WATCH: Trump touts counter-narco operations during law enforcement roundtable

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(The Center Square) – In the midst of the U.S. counter-narcotics measures in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean and a major crime crackdown, President Donald Trump hosted a roundtable Thursday of top law enforcement officials from around the country.

Trump touted his administration’s crackdown on crime, including targeting drug cartels, a central theme of the roundtable.

“Under the Trump Administration, we’re finally treating the cartels as the core national security threat that they really are … past administrations have tried to mitigate this threat — and our objective is to eliminate it,” the president said during his remarks at the White House Thursday afternoon.

The roundtable comes as the administration continues to target boats suspected of transporting narcotics across the Caribbean and the Pacific.

The roundtable comes a week after FBI Director Kash Patel and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced 8,700 violent criminals had been arrested as part of Operation Summer Heat.

Trump and Patel touted the numbers as “historic,” claiming record numbers compared to prior administrations.

“Over the past few months, FBI offices in all 50 states made crushing violent crime a top enforcement priority, and that’s what they did – rounding up and arresting thousands of the most violent and dangerous criminals,” the president said during a news conference in the Oval Office.

Since Trump took office in January, the FBI has reported an 86% increase in arrests, with 28,649 arrests in 2024, compared to 15,388 in 2023, 15,771 in 2022, and 16,864 in 2021.

The administration reported that 152,119 lbs. of narcotics have been seized, including 17,011 lbs. of meth, 128,479 lbs. of cocaine, 1,131 lbs. of heroin, 5,101 lbs. of fentanyl powder, and 2,139,738 lbs. of fentanyl pills.

During Thursday’s roundtable, Patel highlighted drug seizures made by the president’s Homeland Security Task Forces.

“Those aren’t numbers, those are lives…enough fentanyl to kill over 200 million Americans gone—evaporated—off our streets permanently,” said Patel.