Vice President JD Vance has declared that an entire hemisphere belongs to America.
“We’ve been told for decades the U.S. military must go everywhere and do the impossible all over the world,” Vance wrote in a post on X on Tuesday. “But the red line for permanent Washington is using the military to destroy narco terrorists in our own hemisphere,” he added, defending the Trump administration’s military campaign against narco-traffickers, which has led to 22 alleged drug boats being struck in the Caribbean and claimed 83 lives.
The Western Hemisphere, which Vance appears to claim in his post as America’s “own,” encompasses all of North and South America and the surrounding waters. Under the Monroe Doctrine, a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy, independent nations within these continents should not be interfered with or colonized by outside powers.
Vance’s post responded to Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt, who backed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after a Washington Post report claimed he ordered a commander to “kill everybody” during a missile strike on a suspected drug boat on Sept. 2, which reportedly left survivors clinging to the burning deck before a second strike was ordered.
“He was and is a threat to permanent Washington’s status quo,” Schmitt wrote, claiming that criticism of Hegseth from both conservatives and Democrats, as well as any reports about him, are merely attempts to “undermine” the self-proclaimed ‘secretary of war.’
Hegseth has called the Post article “fake news” and later shifted blame for the Sept. 2 strikes, which legal experts say could have violated international and domestic law, onto Frank Mitchell Bradley, the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, calling him a “hero” after White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that Hegseth authorized Bradley to conduct the strikes.
The vice president’s support for the targeted missile strikes and defense of Hegseth is far from unprecedented.
In January, upon Hegseth’s swearing in as secretary of defense, Vance told host Margaret Brennan on CBS’ Face the Nation that he sees “Pete as a disrupter,” acknowledging that “a lot of people don’t like that disruption.”
Shortly after the first September strikes, Vance appeared unfazed when MAGA critic Brian Krassenstein called the killings of foreign citizens a “war crime,” responding bluntly: “I don’t give a s--t what you call it.”
The vice president’s claim on Tuesday that targeting alleged Venezuelan narco-terrorists in America’s “own” hemisphere should be welcomed by Washington comes as President Donald Trump, 79, has taken contrasting actions toward world leaders on drug-related issues.
In October, Trump accused Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro of being an “illegal drug leader” in a Truth Social rant. The president has also labeled Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as the head of the Cartel de los Soles drug cartel, which is now designated by the U.S. as a foreign terrorist organization, without presenting credible evidence.
At the same time, the president offered a full pardon to former Honduran leader Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted on drug trafficking and firearms charges.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Vance’s representatives to clarify the meaning of his post but received no immediate response.
