U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio this week defended the Trump Administration’s shift in strategy in the Caribbean, saying that the Coast Guard’s long-time campaign of interdicting vessels smuggling drugs doesn’t work. “Interdictions alone are not effective,” Rubio said. “Interdictions have limited to no deterrent effect. These drug organizations, they’ve already baked in the fact they may lose 5% of their drug shipments. It doesn’t stop them from coming.”
This argument has been made by President Donald Trump for some weeks now. Last month, Trump claimed of the interdicting strategy, “We’ve been doing that for 30 years, and it’s been totally ineffective.” AP notes that Trump’s comments came around the same time that the U.S. Coast Guard announced it had set a record for cocaine seizures—225 metric tons over the previous year. That milestone, however, has not dissuaded Trump from upending decades of U.S. counternarcotics policy.
