WASHINGTON, D.C. — The United States carried out more air and drone strikes overseas during the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term than during former President Joe Biden’s entire four-year presidency, according to new data published by a conflict-monitoring group.
From January 20, 2025, to January 5, 2026, the U.S. conducted 573 air and drone strikes abroad, rising to 658 when operations involving coalition partners are included, according to figures compiled by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. By comparison, the United States carried out 494 strikes and 694 coalition operations during Biden’s four years in office.
ACLED said the U.S. was involved in 1,008 foreign military events across at least nine countries over the past 12 months, resulting in an estimated 1,093 fatalities. During Biden’s presidency, the group recorded 1,648 such events, with an estimated 1,518 deaths.
According to a Newsweek report citing the data, the fatalities during Trump’s first year included at least 110 alleged drug traffickers killed by U.S. military operations in international waters in the Caribbean Sea and the Eastern Pacific. The number of deaths resulting from U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites in June has not been disclosed.
More than 80 percent of the strikes were directed at Yemen’s Houthi rebels between January and December, accounting for more than 530 deaths, ACLED said.
“Trump’s first year of foreign strikes shows a ‘strike first, ask questions later’ strategy,” the watchdog said in its analysis. “The numbers show that the Trump administration has leaned hard on rapid, high-impact military action as a first response, moving quickly and with fewer constraints than in previous years.”
Clionadh Raleigh, chief executive officer of ACLED, said the scale and pace of recent U.S. operations mark a significant shift.
“What we are seeing in U.S. foreign activity right now is striking not just for its speed, but for how openly it is challenging the idea that power should be constrained by shared rules,” Raleigh said.
He pointed to recent U.S. operations in countries such as Venezuela and Nigeria as examples of how quickly the approach can translate into the use of force, while warning that attention could next turn to places such as Greenland, Colombia, and Cuba.
Raleigh said such countries should be treated as independent states with their own political agency, rather than as targets for control, accusing the second Trump administration of framing them “as problems to be managed, and as places that also hold assets the U.S. would benefit from controlling, whether that’s oil, territory, or strategic position.” (Source: IANS)
