GOP lawmaker calls for U.S. to destroy more drug cartels

By Brett Rowland
The Center Square

A Florida Republican said Wednesday the U.S. must bring the fight over illegal drugs to other cartels after the ouster of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

Rep. Carlos Giménez, R-Fla., said more must be done to stop the flow of drugs coming into the U.S.

“This is the beginning, this is not the end of this struggle because we have other cartels that we have to look at and destroy as they’ve had a hand in killing us here in America,” he said Wednesday at a news conference.

Drug overdose deaths are a leading cause of American deaths, but Venezuela is not a cocaine or opioid producing nation, according to experts and U.S. government reports. Most of the world’s cocaine supply comes from nearby Colombia. China and other Asian nations produce most of the precursor chemicals needed to make fentanyl, the potent opioid responsible for most U.S. overdose deaths in recent years.

Trump recently declared illicit fentanyl was a weapon of mass destruction. The president has promised to bring the fight to the cartels, but so far, his use of the military has been limited to destroying suspected drug boats off the coast of Venezuela.

The U.S. military, through Operation Southern Spear, has attacked at least 35 suspected drug boats since early September 2025. Those strikes have killed at least 115 people, according to figures reported by the Trump administration.

U.S. officials have not estimated how many drugs have been destroyed in the suspected boat strikes. However, in September 2025, agents from the Dominican Republic’s National Drug Control Directorate and the Dominican Republic Navy seized 377 packages of suspected cocaine about 80 nautical miles south of Beata Island, Pedernales province, after a U.S. air strike against the speedboat.

Global cocaine production reached an all-time high in 2025, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. While most cocaine comes from Colombia, Venezuela acts mainly as a transshipment point and does not produce cocaine or fentanyl. Both drugs remain leading causes of U.S. overdose deaths in 2024, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Illicit production in Colombia jumped by 50% last year.

Most fentanyl and its precursors are manufactured in Asian countries, including China. Mexican cartels transport these chemicals into the U.S. as fentanyl, a powerful opioid and the leading cause of U.S. overdose deaths in 2024, based on the latest CDC data. In 2024, the CDC estimated 48,422 fentanyl overdose deaths, compared to 22,174 from cocaine. The CDC notes that many deaths involve multiple drugs.

Republicans, with a few exceptions, have largely backed Trump’s use of military force to stop suspected drug boats.

Last month, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said drug smugglers off the coast of Venezuela pose a “clear and present danger” to the U.S. after a confidential briefing on Capitol Hill.

Johnson defended the military strikes against suspected drug traffickers. He said drug overdoses were responsible for more deaths than all recent wars.

“Over the last four years alone, America has lost more lives to drug overdoses and other drug related deaths than we did to the enemy actions in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq combined,” Johnson said. “This is a serious problem that a serious administration is addressing.”

Johnson compared Trump’s military actions to President Barack Obama’s strikes against overseas terrorists during his time in the White House. Johnson said that Obama carried out more than 500 drone strikes that killed more than 3,700 people, including American citizens, from 2009 to 2015.

Democrats, a few Republicans, and human rights groups have criticized the strikes.

Mexican cartels represent a bigger threat to the U.S., although Trump has been working with leaders from that country to address the issue.

Over the weekend, Trump said Washington may have to “do something” about cartels “running Mexico.”