How many drone strikes did the US conduct worldwide during the Trump administration by year?
Executive summary
Public tallies of U.S. drone strikes during the Trump presidency diverge sharply by tracker and methodology, and official transparency was reduced after the administration revoked an Obama-era reporting requirement in 2019 [1] [2]. Independent monitoring groups produced very different year-by-year counts: some place a dramatic surge in 2017–2018 while other trackers show lower, regionally focused totals for later years — making a single, definitive global per‑year number impossible to confirm from the reporting provided [1] [3] [4].
1. How different trackers count and why they disagree
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (as cited by the BBC) reported that there were 2,243 drone strikes in the first two years of the Trump presidency — a figure presented as a global total and widely cited as evidence of a sharp increase early in the administration [1]. By contrast, a Daily Beast analysis reported via Truthout counted 238 drone and lethal strikes in 2017–2018, a much smaller figure that appears to reflect a narrower definition or a different set of confirmed incidents [3]. The divergence stems from methodological choices — what counts as a “drone strike” versus other airstrikes or raids, which countries and agencies are included, and the willingness of governments to disclose operations once areas are labeled “active hostilities” [5] [2].
2. The policy changes that complicate year-by-year accounting
Key policy moves undercut the ability to track strikes consistently: the Trump administration designated large parts of Yemen and Somalia as “areas of active hostilities,” which removed them from the Obama‑era outside‑war‑zone reporting requirement, and in March 2019 revoked the May 1 annual reporting requirement altogether — measures that reduced public reporting and increased reliance on independent trackers [2] [1]. Those changes mean official year-by-year public datasets that might have allowed straightforward counting were curtailed midway through Trump’s term [2] [1].
3. What region‑specific tracking shows for some years
Regional trackers and research groups document clear spikes in certain theaters: The Bureau (and other trackers) recorded that strikes in Somalia and Yemen rose substantially early in the Trump term, with one analysis noting 161 strikes in Yemen and Somalia in Trump’s first year alone and New America documenting 64 strikes in Somalia in 2019 and 51 in 2020 — figures that show concentrated surges rather than a uniform global pattern [6] [4]. The Long War Journal and others also reported a sharp increase in Yemen strikes when the administration designated new areas of operations [7].
4. Reconciling the headline numbers: ranges, not precise annual totals
Because the provided sources offer competing global totals and only partial year-by-year region breakdowns, the most accurate presentation is a range and an explanation: one prominent aggregate (Bureau of Investigative Journalism, cited by BBC) implies roughly 2,243 strikes across 2017–2018 (an average ~1,121 per year for those two years), while other analyses identify several‑hundred confirmed strikes over the same span [1] [3]. Independent trackers such as New America and the Long War Journal provide more granular counts for certain countries (e.g., Somalia: 64 in 2019, 51 in 2020), but do not deliver a single, globally summed annual total in the reporting provided [4] [7].
5. What this means for anyone seeking a definitive per‑year list
The available reporting demonstrates that no single authoritative, fully public dataset exists in the sources provided; official reporting was curtailed and independent trackers use different scopes and verification thresholds, producing contradictory year totals [2] [1] [5]. Therefore the correct answer — given these sources — is that year‑by‑year global totals for U.S. drone strikes during the Trump administration cannot be determined precisely from publicly available reporting cited here, but credible independent counts show a marked surge in 2017–2018 (with one tracker estimating ~2,243 strikes in those two years) and regional concentrations (notably Yemen and Somalia) in subsequent years [1] [6] [4].