“Drug overdose deaths have plummeted under my administration thanks to the strikes on Venezuelan boats.”

Multiple speeches following the September 2025 boat strikes and January 2026 Venezuela operation

The decline in overdose deaths began more than two years before the first boat strike. CDC data show U.S. drug overdose deaths peaked in mid-2023 and have fallen ever since, from a high near 111,000 to roughly 70,000 for the 12 months ending December 2025. The strikes on Venezuelan boats did not begin until September 2025, after the overwhelming majority of the decline had already happened. Trump is taking credit for a trend that started under the Biden administration.

The strikes could not be driving down U.S. overdose deaths because Venezuela is not a meaningful source of the drug killing Americans. The deadly drug is fentanyl, and a Center for Strategic and International Studies analyst put it bluntly: 'Fentanyl comes from Mexico. What's coming out of Venezuela is cocaine.' Illicit fentanyl is manufactured in Mexico from Chinese precursor chemicals and enters mainly through official southern-border ports of entry. Trafficking maps show no fentanyl production in Venezuela. Trump's related 'lives saved' math is invented. He claimed each destroyed boat saves 25,000 American lives, but a Johns Hopkins health-policy expert told PolitiFact there is no recognized method for translating drug seizures into overdose deaths averted, and seized supply is partly replaced by traffickers. The boats interdicted in the Caribbean mostly carry cocaine bound for Europe, not fentanyl bound for the U.S.

"Fentanyl comes from Mexico. What's coming out of Venezuela is cocaine." — Center for Strategic and International Studies senior fellow (via NBC News)