DEA Assessment Finds the Boat Strikes Have Not Reduced Cocaine Supply or Price, The Washington Post Reports

A previously unreported Drug Enforcement Administration assessment reviewed by The Washington Post found that U.S. military strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats have not affected the supply or price of cocaine in the United States, according to reporting published July 27, 2026. DEA analysts wrote that preliminary findings two months into the campaign had shown disrupted routes and rising prices, but that "smugglers have adapted to the intensified pressure" and "price and availability have not been noticeably affected." Traffickers have shifted to larger vessels hugging coastlines and to aircraft flying from airstrips near the Colombian-Venezuelan border, the assessment says. In a closed-door briefing last month, Pentagon officials told senators that seized cocaine showed high purity. The Post reports at least 67 boats attacked and at least 221 people killed since September 2025.

The findings sit against repeated public claims by the president that the strikes cut maritime drug trafficking by 97 or 98 percent — a figure the Post counts him as using at least 15 times. A DEA official also told the Post that informants are being pulled back from the field to keep them from being killed in U.S. strikes, complicating conventional investigations.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said trafficking organizations have "continually adapted their tactics for decades" and that this "does not indicate the pressure is ineffective." A White House spokeswoman called any suggestion the effort has failed "laughable." The DEA declined to comment.