United States President Donald Trump has stated latest navy strikes on 5 Venezuelan boats have saved “at the very least 100,000 lives” as a result of the manoeuvres have thwarted drug smuggling.
“Each boat that we knock out, we save 25,000 American lives, so each time you see a ship and you are feeling badly you say, ‘Wow, that’s tough’: It’s tough, however should you lose three folks and save 25,000 folks,” President Donald Trump stated at an October 15 media convention.
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The administration didn’t provide PolitiFact with proof that the boats have been carrying drugs. Drug consultants informed PolitiFact that Venezuela performs a minor function in trafficking medicine that attain the US. The legality of the strikes can be unclear. After the primary assault in early September, some authorized consultants informed PolitiFact that the navy motion was unlawful underneath maritime legislation or human rights conventions, and the assault contradicted longstanding US navy practices.
Trump has used the determine repeatedly and likewise says he would think about related strikes on land.
“Each a type of boats is answerable for the loss of life of 25,000 American folks, and the destruction of households,” Trump stated in an October 5 speech to US Navy sailors. “So if you consider it that means, what we’re doing is definitely an act of kindness.
“We’ve taken a really onerous stand on medicine … the water medicine – the medicine that are available by way of water, they’re not coming – there aren’t any boats any extra, frankly, there aren’t any fishing boats, there’s no boats on the market, interval,” Trump informed Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on October 7. “We’ve most likely saved at the very least 100,000 lives, American lives, Canadian lives, by taking out these boats.”
A number of elements of Trump’s assertion make it improper.
There isn’t any means of figuring out what number of lives are saved on account of drug interception efforts, drug consultants have informed PolitiFact.
Moreover, if Trump’s assertion have been correct, the strikes on 5 boats in lower than two months would have saved almost double the variety of US lives misplaced to drug overdoses in a whole yr.
Trump administration has introduced no proof
The Trump administration hasn’t specified what sort of drug or what amount was on the boats that have been struck. So it’s not possible to calculate what number of lethal doses may have been destroyed.
Trump stated on the October 15 media convention that the boats have been carrying fentanyl.
“And you may see it, the boats get hit, and also you see that fentanyl all around the ocean,” Trump stated. “It’s like floating in baggage. It’s in all places.”
He has shared aerial videos of a few of the boat strikes on Reality Social, however no baggage of medication are seen within the movies.
Moreover, most illicit fentanyl within the US comes from Mexico, not Venezuela. It enters the US primarily by way of the southern border at official ports of entry, and it’s smuggled in largely by US residents, in response to the USA Sentencing Fee.
Even when there have been fentanyl on board, Trump’s assertion is mathematically doubtful
If the boats every carried 25,000 deadly doses, that doesn’t imply the strikes stopped 125,000 folks from dying of a drug overdose.
“When medicine are seized, the provision chain partially replaces these misplaced medicine,” Jonathan Caulkins, a Carnegie Mellon College drug coverage researcher, beforehand informed PolitiFact.
Overdose drug deaths have been declining for the previous couple of years, earlier than there have been any strikes on boats off the coast of Venezuela, in response to provisional knowledge from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
The CDC reported greater than 73,000 drug overdose deaths from Might 2024 to April 2025. For Trump’s assertion to be correct, the medicine on 5 boats would have been answerable for 125,000 deaths, almost double the variety of overdose deaths in a single yr.
Drug interception knowledge doesn’t present what number of overdose deaths have been prevented
Trump isn’t the primary individual to equate drug enforcement with saving lives. Through the years, we’ve fact-checked different politicians once they stated {that a} amount of medication seized on the US border was sufficient to kill a selected variety of folks, or that these seizures saved a selected variety of lives.
Usually, the politicians we’ve fact-checked referred to fentanyl seizures. The artificial opioid is the main reason for US overdose deaths. Politicians’ statements about lives saved depend on the deadly dose for fentanyl, two milligrams. So if authorities seized 10 milligrams of fentanyl, for instance, that saved 5 lives, politicians say.
However there are caveats to that calculation as a result of a dose’s lethality can fluctuate primarily based on an individual’s top, weight and tolerance from previous publicity, drug consultants say. And statistics about what number of medicine have been stopped from getting into the US don’t account for what number of medicine make it into the nation.
“We don’t have any methodology I’m conscious of for translating drug seizure knowledge into any measure of overdose deaths averted,” Alene Kennedy-Hendricks, a Johns Hopkins College well being coverage professional, informed PolitiFact in Might.
Our ruling
Relating to boat strikes off the coast of Venezuela, Trump stated: “Each boat that we knock out, we save 25,000 American lives.”
Trump stated the 5 boats the US navy struck off the coast of Venezuela have been carrying medicine heading to the US. Nevertheless, consultants on medicine and Venezuela informed PolitiFact the nation performs a minor function in trafficking medicine that attain the US.
The administration has offered no proof in regards to the sort or amount of medication it says have been on the boats. This lack of knowledge makes it not possible to know what number of deadly doses of the medicine may have been destroyed.
Even when the boats have been carrying 25,000 deadly drug doses every, that doesn’t imply that destroying them saved 125,000 lives. There have been 73,000 US drug overdose deaths from Might 2024 to April 2025. Which means the medicine on 5 boats would have been answerable for 125,000 deaths, almost double the variety of US overdose deaths in a single yr.
The quantity of medication which are stopped from getting into the US doesn’t point out what number of lives have been saved.
We charge Trump’s assertion False.
