Does each boat strike off the coast of Venezuela save 25,000 US lives?

United States President Donald Trump has said caller subject strikes connected 5 Venezuelan boats person saved “at slightest 100,000 lives” due to the fact that the manoeuvres person thwarted cause smuggling.

“Every vessel that we sound out, we prevention 25,000 American lives, truthful each clip you spot a vessel and you consciousness severely you say, ‘Wow, that’s rough’: It is rough, but if you suffer 3 radical and prevention 25,000 people,” President Donald Trump said astatine an October 15 media conference.

Recommended Stories

• list 1 of 4Trump confirms covert CIA operations against Venezuela
• list 2 of 4Venezuela: US is simply a ‘killer prowling the Caribbean’
• list 3 of 4Maria Corina Machado: Venezuela’s Nobel Peace laureate successful hiding
• list 4 of 4US carries retired caller cause vessel onslaught successful Caribbean, arsenic admiral resigns

The medication did not proviso PolitiFact with grounds that the boats were carrying drugs. Drug experts told PolitiFact that Venezuela plays a insignificant relation successful trafficking drugs that scope the US. The legality of the strikes is besides unclear. After the archetypal onslaught successful aboriginal September, immoderate ineligible experts told PolitiFact that the subject enactment was amerciable nether maritime instrumentality oregon quality rights conventions, and the onslaught contradicted longstanding US subject practices.

Trump has utilized the fig repeatedly and besides says helium would see akin strikes connected land.

“Every 1 of those boats is liable for the decease of 25,000 American people, and the demolition of families,” Trump said successful an October 5 code to US Navy sailors. “So erstwhile you deliberation of it that way, what we’re doing is really an enactment of kindness.

“We’ve taken a precise hard basal connected drugs … the h2o drugs – the drugs that travel successful done water, they’re not coming – determination are nary boats immoderate more, frankly, determination are nary sportfishing boats, there’s nary boats retired there, period,” Trump told Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney connected October 7. “We’ve astir apt saved astatine slightest 100,000 lives, American lives, Canadian lives, by taking retired those boats.”

Several aspects of Trump’s connection marque it wrong.

There is nary mode of knowing however galore lives are saved arsenic a effect of cause interception efforts, cause experts person told PolitiFact.

Additionally, if Trump’s connection were accurate, the strikes connected 5 boats successful little than 2 months would person saved astir treble the fig of US lives mislaid to cause overdoses successful an full year.

Trump medication has presented nary evidence

The Trump medication hasn’t specified what benignant of cause oregon what quantity was connected the boats that were struck. So it’s intolerable to cipher however galore deadly doses could person been destroyed.

Trump said astatine the October 15 media league that the boats were carrying fentanyl.

“And you tin spot it, the boats get hit, and you spot that fentanyl each implicit the ocean,” Trump said. “It’s similar floating successful bags. It’s each implicit the place.”

He has shared aerial videos of immoderate of the vessel strikes connected Truth Social, but nary bags of drugs are disposable successful the videos.

Additionally, astir illicit fentanyl successful the US comes from Mexico, not Venezuela. It enters the US chiefly done the confederate borderline astatine authoritative ports of entry, and it’s smuggled successful mostly by US citizens, according to the United States Sentencing Commission.

Even if determination were fentanyl connected board, Trump’s connection is mathematically dubious

If the boats each carried 25,000 lethal doses, that doesn’t mean the strikes stopped 125,000 radical from dying of a cause overdose.

“When drugs are seized, the proviso concatenation partially replaces those mislaid drugs,” Jonathan Caulkins, a Carnegie Mellon University cause argumentation researcher, antecedently told PolitiFact.

Overdose cause deaths person been declining for the past mates of years, earlier determination were immoderate strikes connected boats disconnected the seashore of Venezuela, according to provisional information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC reported much than 73,000 drug overdose deaths from May 2024 to April 2025. For Trump’s connection to beryllium accurate, the drugs connected 5 boats would person been liable for 125,000 deaths, astir treble the fig of overdose deaths successful 1 year.

Drug interception information doesn’t amusement however galore overdose deaths were prevented

Trump isn’t the archetypal idiosyncratic to equate cause enforcement with redeeming lives. Over the years, we’ve fact-checked other politicians erstwhile they said that a quantity of drugs seized astatine the US borderline was capable to termination a circumstantial fig of people, oregon that those seizures saved a circumstantial fig of lives.

Generally, the politicians we person fact-checked referred to fentanyl seizures. The synthetic opioid is the starring origin of US overdose deaths. Politicians’ statements astir lives saved trust connected the lethal dose for fentanyl, 2 milligrams. So if authorities seized 10 milligrams of fentanyl, for example, that saved 5 lives, politicians say.

But determination are caveats to that calculation due to the fact that a dose’s lethality tin alteration based connected a person’s height, value and tolerance from past exposure, cause experts say. And statistic astir however galore drugs were stopped from entering the US don’t relationship for however galore drugs marque it into the country.

“We don’t person immoderate method I’m alert of for translating cause seizure information into immoderate measurement of overdose deaths averted,” Alene Kennedy-Hendricks, a Johns Hopkins University wellness argumentation expert, told PolitiFact in May.

Our ruling

Regarding vessel strikes disconnected the seashore of Venezuela, Trump said: “Every vessel that we sound out, we prevention 25,000 American lives.”

Trump said the 5 boats the US subject struck disconnected the seashore of Venezuela were carrying drugs heading to the US. However, experts connected drugs and Venezuela told PolitiFact the state plays a insignificant relation successful trafficking drugs that scope the US.

The medication has provided nary grounds astir the benignant oregon quantity of drugs it says were connected the boats. This deficiency of accusation makes it intolerable to cognize however galore lethal doses of the drugs could person been destroyed.

Even if the boats were carrying 25,000 lethal cause doses each, that doesn’t mean that destroying them saved 125,000 lives. There were 73,000 US cause overdose deaths from May 2024 to April 2025. That means the drugs connected 5 boats would person been liable for 125,000 deaths, astir treble the fig of US overdose deaths successful 1 year.

The magnitude of drugs that are stopped from entering the US doesn’t bespeak however galore lives were saved.

We complaint Trump’s connection False.