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Topic: Naval Warfare Blog Brand: The Buzz Region: Americas Tags: Caribbean, Department of Defense (DoD), Donald Trump, International Law, Pete Hegseth, and War Crimes Are US Boat Strikes in the Caribbean Illegal? December 10, 2025 By: Brandon J. Weichert
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The strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean on September 2 has led to a public outcry—but was broadly similar to past US airstrikes in the Middle East.
The Trump administration is bombing high-speed boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific Ocean, off the coast of South America. Pentagon officials claim the boats being destroyed are narco-terrorist boats running drugs to the United States, where those drugs will kill tens of thousands of Americans over the next year. Critics of the Trump administration’s policies in Latin America argue that there is no proof these boats are drug boats—and even if they are, it doesn’t matter, because the boats in question do not have the range to make it to the United States.
What to Know About the September 2 Strike
In this morass, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has waded to make everything messier for himself, his department, and the president. A report came out claiming that the secretary of defense presided over a recent boat strike that involved the killing of survivors. The Washington Post originally broke the story about a military strike against a suspected drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean Sea on September 2 of this year.
After the initial strike, there were two survivors who were allegedly waving at the American ships for help. The Washington Post claims that Hegseth then ordered Admiral Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley, the Special Operations commander overseeing the strike, to conduct a second strike and “kill everybody” on the boat. Bradley has recently told Congress under oath that Hegseth never gave him such an order. Nevertheless, Bradley did carry out a second strike, killing everyone on that boat—including survivors of the initial attack.
When the WaPo broke the story, Hegseth denied ordering the second strike, claiming that Admiral Bradley had ordered it after Hegseth had left the room. Hegseth added that he supported Bradley’s decision—later posting an inflammatory AI-generated image of the children’s book Franklin the Turtle with the title character firing a shoulder-mounted rocket at the alleged drug boats, leading to reproach from the series’ publisher.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump himself has expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome of the September 2 strike. When asked about the incident at a recent Oval Office event, Trump defended his overall South American policy but added that, had he known there were survivors of the initial September 2 US military attack who were waving to the US forces for help, he would “not have wanted” the military to conduct a secondary strike killing those survivors.
In essence, Trump just threw his handpicked secretary of defense (self-styled “Secretary of War”) under the ship of state. Democrats accuse the Trump administration of playing fast and loose with international law. Many legal scholars in the United States, even longtime Trump supporters like Judge Andrew Napalitano, have suggested that Hegseth presided over a war crime.
Congressman Mike Turner (R-OH), who previously headed the House Armed Services Committee, and is today a senior member of that important congressional committee, said that Hegseth is required to “answer tough questions”—intimating that the embattled defense secretary had lost the confidence of many Republicans on the Hill.
Other legislators who saw the unedited video taken by the US military of the second strike indicated that they were “very troubled,” both by that specific strike as well as by the overall policy undertaken by the Trump administration. To date, the US Navy has conducted roughly 80 overall strikes similar to the controversial September 2 strike in the Caribbean.
The United States Has a Long History of Breaking International Law
Whatever happens, it is interesting—and somewhat novel—to hear US elected leaders complain about possible war crimes committed by the Pentagon. After all, there are repeated instances over the last two and a half decades wherein US administrations—both Republican and Democratic—have engaged in extrajudicial strikes that involved killing unarmed people in secondary strikes of the kind that occurred on September 2. In fact, one source indicated that President Barack Obama and his CIA director, John Brennan, routinely ordered survivors of Obama-era drone strikes in the Middle East to be killed in secondary strikes—just as Hegseth is accused of doing on September 2. The same code of international law was at play in both cases. Why were Obama’s double-tap drone strikes in Pakistan acceptable, and Trump’s in the Caribbean unacceptable?
So it’s somewhat odd to see American elected officials ignore previous administrations’ violations of international law, but choose now to suddenly take umbrage with them. Candidly speaking, no major country today—the United States, Russia, China, or anyone else with a powerful military—consistently upholds international law. They cherry-pick when to adhere to it and when to violate it in pursuit of their interests.
Is Hegseth’s Prosecution Political?
Much of the reason behind why Hegseth is now being held to a standard that former President Barack Obama or even George W. Bush were held to during their time in office is simple politics. Trump’s enemies in both parties sense weakness they can exploit for their own political gain. Hegseth has long been a target of their ire because he sits atop the most important and powerful bureaucracy in Washington.
For their part, the Democrats, who have apparently been at a loss at how to best oppose Trump’s return to the White House, are now crafting a rather thorough narrative depicting Trump and Hegseth as raging warmongers who are murdering innocent fishermen off the coast of South America while threatening to prosecute their political rivals.
Recently, six Democratic lawmakers—led by Sen. Mark Kelly, a former US Navy captain—called for uniformed military personnel and members of the US intelligence community (IC) to defy orders that they viewed as unlawful. These six elected Democrats were all either prior military or prior intelligence operatives for the United States—and one assumes their calls to refuse presidential orders carry an extra degree of heft because of their own prior service to the country.
As a result of Sen. Kelly’s statements, which were in direct response to the ongoing Trump administration military policies in Latin America, President Trump accused the six Democrats of treason and insinuated that they should be executed for that crime on his Truth Social profile page. Trump-sympathetic media quickly dubbed those Democrats the “Seditious Six.” Suddenly, with the controversy of Trump and Hegseth’s actions in Latin America on the front page, their warnings seem prescient to some.
Now that Trump insisted that he would not have wanted the secondary strike to have occurred on September 2, had he known about it—and Hegseth has tried to put everything on Adm. Bradley—the Trump administration is faced with a serious problem going into what will undoubtedly be a bitter Midterm election season in 2026. Does the president really want to spend precious political capital and media time defending Hegseth from accusations of war crimes? And does Hegseth think that, by becoming the face of Trump’s policy in the Caribbean, he can somehow avoid taking the fall for these alleged war crimes—especially if the Democrats become the majority after the 2026 midterm elections?
Or will Hegseth exit quietly?
Hegseth Might Be Looking for the Exits
One source at the Republican National Committee (RNC) told me recently that Hegseth could “always take the exit ramp” and run for governor of Tennessee next year if things get really bad over the next several weeks.
Of course, if Hegseth were to depart the Pentagon, this would leave a chasm in the Trump administration’s defense policy team. A horse race would shape up between the current Secretary of the Army Daniel P. Driscoll, a close political ally of Vice-President JD Vance, and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK), a longtime hawk with ties to the neoconservative movement who has made no secret of his ambition for the position.
Trump’s choice for Hegseth’s successor would have profound consequences on how the United States’ military policy evolved for the remainder of the Trump administration.
In the background, of course, the world would understandably wonder what Hegseth’s legal fate would be if it were ever determined that, under his command, the US military did commit war crimes in the Caribbean on September 2.
About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert is a senior national security editor at The National Interest. Recently, Weichert became the host of The National Security Hour on America Outloud News and iHeartRadio, where he discusses national security policy every Wednesday at 8pm Eastern. Weichert hosts a companion book talk series on Rumble entitled “National Security Talk.” He is also a contributor at Popular Mechanics and has consulted regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including The Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, and the Asia Times. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
Image: Department of Defense / Wikimedia Commons.
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Источник: nationalinterest.org