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The U.S. military has officially retired the joint task force aimed at targeting suspected drug-carrying vessels coming from Central and South America, replacing it with a new command structure meant to handle the issue across the Western Hemisphere.
Joint Task Force-Southern Spear was retired at midnight on Monday, putting in its place Joint Task Force-Western Hemisphere (JTF-WHEM), to “build on a legacy of excellence to secure the region and defeat all threats,” U.S. Southern Command announced in a post to X.
“This organization has executed all operations with precision, professionalism, and lethality,” Southcom head Gen. Francis L. Donovan said in a video accompanying the post.
Donovan added that JTF-WHEM “will be the action arm of Southern Command and of the nation” and that Southcom is “now changing the game.”
In a separate video posted to X, Donovan said the new task force was “organized to take the fight against all threats in the Western Hemisphere and specifically to our homeland along with our partners and America’s Counter Cartel Coalition,” and that 18 countries back the same mission.
The Pentagon has spent roughly $820 million over the course of Operation Southern Spear, which began nearly a year ago and has fired on at least 67 boats, killing at least 221 people.
The task force has been criticized by Democrats and human rights groups for failing to provide public proof that the targeted vessels were carrying drugs and for essentially executing people without any legal due process.
Donovan himself told the Senate Armed Services Committee in March that the strikes are “probably not the most effective tool” at addressing drugs flowing into the country and “aren’t the answer.”
He added that boat strikes are only one of the tools used to disrupt cartel networks, some of which are designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government.
And the Drug Enforcement Administration has found the deadly boat strikes have proven ineffective at reducing the amount of cocaine entering the United States, The Washington Post reported last week.
President Trump has repeatedly claimed, however, that the strikes have reduced maritime drug trafficking into the U.S. by 97 or 98 percent.
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