Every time the U.S. military blows up a suspected drug boat, President Donald Trump claims, it saves "25,000 American lives." As of late January, Trump's deadly campaign against cocaine couriers had destroyed 37 vessels in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, killing 126 people. According to Trump's math, he had already prevented 925,000 U.S. drug deaths—11 times the total recorded in 2024.
Although Trump has repeatedly touted that improbable estimate, the basis for it remains fuzzy. But it seems to derive from several empirical and logical errors.
