U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio dismissed criticism from E.U. officials over the legality of military strikes against illicit drug traffickers in Caribbean international waters — emphasizing the United States is protecting its people from narco terrorists who would seek to harm them.
Rubio, speaking to reporters on Tuesday evening during a G7 Foreign Minister meeting in Niagara, Canada, said he does not think the European Union gets to determine on what international law is — nor do they get to determine how America defends its national security, pushing back from comments issued to Reuters by E.U. foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas on the sidelines of the meeting.
Kallas said that the U.S. military precision strikes against drug-laden vessels in the Caribbean “could be only justified as self-defense or by a UN Security Council resolution.”
“The United States is under attack from organized criminal narco-terrorists in our hemisphere, and the President is responding in the defense of our country,” Rubio stressed.
“I do find it interesting that all of these countries want us to send and supply, for example, nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles to defend Europe, but when the United States positions aircraft carriers in our hemisphere where we live, somehow that’s a problem,” he continued, reminding reporters that President Donald Trump has made it very clear his job is to protect America, “and that is what he’s doing in this operation.”
Rubio also dismissed a recent report from CNN claiming that the United Kingdom had allegedly suspended intelligence sharing with the U.S. over the military strikes against Caribbean drug traffickers.
Rubio told reporters that he saw the CNN report, describing it as a “false story. It’s a fake story.”
Breitbart News reported on Wednesday that the UK government refused to confirm or deny the report’s claims.
Since September, the United States military has conducted a series of precision strikes against drug-laden vessels in the Caribbean as part of President Trump’s ongoing efforts to curb the flow of U.S.-bound drugs entering the country.
Provisional data from the CDC indicates that approximately 73,690 deaths by drug overdose were reported in the 12-month period ending in April 2025.
“But again, going back, look, this is a counter-drug operation. The President’s ordered it in defense of our country. It continues. It’s ongoing. It can stop tomorrow if they start – stop sending drug boats,” Rubio said, reminding reporters that Venezuela’s Maduro regime is a narco-terrorist regime, whose dictator, Nicolás Maduro, was indicted by U.S. courts on multiple narco-terrorism charges.
“They [Maduro regime] allow drugs to be shipped. They openly cooperate with the shipping of these drugs towards the United States and Europe, by the way, so maybe they should be thanking us,” Rubio said.
“But the bottom line here is that the President is going to defend the national interests and the national security of the United States, which is under threat by these terrorist organizations,” he continued.
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