WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military said Sunday that it blew up two boats accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing a total of five people and leaving one survivor, as the Trump administration pursues its campaign against alleged traffickers in Latin America while preparing a naval blockade of Iranian ports.
The attacks on Saturday bring the number of people who have been killed in boat strikes by the U.S. military to at least 168 since the Trump administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” in early September.
As with most of the military’s statements on the dozens of strikes in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean Sea, U.S. Southern Command said it targeted the alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes. The military did not provide evidence that the vessel was ferrying drugs. Videos posted on X showed small boats moving across the water before they each were engulfed in a bright explosion.
U.S. Southern Command stated on X that it notified the U.S. Coast Guard to activate the search-and-rescue system for the survivor. The Coast Guard confirmed it was coordinating the search and said updates would be provided when available.
President Donald Trump has said the U.S. is in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States and fatal overdoses claiming American lives. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing “narcoterrorists.”
Critics have questioned the overall legality of the boat strikes as well as their effectiveness, in part because the fentanyl behind many fatal overdoses is typically trafficked to the U.S. over land from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.
The boat strikes have continued in Latin America even as the U.S. military has focused on operations in the Middle East, where the U.S. was engaged in a war with Iran for several weeks.
Trump on Sunday said the U.S. Navy would begin a blockade of ships entering or leaving the Strait of Hormuz, after U.S.-Iran ceasefire talks in Pakistan ended without an agreement. Trump wants to weaken Iran’s key leverage in the war after demanding that it reopen the crucial waterway through which 20% of global oil normally passes. U.S. Central Command said the blockade would involve Iranian ports.
The Pentagon is seen from an airplane, Tuesday, April 7, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
ISLAMABAD (AP) — President Donald Trump said Sunday the U.S. Navy would swiftly begin a blockade of ships entering or leaving the strategic Strait of Hormuz, after U.S.-Iran ceasefire talks in Pakistan ended without an agreement.
U.S. Central Command announced the blockade would involve all Iranian ports, beginning on Monday at 10 a.m. EDT, or 5:30 p.m. in Iran, to be “enforced impartially against vessels of all nations.”
However, CENTCOM said it would still allow ships traveling between non-Iranian ports to transit the strait. Its announcement was a step down from the president’s earlier threat to blockade the entire strait, and allows traffic to flow in the crucial waterway as long as it avoids Iranian ports.
Trump wants to weaken Iran’s key leverage in the war after demanding that it reopen the strait to global traffic on the waterway where 20% of global oil transited before fighting began.
That traffic has been limited even in the days since the ceasefire. Marine trackers say over 40 commercial ships have crossed since the start of the ceasefire.
A U.S. blockade could further rattle global energy markets.
Oil prices rose in early market trading after the blockade announcement. The price of U.S. crude rose 8% to $104.24 a barrel, and Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose 7% to $102.29. Brent crude cost roughly $70 per barrel before the war in late February.
Later Sunday, Trump extended his feud over the war with Pope Leo XIV, lashing out in a TruthSocial post that called the Catholic leader “terrible on foreign policy.” The extraordinary broadside came after Leo denounced the war and demanded that political leaders stop and negotiate peace.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard later said the strait remained under Iran’s “full control” and was open for non-military vessels, but military ones would get a “forceful response,” two semi-official Iranian news agencies reported.
During the 21-hour talks this weekend in Pakistan, the U.S. military said two destroyers had transited the strait ahead of mine-clearing work, a first since the war began. Iran denied it.
Trump’s plan to use the Navy to block the strait is unrealistic and he will have to concede on some issues with Iran, said Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer in security studies at Kings College London. “There isn’t any tool in the toolbox in terms of the military lever that he could use to get his way,” Krieg said.
Trump said Tehran’s nuclear ambitions were at the core of the talks' failure. In comments to Fox News, he again threatened to strike civilian infrastructure.
Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who led Iran’s side in the talks, addressed Trump in a new statement on his return to Iran: “If you fight, we will fight.”
The face-to-face talks that ended early Sunday were the highest-level negotiations between the longtime rivals since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Neither indicated what will happen after the ceasefire expires on April 22.
“We need to see an affirmative commitment that they will not seek a nuclear weapon,” said Vice President JD Vance, leading the U.S. side.
Iranian negotiators could not agree to all U.S. “red lines,” said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to describe positions on the record. These included Iran never obtaining a nuclear weapon, ending uranium enrichment, dismantling major enrichment facilities and allowing retrieval of its highly enriched uranium, along with opening the Strait of Hormuz and ending funding for Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthi rebels.
Iranian officials said talks fell apart over two or three key issues, blaming what they called U.S. overreach. Qalibaf, who noted progress in negotiations, said it was time for the United States “to decide whether it can gain our trust or not.”
Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said his country will try to facilitate a new dialogue in the coming days. Iran said it was open to continuing dialogue, state-run IRNA news agency reported.
The European Union urged further diplomatic efforts. The foreign minister of Oman, located on the Strait of Hormuz's southern coast, called for parties to “make painful concessions." The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin “emphasized his readiness” to help bring about a diplomatic settlement in a call with Iran's president.
Iran’s nuclear program was at the center of tensions long before the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28. The fighting has killed at least 3,000 people in Iran, 2,055 in Lebanon, 23 in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states, and damaged infrastructure in half a dozen countries.
Tehran has long denied seeking nuclear weapons but insists on its right to a civilian nuclear program. The landmark 2015 nuclear deal, which Trump later pulled the U.S. out of, took well over a year of negotiations. Experts say Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium, though not weapons-grade, is only a short technical step away.
An Iranian diplomatic official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of closed-door talks, denied that negotiations had failed over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Inside Iran, there was new exhaustion and anger after months of unrest that began with nationwide protests against economic issues and then political ones, followed by weeks of sheltering from U.S. and Israeli bombardment.
“We have never sought war. But if they try to win what they failed to win on the battlefield through talks, that’s absolutely unacceptable,” Mohammad Bagher Karami said in Tehran.
Elsewhere in the region, airstrikes calmed over the past day except in Lebanon.
Iran’s 10-point proposal for the talks called for a halt to Israeli strikes on the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel has said the ceasefire did not apply there, but Iran and Pakistan said it did.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited parts of southern Lebanon under Israeli control on Sunday, for the first time since the current fighting. Attacks on southern Lebanon have intensified alongside the ground invasion renewed after Hezbollah launched rockets toward Israel in the war’s opening days.
Negotiations between Israel and Lebanon are expected to begin Tuesday in Washington after Israel’s surprise announcement authorizing talks despite their lack of official relations. Israel wants Lebanon to assume responsibility for disarming Hezbollah, but the militant group has survived efforts to curb its strength for decades.
The day the Iran ceasefire deal was announced, Israel pounded Beirut with airstrikes, killing more than 300 people, according to the Health Ministry.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported six people were killed Sunday in Maaroub village near the coastal city of Tyre.
Metz reported from Ramallah, West Bank, Boak from Miami and Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press writers E. Eduardo Castillo in Beijing; Collin Binkley and Ben Finley in Washington; Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut; Brian Melley in London; Ghaya Ben MBarek in Tunis; Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City and Mae Anderson in New York contributed to this report.
Policemen sit on their motorcycles in northern Tehran, Iran, Sunday, April 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Vice President JD Vance speaks during a news conference after meeting with representatives from Pakistan and Iran, Sunday, April 12, 2026, in Islamabad. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
Haifa Kenjo, who fled Israeli airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, holds her 15-day-old daughter Shiman inside the tent she uses as a shelter and where she gave birth to her in Beirut, Sunday, April 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Haifa Kenjo, who fled Israeli airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, holds her 15-day-old daughter Shiman inside the tent she uses as a shelter and where she gave birth to her in Beirut, Sunday, April 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Civilians and rescue workers search through rubble at the site of a building where efforts continue to recover the body of missing woman Zahraa Aboud, 26, after it was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on Wednesday, in central Beirut, Sunday, April 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A women sits at a cafe in northern Tehran, Iran, Sunday, April 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Women walk past a banner depicting the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the U.S. and Israel strikes on Feb. 28, in northern Tehran, Iran, Sunday, April 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Vice President JD Vance walking on the tarmac for a planned refueling stop in Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Sunday, April 12, 2026, after attending talks on Iran. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, pool)
Vice President JD Vance, left, talks to Pakistan's Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshall Asim Munir, right, and Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar, center, before boarding Air Force Two after attending talks on Iran in Islamabad, Pakistan, Sunday, April 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
In this photo released by the Pakistan Foreign Ministry, Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, center right, and Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, center left, are greeted by Pakistan Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, right, and Army Chief Field Marshal Gen. Asim Munir, left, upon their arrival at Nur Khan airbase in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Saturday, April 11, 2026. (Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs via AP)
In this photo released by the Pakistan Prime Minister Office, Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, left, meets with hand with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Saturday, April 11, 2026 (Pakistan Prime Minister Office via AP)
Vice President JD Vance, second left, shakes hands with Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar, as Pakistan's Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, left, Pakistan's Chief of Defence Forces Chief of Army Staff Field Marshall Asim Munir, third left, and Charge d'Affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad Natalie A. Baker, right, look on, as he prepares to board Air Force Two after attending talks on Iran in Islamabad, Pakistan, Sunday, April 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
Vice President JD Vance arrives for news conference after meeting with representatives from Pakistan and Iran, Sunday, April 12, 2026, in Islamabad, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
Vice President JD Vance, right, speaks during a news conference after meeting with representatives from Pakistan and Iran as Jared Kushner, left, and Steve Witkoff, Special Envoy for Peace Missions listen, on Sunday, April 12, 2026, in Islamabad, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
