President Donald Trump is next looking "at land" in Latin America, after the U.S. military has conducted at least five fatal strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean since September.
"We are certainly looking at land now because we've got the sea very well under control," Trump told reporters Wednesday. "We've had a couple of days where there isn't a boat to be found, and I view that as a good thing, not a bad thing."
Trump said he wasn't interested in having the Coast Guard simply stop the alleged drugs boats because "we've been doing that for 30 years, and it has been totally ineffective."
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"They have faster boats. Some of these boats are seriously, I mean, they're world class speedboats," Trump said. "But they're not faster than missiles. But we've been trying to do that for years."
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital for more details on the nature of the land operations Trump is considering.
The Trump administration has adopted a hard-line approach to address the flow of drugs into the U.S., and designated drug cartel groups like Tren de Aragua, Sinaloa and others as foreign terrorist organizations in February.
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Additionally, the White House sent lawmakers a memo Sept. 30 informing them that the U.S. is now participating in a "non-international armed conflict" with drug smugglers.
However, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have voiced concerns over the legality of the strikes, and Sens. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., filed a war powers resolution in September to bar U.S. forces from engaging in "hostilities" against certain non-state organizations.
Although the resolution failed in the Senate by a 51-48 margin Oct. 8, Republicans Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted alongside their Democratic counterparts for the resolution.
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When asked about lawmakers' concerns about the legality of the strikes, Trump dismissed them and said that lawmakers were informed the vessels carried drugs.
"But they are given information that they were loaded up with drugs," Trump said. "And that's the thing that matters. When they're loaded up with drugs, they're fair game. And every one of those ships were, and they're not ships, they're boats."
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
