The United States carried out its seventh missile strike on a suspected narco-trafficking vessel in the Eastern Pacific near Colombia on Tuesday, the latest in a rapidly expanding maritime campaign that has killed at least 67 people and is drawing Colombia into the same operational battlefield long reserved for President Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuela.
In a statement posted on “X,” U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the attack was ordered by President Donald Trump and targeted a vessel operated by what Washington deems a Designated Terrorist Organization. The strike, he said, hit a boat carrying narcotics along a known trafficking corridor in international waters. “We will find and terminate EVERY vessel with the intention of trafficking drugs to America to poison our citizens,” Hegseth declared. “NO cartel terrorist stands a chance against the American military.”
The strike was one of 16 the United States has conducted since September 2 – nine in the Caribbean and seven in Pacific waters off Colombia. The shift is subtle but significant: a growing share of U.S. operations that once concentrated overwhelmingly on Venezuela’s coastline are now taking place along Colombia’s maritime borders.
What is emerging is a strategic recalibration with broad geopolitical consequences. By increasing its lethal operations off Colombia’s shores, the Trump administration appears to be collapsing the long-standing distinction between a democratic regional ally of President Gustavo Petro, and an authoritarian adversary ruled by Nicolás Maduro. In effect, both nations are now being treated as components of a single maritime combat theatre, raising alarms among diplomats and analysts about sovereignty, escalation and the lack of congressional authorization for the growing campaign.
President Trump has reinforced that impression with a series of ambiguous and contradictory public statements about Venezuela. When asked on CBS’s 60 Minutes whether the United States was drifting toward war with Caracas, he said: “I doubt it. I don’t think so, but they’ve been treating us very badly, not only on drugs.” He again repeated a claim that Mr. Maduro had released violent criminals and members of the Tren de Aragua (TdeA) gang into the United States. Pressed on whether he believed the Venezuelan leader’s days were numbered, Trump responded: “I think so, yeah.”
Behind closed doors, the Repubican administration is moving more aggressively. According to The New York Times, senior officials have asked the Justice Department for new legal guidance that could expand the justification for military action beyond the current maritime interdictions. The emerging framework, still in draft form, could argue that Maduro and his top security officials are central actors in the Cartel de los Soles, designated by Washington as a narcoterrorist organization – a label that would, in theory, make them legitimate military targets. Such a rationale would challenge existing American prohibitions on assassinating foreign heads of state and bypass the need for congressional authorization for the use of force.
The White House is weighing the possibility of expanding the boat strikes to land-based operations, though none have yet occurred.
Naval Firepower on the Move
The U.S. Navy is also adding additonal firepower. The USS Gerald R. Ford, the country’s largest and newest aircraft carrier, is crossing the Atlantic and is expected to position near Venezuelan waters by the end of this week. With 5,000 sailors and more than 75 aircraft aboard, the Ford gives Washington a powerful mobile stage that could be used to intensify maritime operations – or, potentially, initiate new ones. Any decisive action against Maduro is unlikely until the carrier’s arrival.
The widening military campaign is reverberating through a region already on edge. On Monday, the Dominican Republic announced the postponement of the 10th Summit of the Americas, originally scheduled for Dec. 1 to 5 in Punta Cana. In an unusually blunt statement, officials cited a “complex” political climate and “deep divisions” that made it impossible to guarantee a representative hemispheric dialogue. The summit will now be rescheduled for 2026.
The cancellation followed disputes over the exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela from the invitation list – prompting Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum and Colombia’s President Petro to warn that “dialogue cannot begin with exclusions.”
Hours later, another diplomatic setback emerged: several European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz, said they would no longer attend the EU-CELAC summit scheduled for this weekend (Nov.9-10) in Santa Marta. With original plans to gather more than 60 leaders, the summit is now poised to be sparsely attended despite Colombia holding the organization’s one-year presidency.
A senior Latin American official told the Financial Times that the cancellations stemmed partly from concerns about President Trump’s recent sanctions toward President Petro and his family. “The effect of what is happening in the Caribbean is very complicated,” the official said.
President Petro accused the United States of undermining the event, writing on “X” that “forces against peace in America have wanted the CELAC/European summit to fail,” and warning that “anti-democratic fossil geopolitics” was working to block cooperation among nations seeking “freedom and democracy.”
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Portugal’s Luís Montenegro are among the few European leaders still planning to attend.
For Bogotá, the increasingly lethal U.S. operations off its coastline – and the political undercurrents they are generating – underscore an uncomfortable truth: Colombia is no longer being treated as a steadfast partner in Washington’s security strategy, but as political collateral in a widening confrontation with Venezuela.
