U.S. forces carried out a lethal strike in the Eastern Pacific this month under Operation Southern Spear, taking out suspected narco-terrorists who were using the seas to flood America with drugs. This is not theatre — it was a precise, intelligence-driven operation that saved lives by disrupting violent trafficking networks and made our oceans safer for commercial shipping.
At the same time, the administration has moved aggressively against Venezuela’s shadow fleet, seizing the sanctioned supertanker Skipper on Dec. 10 and intercepting the Panamanian-flagged Centuries days later as part of a blockade of vessels tied to Maduro’s illicit oil trade. These actions are a long-overdue enforcement of American law and sanctions designed to choke off the cash that props up narco-regimes and their terrorist partners.
Predictably, Beijing threw a tantrum and condemned the Coast Guard’s interdictions as a “serious violation” of international law — a curious rebuke from the world’s biggest purchaser of Venezuelan crude and the architect of opaque shipping schemes. China’s posturing only exposes whose side they’re really on: not freedom or the rule of law, but kleptocratic regimes and the opaque traders who profit from them.
Meanwhile, President Trump unveiled his bold plan to rebuild American sea power by announcing a new class of “Trump-class” battleships and a larger “Golden Fleet,” promising to put lethality and American shipyards back to work. This isn’t vanity — it’s common-sense deterrence after decades of hollow rhetoric and underfunded fleets that left our sailors shortchanged and our rivals emboldened.
The Navy’s own Golden Fleet concept lays out a vision for a guided-missile battleship, the USS Defiant, armed with long-range strike systems, directed energy defenses, and the command capacity to project power anywhere in the world. That kind of capability — built in American yards by American workers — is exactly the kind of industrial revival conservatives have been demanding for years.
Make no mistake: these are not isolated moves but part of a coherent strategy to protect American interests from narcotics, rogue regimes, and the strategic ambitions of rivals. Working-class Americans tired of crime, open borders, and weak foreign policy should be cheering a president who secures our seas, backs our servicemen, and refuses to let corruption-rich governments profit at our expense.
If Democrats and their media allies want to howl about procedure, remind them that safety, sovereignty, and the rule of law matter more than their talking points. Patriots understand that peace is preserved through strength, that American crews deserve the best ships, and that our country will never be safe or prosperous if we cede the oceans to tyrants and criminal networks.
