At a cabinet meeting yesterday President Donald Trump defended US strikes against alleged drug boats off the coast of Venezuela and claimed that “every boat that you see get blown up, we save on average 25,000 lives”. He has made this claim in the past and the comments come after days of controversy after the White House confirmed that a second strike was carried out on a vessel, which reportedly killed two survivors clinging to it. After each strike, the Trump administration has released grainy video but little proof of what was on board making it impossible to independently assess how lethal the boat’s alleged cargo could be. According to the latest provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were 73,690 reported deaths from drug overdoses in the US between April 2023 and April 2024. What is your take on Trump’s claim ?
