Donald Trump has cast himself as “the president of peace”. He presents himself as a leader who ends endless wars, brings troops home and rejects foreign entanglements. It is a beguiling conceit: in his world, war is defined only by mass landings and protracted occupations. Deaths from drones or missiles? They remain invisible footnotes in his narrative.
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However, peace is not absence; it is restraint. On that count, Trump fails entirely.
In recent weeks, the US has carried out multiple strikes on what the White House claims are smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, killing dozens.
These are not law enforcement operations but extrajudicial killings, acts of war, executed in international waters. “These strikes will continue, day after day. These are not simply drug runners – these are narco-terrorists bringing death and destruction to our cities,” War Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Meanwhile, Trump has branded Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro the head of a criminal cartel – without evidence – and suggested Maduro’s days as the country’s leader are numbered as US warships loiter off Venezuela’s coast, turning bluster into the shadow of confrontation.
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Last week, the pattern escalated further. The Pentagon announced strikes on four boats in the Eastern Pacific that resulted in 14 dead and one survivor. It was the deadliest single day yet in Trump’s maritime campaign and the first multiple-vessel attack disclosed in one day.