US to launch ground operations against drug cartels, Trump announces

US President Donald Trump announced plans to intensify the fight against drug cartels in Latin America, including through ground operations.

During a Christmas greeting to American troops, Trump noted that the United States had reduced maritime drug trafficking from the region by 96% and said authorities are now focused on identifying those responsible for the remaining 4% of shipments, Caliber.Az reports, citing Fox 9.

The president emphasised that Washington’s next efforts will concentrate on targeting cartels on land.

The US Coast Guard and its partners have significantly stepped up maritime anti‑drug operations in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific, seizing vast quantities of cocaine and other narcotics worth hundreds of millions of dollars and detaining dozens of suspected traffickers during coordinated interdictions.

In 2025, the Coast Guard launched “Operation Pacific Viper,” a focused campaign with Navy support that has seized more than 150,000 pounds of cocaine from suspected smuggling vessels and disrupted numerous maritime trafficking routes.

In the summer of 2025, US cutters executed record‑breaking seizures, confiscating over 76,000 pounds of illicit narcotics, including about 61,740 pounds of cocaine, off South and Central American waters as part of coordinated multi‑vessel operations.

Beyond drug hauls, the US Coast Guard has conducted high‑profile interdictions of commercial tankers linked to Venezuelan oil transport under sanctions enforcement, boarding vessels in international waters amid heightened geopolitical tensions.

By Jeyhun Aghazada