Brown University's Costs of War Project, in a report published April 23, 2026 and detailed by The Intercept, has produced the first comprehensive accounting of the Trump administration's 8-month undeclared military campaign in Latin America and the Caribbean. The numbers: at least 53 strikes on vessels, more than 180 people killed, and at least $4.7 billion spent between August 1, 2025 and March 31, 2026.
The campaign — branded “Operation Southern Spear” by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on November 13, 2025 — has involved a U.S. supercarrier deployment in the Caribbean, daily strikes on small civilian boats the administration has labeled as drug-trafficking vessels, and the seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The Pentagon has refused to name the 24+ organizations it claims to oppose. The DOD has declined to provide cost information to Congress or to journalists, citing a lack of available data.
The Costs of War estimate breaks down: $3.8 billion in naval deployments, more than $616 million in aircraft operations, $12.5–$50 million in munitions, more than $206 million on the Venezuela campaign specifically, and $16 million in Special Operations costs. Researchers describe their figures as “a conservative estimate” with actual figures “likely significantly higher.” CSIS separately estimates ongoing Caribbean operations cost roughly $31 million per day, with about $2.8 million per day unbudgeted.
The most recent strike took place April 19 in the Caribbean, killing three people. Trump administration officials have framed the campaign through what they call the “Donroe Doctrine” — a reworked Monroe Doctrine asserting U.S. military dominance over the Western Hemisphere as America's “immediate security perimeter.”
Legal scholars and bipartisan members of Congress argue the strikes constitute extrajudicial killings. The military, they note, cannot “deliberately target civilians” who lack imminent threat potential — a sharp departure from standard drug enforcement, which favors arrests and interdictions, not summary execution by missile. Two survivors of the campaign's first strike, on September 2, 2025, were killed in a follow-up strike ordered by Adm. Frank Bradley; the Washington Post reported in November 2025 that Hegseth had given a spoken directive to kill everyone aboard, which he denies (see U.S. Commanders Watched Two Survivors of the First Boat Strike Cling to the Wreckage for More Than 40 Minutes, Then Killed Them). None of the people killed have been charged with a crime in any U.S. court. None have been confirmed by the administration to be members of any specific organization.
By late July 2026 the toll had climbed and the rationale had collapsed. The campaign had destroyed at least 67 vessels and killed at least 221 people, and the U.S. had not struck a boat in about a month. Trump said Operation Southern Spear had virtually ended seaborne drug trafficking; Pentagon and DEA analysts concluded otherwise, telling the Washington Post and CNN the strikes had not reduced the flow of cocaine into the United States and had mainly pushed traffickers to new routes and tactics while undermining traditional investigations. The head of U.S. Southern Command, Gen. Francis Donovan, had told lawmakers back in March that “boat strikes aren't the answer.” The killing of 221 people, without charges or trials, has not moved the drug supply it was justified by.
Update (September 21, 2026): the strikes resumed and the count kept rising. On September 19, U.S. Southern Command announced, “Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere executed a lethal, kinetic strike on a go-fast vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean,” and, “The operation killed four narco-terrorists.” That is nearly the whole release; it cites “confirmed intelligence” and shows none. The Associated Press wrote, “The military did not provide evidence that the vessel was ferrying drugs,” and put the campaign's toll at “at least 231 in 69 strikes” since it began almost a year ago. An earlier strike on September 9 killed three, per CNN. CNN also reported that in recent weeks the military has more often boarded boats, removed the crews and sunk the vessels empty, though it “has not abandoned strikes on crewed boats,” and, citing six unnamed sources, that the Pentagon is expected to move MQ-9 Reaper drones from Africa to the region ahead of anticipated operations that could include Ecuador. That move is described as planned, not done, and the Pentagon declined to comment. AP reported that Hegseth said Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras had agreed to joint operations on their soil, and that “Guatemala denied reaching such a deal.”
Update (September 21, 2026): a U.N. special rapporteur, an independent expert, concluded in a briefing note that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” the first 68 strikes “constituted crimes against humanity of murder.” He argues they are not war crimes only because, in his view, no armed conflict exists for the laws of war to govern (see A UN Expert Finds 'Reasonable Grounds to Believe' the Boat Strikes Were Crimes Against Humanity of Murder).
The claims made for the campaign (added September 21, 2026, moved from an earlier version of the September 2 strike entry): Trump has said the boats carry fentanyl, saying in October 2025, “The boats get hit and you see that fentanyl all over the ocean.” The Intercept reported in May 2026 that officials had acknowledged in closed briefings that the boats are not carrying fentanyl, and retired Coast Guard Rear Adm. William Baumgartner told it, “I have not seen any evidence that fentanyl has ever been smuggled from South America to the United States.” On January 29, 2026, Trump said, “Drugs entering our country by sea are down 97 percent.” His own administration's figures are smaller and measure something different. A Pentagon official, Joseph Humire, told the House Armed Services Committee in March that there “has been a 20 percent reduction of movements of drug vessels in the Caribbean and an additional 25 percent reduction in the Eastern Pacific.” Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America said cocaine seized at U.S. borders rose by 6,000 pounds in the seven months after the strikes began, compared with the seven months before. Trump has also said that “every boat that we knock out, we save 25,000 American lives”; experts told The Intercept there is no way to know how many lives any strike saves. Sen. Tim Kaine, after pressing officials on whether strikes require evidence that narcotics are aboard, said, “I think there's a profound mismatch between what is occurring and the underlying assumptions in the legal opinion.” During the same period Trump has granted clemency to around 100 people accused of drug-related crimes, including a full pardon for the former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been convicted in 2024 of using his office to smuggle 400 tons of cocaine into the United States (see Trump Pardons Silk Road Creator Ross Ulbricht, Gang Leader Larry Hoover and Ex-Honduran President Hernández).