Key Points
- Key U.S. partners in the Americas and Europe are quietly cutting intelligence ties over deadly boat strikes.
- A secretive anti-drug air campaign has killed dozens at sea, blurring the line between policing and war.
- Expanded presidential immunity leaves allies and frontline troops fearing they will bear the legal and moral costs.
America’s closest allies are no longer comfortable lending their eyes and ears to Washington’s latest drug war.
In London, Ottawa and Bogotá, officials are quietly scaling back the intelligence they share after a series of U.S. air and drone strikes that have turned the Caribbean into a low-visibility battlefield.
The United Kingdom, long a central node in regional surveillance thanks to its Caribbean territories, has restricted certain intercepts that could be used to select small boats for lethal attack.
Canada now stresses that its cooperation in joint patrols is limited to classic coast-guard work: boarding vessels, seizing drugs and arresting crews. It does not want its data feeding a kill list.
Colombia questions U.S. strikes after civilian deaths
In Colombia, the revelation that a local fisherman died in one of the strikes has pushed an already uneasy government to suspend parts of its information-sharing with Washington.
Their concern: what Washington calls law enforcement now looks a lot like undeclared war. Since September, U.S. forces have destroyed 22 small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing about 83 people labeled “narco-terrorists.”
There have been no public indictments, no open evidence and no chance for the dead to answer the accusations. The moment that shook even seasoned officials came on 2 September.
A fast boat that left Venezuela was hit from the air; most on board died instantly. Two survivors clung to the wreckage. According to later accounts, a second strike was ordered to ensure there were no survivors at all.
For many military lawyers, targeting shipwreck survivors crosses a bright red legal line. Trump’s own language is blunt. He has said that those who bring drugs into the United States will be killed, and hinted that countries linked to the trade could face direct action.
A 2024 Supreme Court ruling that broadened immunity for presidential “official acts” deepens the unease among those who value restraint: it suggests a president can launch lethal missions abroad with even less fear of personal legal consequences.