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Asked about the two survivors by reporters at the White House on Friday, Trump said that they had been aboard "a drug-carrying submarine built specifically for the transportation of massive amounts of drugs". "This was not an innocent group of people," he added. "I don't know too many people who have submarines, and that was an attack on a drug-carrying, loaded submarine." The US president alleged in a post on his Truth Social account that the vessel had been carrying "mostly fentanyl, and other illegal narcotics". Experts on drug trafficking have pointed out that fentanyl enters the US predominantly from Mexico and not from countries bordering the southern Caribbean, where the US deployment is taking place. Around 10,000 US troops, as well as dozens of military aircraft and ships, have been deployed to the Caribbean as part of the operation. Trump also posted a 30-second video showing the semi-submersible in choppy waters before it was hit by at least one projectile. The two men were rescued by a US military helicopter and then taken onto a US warship in the Caribbean, before being repatriated. According to an unnamed official quoted by the Associated Press, the Ecuadorean survivor was in good health. AP also reported that it had seen a document from the Ecuadorean government which outlined that "there is no evidence or indication that could lead prosecutors or judicial authorities to be certain" that Tufiño had violated any current laws in Ecuadorean territory.
