Trump saves lives! Jared and Ivanka are doing what?
Trump saves lives! Trump saves lives!
Remember when the president said that for every boat blown up in the eastern Caribbean, 25,000 lives were saved? Well there have been at least 61 strikes on alleged drug boats since Trump’s shoot to kill order. That means that Trump (and the navy) have saved 1,525,000 lives! The CDC reports that on average around 70,000 people die from drug overdoses each year. So the president has saved on average 70,000 people a year for the next 21.7 years! Additionally, most of the drug running in the eastern Caribbean has been in cocaine and not fentanyl which comes across the Mexican border. Synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, accounts for approximately69% of all overdose deaths or 48,000 per year. This means that “only” 22,000 deaths were caused by cocaine. And since the narco boats are transporting cocaine, that means that the president has saved 22,000 a year for the next 60 years! Way to go Donald!
So the president slightly misspoke only he doesn’t realize it. Trump’s shoot to kill order started in September 2025. What was ironic is that drug deaths had already dropped significantly for the two years prior. The CDC reported that the drug overdose death rate decreased an astounding 26.2% from 2023 to 2024. The so-called experts offer only speculation as to the reasons why. However, the two year trend in the decline in deaths is predicted to continue – until it doesn’t.
But going back to the cocaine-related deaths, 22,000 total deaths are less than what the president says is saved by blowing up one narco-boat much less 61. Given that small number, economics tells us that the supply of drugs on the street must have not be adversely affected by the navy’s actions and that street prices should be about the same. On the other hand, if the navy’s interdiction caused a restriction in the supply, then street prices should have increased dramatically. Trump’s head of the Drug Enforcement Agency says that cocaine prices are increasing 30% – 45% per kilo in Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras and Central America. However, the Coast Guard commander in the region disagrees saying that there has not been “any noticeable difference” in the flow of cocaine in the region. Trump’s guy at DEA can’t be lying – could he?
As noted before, the drugs being run out of the eastern Caribbean typically do not go to US markets. Rather other Latin American countries, Asian and Europe are the markets. So there should be little impact on US market prices. A study of Chicago markets by a local television station, found that fentanyl use and overdoses have dropped. But cocaine usage is increasing. “Here in Chicago, as fentanyl use and overdoses plunge, a full-fledged cocaine comeback is well underway, with suburbancounties and northwest Indiana especially reporting cocaine and crack arrests, seizures and hospitalizations increasing.” Again The reason there is minimal impact on U.S. cocaine imports is because analysts say the cargo on these vessels isn’t headed to U.S. ports and transshipped to Chicago. Drugs on these boats are destined for everywhere else in the world, mostly Europe.
However, as recently as January 29th, the president said “With our action in the Gulf of America, that sounds so nice when I hear the Gulf of America, drugs entering our country by sea are down 97%. So when you see the boats being hit, those boats kill on average 25,000 people a boat.” Oops. Serious misspeak here. Trump obviously meant the eastern Caribbean and not the Gulf of Mexico, er America. Also, the 61 nacro boats carried a miniscule amount of drugs while the Coast Guard is the unit that seizes most of the drugs confiscated in the eastern Caribbean.
The New York Times says that blowing up those boats has not “slowed cocaine traffic to the US.” https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/29/world/americas/us-boat-strikes-cocaine-trump-south-america.html
Well, come now, it had to slow even if just a wee bit don’t you think? Regardless, pesky supply and demand would say that street prices should have increased but according to University of North Carolina drug researcher Nabaruun Dasgupta, “street prices for cocaine remain between $60 [and] $100 per gram in many U.S. cities, about where they were before the boat strikes began.”
So the president keeps repeating a fantasy seconded by his Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth who says “The boat strikes are a “highly effective” way to “stop lethal drugs.” But of course, Hegseth has little integrity and knows better than to contradict the president, else he will be back on Fox News. Whenever Hegseth speaks I am reminded of Etta James singing a Delbert McClinton song “Lie no better.”
“Makin’ me out your clown. Lookin’ for excuses that you know can’t be found. If you can’t lie no better. If you can’t lie no better. If you can’t lie no better than that you might as well tell the truth.”
Now Jared and Ivanka are doing what?
The Washington Examiner, normally a reliable Trump mouthpiece, has actually published an anti-Trump article! It is entitled “As Trump bomb drug cartels, Jared and Ivanka are happy to lauder hundreds of millions of dollars for them.”
What! The author, Tom Rogan says that the resort planned by Kushner’s Affinity Partners to develop Albania’s Sazan Island at a cost of $1.5 billion will ease money laundering for Albanian organized crime. Kushner received “strategic investor status” to develop the island which is the same status used by the drug cartels to establish front companies in Albania. The author states “Ask any objective expert on Albania, and they will tell you there is no question that a sizable portion of that $1.5 billion, and any future profits from the project, will end up with organized crime. The rot starts at the very top. As the Washington Examiner has previously reported, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has directly facilitated Sinaloa Cartel money launderer Luftar Hysa (the Trump administration has now sanctioned Hysa). And one key mechanism via which Sinaloa and Albania-based organized crime groups launder their billions of dollars in annual proceeds is via, you guessed it, luxury resorts.”
Rogan ends by saying: “The president should not-so-kindly tell his daughter and son-in-law to abandon their indirect effort to assist the world’s worst criminals in laundering hundreds of millions of dollars.”
I am sure that the president is in no way involved with money laundering money from the very cartels he has targeted – right?
haroldblackphd.com 