"If you're working for a designated terrorist organization and you bring drugs to this country in a boat, we will find you and we will sink you. Let there be no doubt about it," Hegseth said during his keynote address at the Reagan National Defense Forum. "President Trump can and will take decisive military action as he sees fit to defend our nation's interests. Let no country on earth doubt that for a moment."
"Hegseth's remarks came after the Trump administration released its new national security strategy, one that paints European allies as weak and aims to reassert America's dominance in the Western Hemisphere. During the speech, Hegseth also discussed the need to check China's rise through strength instead of conflict. He repeated Trump's vow to resume nuclear testing on an equal basis as China and Russia - a goal that has alarmed many nuclear arms experts. China and Russia haven't conducted explosive tests"
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth defended U.S. strikes on alleged drug cartel boats and asserted that President Donald Trump has authority to take military action to defend national interests. The strikes have killed at least 87 people and face intense scrutiny over potential violations of international law and the legal justification for follow-up attacks after known survivors. Hegseth likened suspected smugglers to terrorists and framed the campaign as analogous to the post-9/11 war on terror, though experts note significant differences between cartel operations and terrorist organizations. The administration's new national security strategy emphasizes American dominance in the Western Hemisphere and calls for checking China's rise, including a repeated vow to resume nuclear testing on parity with China and Russia, a move that has alarmed arms experts.
Read at ABC7 Los Angeles
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