Did Biden agree with blowing up drug boats
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Executive summary
There is no contemporaneous reporting in the provided sources showing President Joe Biden agreeing to the U.S. military campaign that has been “blowing up” suspected drug-smuggling boats in 2025; the strikes and the administration defending them are attributed to President Donald Trump and his team [1] [2] [3]. The only direct citation of Biden in the material is a historical quote from 1989 where then‑Senator Joe Biden urged aggressive action against foreign drug lords — a rhetorical precedent, not a policy sign‑off on the 2025 strikes [4].
1. The policy in question: who ordered the boat strikes and who defended them
Reporting across mainstream outlets ties the wave of strikes on small vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific to the Trump administration’s campaign, with public statements, military releases and White House briefings defending the operations as part of an anti‑drug effort and claiming the targets were “narco‑terrorists” [1] [2] [5] [3].
2. Where Biden appears in the record: a 1989 rhetorical position, not a 2025 operational endorsement
One of the sources notes that Joe Biden, as a senator in 1989, used combative language — urging international action against drug lords and speaking of taking the fight “where they live” — which is cited by outlets recounting the history of political rhetoric on drugs but is not evidence that Biden approved or participated in the 2025 military strikes [4].
3. Legal and political pushback: how others framed the strikes (and why that matters to the question of Biden’s position)
Legal scholars, UN officials and regional leaders have criticized the 2025 strikes as potentially unlawful or extrajudicial, arguing the U.S. has not provided evidence about cargoes or combatant status and questioning the legal rationale invoked by the Trump team — a debate that centers on the administration that ordered the strikes, not on any contemporaneous Biden declaration [6] [5] [7].
4. Confusion, claims and counterclaims: the public narrative versus the documentary record
Multiple investigative and fact‑checking outlets found the Trump administration did not publicly provide detailed evidence tying specific boats to cartels or quantifying drugs destroyed, and critics called the strikes “sanctioned murder” or unlawful; those disputes are about the Trump administration’s actions and claims rather than statements from Biden agreeing to carry out such strikes [3] [6] [8].
5. Why people might conflate Biden’s name with the strikes
Two dynamics explain conflation: first, decades of bipartisan hardline rhetoric against narco‑traffickers — including Biden’s 1989 speeches — make aggressive language familiar across parties [4]; second, high‑profile partisan debates over the legality and morality of using military force to interdict drugs have led critics and supporters to invoke past statements by many figures when arguing contemporary policy, even if those figures are not the ones carrying it out [9] [10].
6. Limits of the available reporting and what cannot be concluded
The provided documents do not include any contemporaneous quote, memo or official action by President Biden in 2025 endorsing or approving the strikes described; therefore it cannot be asserted from these sources that Biden agreed to blowing up drug boats in 2025, and the sources do not permit ruling out separate private conversations or classified involvement outside the public record [1] [2] [3].