Mexican President Sheinbaum Rejects U.S. Strikes Against Alleged Drug Boats: 'There Are International Laws'

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum rejected the Trump administration's strikes against alleged drug boats over the past weeks, most recently off the Colombian coast in the Pacific.

"We do not agree, there are international laws about the way to operate on the alleged transportation of illegal drugs or weapons in international waters. We have told this to the U.S. government and publicly," Sheinbaum said.

The Trump administration has conducted at least nine strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific. The most recent one took place on Wednesday, in which three people aboard the vessel were killed. Overall, 37 people have been killed by the strikes since the operation began last month.

Moreover, the attack on Tuesday killed at least two people, widening the scope of the campaign to the Pacific as part of a broader effort to disrupt smuggling routes in the Caribbean and pressure Venezuela's government. According to a New York Times article published on October 14, traffickers have been shifting operations away from U.S. naval patrols, rerouting cocaine shipments through the Pacific and other less-monitored corridors.

Regional officials confirmed to the NYT that the strikes have not eliminated drug trafficking but have instead pushed smugglers to adapt — dividing shipments into smaller loads, concealing narcotics in food containers, or conducting sea transfers farther from monitored zones.

On Sunday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that U.S. forces had destroyed another suspected drug vessel in the Caribbean Sea, killing three men allegedly linked to Colombia's National Liberation Army (E.L.N.), a Marxist insurgent group designated as a foreign terrorist organization since 1997. Hegseth described the groups targeted as "the Al Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere," saying they would be "hunted and killed" like terrorists.

The Pentagon has not released evidence linking the vessels to cartels or insurgent groups. However, Hegseth said the most recent Caribbean strike targeted "a vessel known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling" and traveling along a known trafficking route.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro, on his end, is accusing Trump of using the strikes to interfere with the South American country's elections next year.

"The magnitude of Trump's insults to Colombia and myself are no longer part of a strategy to target drug-traffickers, but to influence the Colombian elections next year, seeking the victory of the far right. They are actually likely to have ties to drug-trafficking but are obedient when it comes to accepting invasions," Petro said in a social media post, likely referring to the ongoing pressure on the Venezuelan regime, which according to different reports also seeks to oust authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro.