FACT FOCUS: Trump says drug trafficking by sea is down 98.2%. The numbers don't show that

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that the flow of drugs into the U.S. by sea has been nearly eradicated under his administration.

He echoed the sentiment in a Truth Social post this week, writing that 98.2% of drugs smuggled in via such routes have “stopped."

Asked for the source of Trump's statistic, the White House directed The Associated Press to Customs and Border Protection data on drug seizures.

But experts say Trump is misrepresenting the CBP data and that the real number can't be known because it is impossible to determine how many drugs are not intercepted.

Here's a closer look at the facts.

TRUMP: “98.2% of Drugs coming into the U.S. by Ocean or Sea have STOPPED!”

THE FACTS: This is a misrepresentation of government data. Drug seizures made in the coastal/interior region, which includes open and coastal waters, were 98.2% lower in November 2025 than they were in July 2025, according to CBP. However, this is not a measure of all trafficked drugs and it is only a snapshot of two specific months, not an overall trend. It is impossible to know the quantity of drugs that enter the country undetected.

“Drug seizure data measure interdiction activity, not actual trafficking volume,” said Dessa Bergen-Cico, a professor of public health at Syracuse University who studies drug trafficking. “As drug policy researchers have noted, no one knows how much goes uncaught, and changes in seizure data are insufficient to make definitive claims about policy outcomes.”

Interdiction activity refers to the prevention of illicit drugs from reaching their destination.

In July 2025, CBP seized 223,923 pounds of cocaine, fentanyl, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines in open water or near coasts. That number fell to 4,463 pounds in November 2025, a difference of 98.2%.

Shifts in the amount of seized drugs can reflect changes in trafficking routes, enforcement strategy, agency jurisdiction, drug supply and demand, or a mixture of these factors, according to Bergen-Cico.

Drug seizures continued to fall in December 2025, with interceptions totaling 2,268 pounds. They began rising again in at the start of 2026. The latest available data, from March, shows that 28,500 pounds were seized that month.

But none of this reflects the total amount of drugs being trafficked — only the ones seized. What is unknown is the proportion of drugs that are intercepted or how the number of drugs that are not intercepted has changed.

Jonathan Caulkins, a professor of operations research and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University who studies drug policy, said the “ignorance of what are the correct figures for either of these important concepts” gives rise to incoherence and misinterpretation.

In his Truth Social post on Monday, Trump also warned that the U.S. would hit Iran's “fast attack ships” if they came anywhere close to vessels blockading Iranian shipping outside of the Strait of Hormuz. Trump and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Friday that the strait is fully open again, though Trump added that the blockade will continue until Iran reaches a deal with the U.S. to end the war. Abbas said the strait will remain open for the remaining period of a 10-day truce between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group.

Since September, the Trump administration has conducted a campaign of strikes on vessels it says are trafficking drugs in Latin American waters. At least 51 vessels have been attacked and 178 people killed, with the latest reported strike on Wednesday in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Additional strikes occurred on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday.

Cocaine is the most commonly seized drug in the coastal/interior region, according to Bergen-Cico, who noted that there is not a huge difference between the quantities intercepted under the Biden and Trump administrations. There was a 79% drop in cocaine seizures from August 2025 to January 2026, a decline she described as “driven primarily” by the Trump administration's boat strikes.

But again, this measures interdiction activity, not total trafficking volume. And it also only reflects the operations of one agency, CBP.

The drop in coast/interior drug seizures from financial years 2025 to 2026 “do not straightforwardly indicate reduced drug flow,” said Bergen-Cico. “Rather, they reflect a jurisdictional and operational transition in which traditional CBP maritime interdiction has been partially displaced by U.S. military and Coast Guard operations.”

Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.