Hun­dreds of peo­ple have been killed in the year since the U.S. mil­i­tary be­gan bomb­ing boats it ac­cused of fer­ry­ing drugs off Latin Amer­i­ca’s Caribbean and Pa­cif­ic coasts. Now, the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion says it is seek­ing to ex­tend that lethal cam­paign to land, pur­su­ing deals that would put U.S. forces on the ground in al­lied na­tions across the re­gion.

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s de­fense sec­re­tary, Pe­te Hegseth, an­nounced last week dur­ing a vis­it to Pana­ma that Colom­bia, Guatemala and Hon­duras had agreed to al­low the U.S. to car­ry out joint mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions against crim­i­nal groups on their soil, fol­low­ing Ecuador, which launched sim­i­lar mis­sions with the U.S. in March. Guatemala, how­ev­er, has de­nied reach­ing such an agree­ment.

It will be “like you saw with the strikes on the drug boats,” Hegseth said dur­ing a mil­i­tary drill in the jun­gle in Pana­ma. “Same ef­fect on land. And so we’re work­ing with Ecuador. We’re work­ing with Colom­bia. We’re work­ing with part­ners to bring the fight to the (des­ig­nat­ed ter­ror­ist or­ga­ni­za­tions) on land.”