It started with deadly missile strikes on boats at sea, then moved on to a military raid on Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president, whom the United States government has accused of overseeing a vast narcotics trafficking operation. The way US President Donald Trump apparently sees it, the main source of violence in the Western Hemisphere is the flow of narcotics from Venezuela and the Caribbean islands into the United States. The Trump administration has offered little evidence that the people its strikes have killed at sea were, in fact, drug smugglers. Meanwhile, the president and those around him have ignored the well-documented violence that flows in the other direction: the American guns that are illegally trafficked south and drive up homicide rates in countries across Latin America and the Caribbean.
This dissonance has had lethal consequences — in fact, it has killed more than 100 civilians in the Caribbean islands, though many families cannot even confirm whether their loved ones are among the dead. Take Alejandro Carranza, a Colombian fisherman and father of five who reportedly went to work on Sept. 14 and never returned home. It was the same day the US military launched its second missile strike on fishing vessels traveling from the Venezuelan coast through the Caribbean Sea. Carranza’s niece told the BBC they “don’t have any proof” he was killed in the strike, though they suspect he was among the early victims of the Trump administration’s bombing campaign. According to Al Jazeera, the family has since filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that accuses the US of “violating Alejandro Carranza’s rights to life and due process.”
While Carranza’s fate is still unknown, at least 115 people are confirmed dead as a result of the ongoing US bombing campaign known as Operation Southern Spear. This culminated in a dramatic turn of events shortly after the New Year, when US forces shocked the world by bombing Venezuelan states Caracas, Miranda, Aragua, and La Guaira, killing several dozen Venezuelans and others in the process, and capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife on charges of “narcoterrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation, and weapons offenses.” Maduro, who denies the charges, insists he is a “prisoner of war.”
The US military’s campaign to wipe out the alleged Venezuelan drug boats began on Sept. 1 and has continued since. In Washington, officials from the Pentagon insist these strikes are lawful as the boats are traveling along known drug smuggling routes. Trump has repeatedly told American and international media the US is engaged in “armed conflict” with Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal organization from Venezuela, and other so-called “narcoterrorists” from the Caribbean and Latin America. Trump and his administration have made the bizarre claim that Venezuelan ships are as perpetrators of a level of violence comparable to that of Al-Qaeda. Maduro denies these allegations, accusing the Trump administration of trying to unseat him in a regime-change campaign. This very likely isn’t too far from reality, as Trump has repeatedly told reporters that the United States will “run” Venezuela until further notice, causing mixed reactions from Americans and Venezuelans alike.
The president’s initial decision to attack these ships stirred up a major political controversy. His decision to order these strikes without first seeking Congressional approval has led many, including legal experts and politicians, to question the operation’s legality. Senators Ruben Gallego and Rand Paul, for instance, have condemned the strikes as “sanctioned murder” and “extrajudicial killings.”
For their part, Trump and Hegseth argue the US is acting in self defense under Articles I and II of the Constitution, and US Title 10. This interpretation theoretically entitles Trump to act without Congressional approval, something the commander-in-chief is allowed to do in response to armed attacks on the US, though not on the basis of suspicion alone. While there is certainly a history of drug smuggling from the Caribbean into the US, the Trump administration still hasn’t released any evidence confirming these boats were traveling to the US with the aim of trafficking narcotics. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is now facing significant criticism and public outrage for killing two survivors in the Sept. 2 missile attack. According to Admiral Frank Bradley, who was heavily involved in the strike, the 11 crew members had “loose cartel ties,” but he offered no further details.
This use of lethal force with dubious evidence stands in stark contrast to Trump’s quieter response to another illicit market connecting the US to the Caribbean — one that flows in the opposite direction, where the evidence is abundant and the violence is measurable: illegal firearm trafficking.
Despite the 2006 embargo on all commercial arms sales to Venezuela, guns continue to be trafficked illegally through southern Florida, Georgia, and Texas into the hands of criminal enterprises and gangs operating across Caribbean islands and the Venezuelan coast. Criminal gangs, including Tren de Aragua in Venezuela, The Revolutionary Forces of the G9 Family and Allies, and 400 Mawozo in Haiti, are just a few examples of organized criminal groups who are heavily armed with illegally trafficked American guns. According to a report the US Government Accountability Office released in October 2024, the GAO traced nearly 7,400 guns recovered after crimes in the Caribbean Islands between 2018 and 2022 — and found that “about three-fourths were sourced from the US.”
This problem is getting worse, not better. Law enforcement continued to expose gun trafficking operations throughout 2024. On May 3 that year, the US Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of Florida put out a press release announcing the indictment of 13 defendants who were charged with illegal arms trafficking. According to the press release, seven of these defendants were directly or indirectly involved in attempts to traffic guns into Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Saint Martin, Venezuela, and Colombia.
This illegal market fuels violence across the Caribbean and Latin America. According to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, Caribbean nations like Trinidad, Jamaica, Haiti, and Tobago have been home to some of the highest murder rates in the world in recent years. These statistics become even grimmer when you consider that numerous security and intelligence units operating between the US and Caribbean already address illegal gun trafficking. The Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI), the Caribbean Crime Gun Intelligence Unit, and Operation Hammerhead operate between the US State Department and law enforcement agencies in the Caribbean to implement security cooperation and stop gun trafficking.
There’s also an argument that stronger gun control in the US could help mitigate this issue. Florida is a major gun trafficking hub due to its proximity to the Caribbean, and its relatively relaxed gun ownership laws. Enforcing stricter limits on multiple sale transactions to offset straw purchases, and maintaining firearm purchase records beyond what’s required to be submitted to the Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives Agency could help prevent trafficking before it starts.
This bombing campaign and Maduro’s capture aren’t incompetence or a mistake — they are choices made by the US military under Trump’s leadership about whose violence deserves a response. Alejandro Carranza went to work and never came home, just like Robert Morales and Tiru Chabba, who were killed on April 17 in a mass shooting at Florida State University with a legally purchased firearm. Trump claims to be safeguarding the US from Latin American violence while American guns arm the criminals he’s purportedly fighting. Make no mistake — this is selective enforcement, not protection.
