed by NPR described that assertion by Bondi as wildly exaggerated.

While street drugs can be deadly, even the highest-risk substances such as fentanyl kill only a small percentage of people who purchase and consume them from dealers. Most experts say these substances would be difficult to weaponize. NPR could find only one documented instance of fentanyl being used as a weapon in 2002 by the Russian government.

Critics of the military strikes against suspected drug smugglers interviewed for this story said they knew of no cases in the U.S. where fentanyl or other illicit drugs were used as a weapon. They also said there's no evidence street drugs are being used by drug cartels - which are profit-driven criminal enterprises - to destabilize the U.S. or sow terror.

"I don't know how you could equate smugglers, selling something illegal to people who want to buy it, as an act of war," said Singer with the Cato Institute, who said suspected criminal drug dealers should be arrested and put on trial – not killed in military strikes.

Trump administration officials, however, say they're convinced military strikes will eventually lead to fewer drug deaths. "Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military," said Vice President JD Vance in a post on social media.

NPR's Juliana Kim contributed to this report.
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