U.S. boat strikes face scrutiny as Trump trust trades millions

The U.S. military’s widening campaign against suspected drug-running boats has become a test of both law and restraint. What began in the Caribbean Sea in September 2025 expanded into the Eastern Pacific Ocean by October, and by May 2026 the death toll had climbed to 199, raising sharper questions about who was targeted, what rules governed the strikes, and whether civilians were put at unacceptable risk.

Those questions intensified after reporting on a Sept. 2, 2025 strike said survivors were allegedly hit again in a follow-up attack. At least 22 people were said to have survived an initial strike only to be hit again or die at sea during the broader campaign, a detail that has fueled concern about the use of force and the treatment of people who no longer posed an immediate threat. By Nov. 7, 2025, the campaign had already killed at least 70 people. A recent strike in the Caribbean killed three more and pushed the tally higher.

Congress has responded in starkly different ways. Democrats who attended classified briefings called the video and other material deeply disturbing and have pushed for unedited footage and more answers about the strikes. Some Republicans have defended the operations as justified. The Pentagon inspector general said it would assess whether U.S. Southern Command followed a six-part process for carrying out the airstrikes, putting the legal basis and chain of command under closer scrutiny. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Admiral Frank M. Bradley have become central figures in the debate over how the strikes were ordered and reviewed.

The same question of accountability is now shadowing Donald Trump’s finances. Recent ethics disclosures show that Trump’s trust actively traded individual stocks on a scale rarely seen for a sitting president in the modern era, with more than 3,600 securities trades in the first quarter of 2026 and other reporting putting the total above 5,200 trades in his second term. Estimates of the trades’ total value range from about $220 million to $750 million.

The holdings touched companies whose fortunes can move with federal policy, including Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Boeing, Intel and Warner Bros. Discovery. Critics and ethics experts say that creates a corruption risk when public statements or policy decisions could affect related holdings. The Trump Organization says outside firms handle the investments and that Trump has no control over the timing or selection of the transactions, but the scale of the trading has revived a basic question of public trust: what is the public being asked to believe, and what evidence is available to test it?