America is finally starting to act like a sovereign nation again, and Senator Marco Rubio’s blunt warning to Europe is exactly the kind of backbone we need in Washington. Rubio made it clear that if allies try to hobble U.S. efforts to stop Venezuelan narco-traffickers from sending poison into our communities, Washington will not hesitate to defend its people and its borders.
For months the administration has carried out targeted strikes on vessels plying the Caribbean routes used to flood our cities with cocaine and other deadly drugs, and Rubio has been unapologetic about the use of force when other governments refuse to cooperate. Officials have openly described sinking suspected narco vessels, and Rubio has even celebrated the decisive action with language that makes clear this is a warning to traffickers and to anyone who would stand in the way.
Predictably, the usual chorus of international technocrats and left-leaning jurists cried foul, with French and EU leaders questioning the legality of strikes in international waters and warning about precedent. Those objections sound hollow to families in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and everywhere fentanyl finishes a life — legal niceties don’t stop bodies from piling up. Rubio rightly pushed back against European grandstanding and reminded the world that the primary duty of any government is the safety of its citizens.
Let’s be honest: Europe’s outrage is as much about lecturing America as it is about law. When countries won’t clamp down on the sources of trafficking or refuse to provide the cooperation necessary to stop criminal cartels, the United States has a right — even an obligation — to act decisively to protect its people. Rubio has spelled out a simple bargain: cooperate with U.S. counter-narcotics efforts, and you won’t find American forces turning lethal; obstruct us, and you’ll force a hard choice on our leaders.
Meanwhile, critics who suggest these operations are merely about show miss the point that cutting off maritime cash flows is aimed at choking the corrupt networks that fuel Maduro’s regime and the cartels tied to him. This campaign is designed to be surgical and to degrade the financial lifelines of narco-states, not to indulge moralizing lectures from capitals that have long ignored the migration and crime their policies helped export. If Europe wants to keep preaching, it should first clean house and stop subsidizing the chaos.
Patriots understand that leadership requires hard choices and, yes, sometimes hard power. Rubio’s warning was not bluster — it was a statement of principle: America puts its people first. If Europe wants to pick sides, let it be known where the moral and political leadership stands — with those who protect their citizens, not with those who prefer to lecture from a safe distance.
