WaPo: Trump Admin’s Campaign of Striking Boats in the Caribbean and Pacific Has Not Reduced Amount of Cocaine Entering the U.S.

The Washington Post is reporting that the Trump administration’s campaign of blowing up boats in the Caribbean and Pacific has not reduced the amount of cocaine entering the United States. A previously unreported assessment by the Drug Enforcement Administration concludes that the attacks have failed to affect the supply or price of cocaine in the United States. The U.S. boat strikes have killed at least 221 people since September. No evidence has been made public linking the boats to drug traffickers. Last week, Democratic Congressmember Chuy García called for an independent investigation into the strikes, as well as the recent murder of Ecuadorian prosecutor Alexandra Bravo, who was fatally shot along with her sister by a hitman on a motorcycle last month in the city of Manta. Drop Site News reports that at the time of her killing, she was investigating U.S. strikes on three Ecuadorian boats in which 36 passengers survived. Bravo was investigating claims by the survivors that they had been abducted and then tortured by American gunmen in U.S. military uniforms aboard a U.S.-flagged patrol ship. www.democracynow.org