Rubio says US is working with allies to counter drugs but will ‘still blow up ships if need be’

U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio gave new clar­i­ty Wednes­day on the U.S. ap­proach to­ward com­bat­ing drug traf­fick­ing in Latin Amer­i­can wa­ters, say­ing the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion is now fo­cused on work­ing with al­lied coun­tries and align­ing with their laws but in­sist­ing that the mil­i­tary will “still blow up ships if need be.”

The pub­lic ac­knowl­edg­ment of a shift in U.S. strat­e­gy comes a year af­ter Wash­ing­ton be­gan a cam­paign of uni­lat­er­al dead­ly strikes against those it calls “nar­coter­ror­ists” op­er­at­ing boats in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters. The lat­est at­tack last month brought the num­ber of peo­ple who have been killed in boat strikes by the U.S. mil­i­tary to at least 227 in 68 strikes.

Now, the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion is fo­cused on build­ing agree­ments for joint op­er­a­tions with al­lied coun­tries in the re­gion, in­clud­ing Colom­bia and Ecuador, that com­ply with their laws in their wa­ters.