Secretary of State Marco Rubio ripped into European officials on Wednesday for criticizing U.S. strikes against drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.

Rubio hit back at critics of U.S. foreign policy regarding drug trafficking in the Western hemisphere while speaking to reporters at a G-7 gathering.

“I don’t think that the European Union gets to determine what international law is. What they certainly don’t get to determine is how the United States defends its national security,” said Rubio when asked about criticisms from some in the EU. “The United States is under attack from organized, criminal narcoterrorists in our hemisphere, and the president is responding in the defense of our country.”

The Secretary of State suggested that the United States’ European critics are hypocrites as they try to balance their desire for American aid and armaments to help Ukraine in its war against Russia with their more conservative attitudes regarding Latin American cartels and drug trafficking.

“I do find it interesting that all these countries want us to send and supply, for example, nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles to defend Europe, but when the United States positions aircraft carriers in our hemisphere, where we live, somehow that’s a problem?” Rubio asked rhetorically.

“I would say that the United States and this president has made very clear his job is to protect the United States from threats against the United States, and that is what he is doing in this operation,” he said.

The U.S. military has stationed several aircraft carriers with a fleet of warships and other war machinery in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Venezuela and in the Pacific Ocean to cut off water smuggling routes used by drug cartels. The United States has destroyed roughly 20 boats and submarines so far that the administration has said were being used to smuggle drugs such as fentanyl and cocaine in the United States.

Some officials of U.S. allies have expressed concern at the killings, claiming that the strikes violate “international law” and should be stopped. The United Kingdom has reportedly stopped sharing intelligence with the United States related to drug trafficking in South America to avoid involvement in the strikes.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot was more explicit in his criticism. He told reporters at the G-7 summit in Canada that the U.S. “military operations in the Caribbean region … violate international law” and could destabilize the region, according to The Washington Post.

Those who were killed after a UPS plane went down in flames in Louisville earlier this month were identified by authorities on Wednesday as the investigation into the crash continues.

Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, alongside the city’s coroner, identified each of the 14 victims during a press conference. Greenberg said that Louisville “feels the full weight of this unimaginable tragedy.” Eleven of the people who were killed in the crash were on the ground and happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when the UPS MD-11 plane went down after takeoff on November 4.

Among those killed was 47-year-old Louisnes Fedon and his 3-year-old granddaughter, Kimberly Asa, WLWT reported. The other victims were identified as Capt. Dana Diamond, 62, Capt. Richard Wartenberg, 57, First Officer Lee Truitt, 45, Angela Anderson, 45, Carlos Fernandez, 52, Trinadette “Trina” Chavez, 37, Tony Crain, 65, John Loucks, 52, John Spray, 45, Matthew Sweets, 37, Ella Petty Whorton, 31, Megan Washburn, 35.

“Each of these victims represents a life full of purpose, interrupted far too soon. And also, a life that will never fade because we’ll always remember them,” the mayor added.

Diamond, Wartenberg, and Truitt made up the flight crew of the MD-11, while everyone else who was killed in the crash was either a customer or employee of Grade A Auto Parts and Scrap Metal Recycling, according to the business’s owner, Sean Garber, NBC News reported. The business is just south of the runways at Louisville’s Muhammad Ali International Airport, where the UPS plane took off en route to Hawaii.

Video footage taken just before the crash showed the aircraft’s left wing burst into flames. The plane, which had around 50,000 gallons of fuel for the long trip to Hawaii, then exploded into a massive fireball when it crashed. National Transportation Safety Board Member Todd Inman said last week that the footage “shows the left engine detaching from the wing during the takeoff roll.”

Authorities still have not said what caused the crash, but UPS and FedEx said last week that they were grounding their fleets of MD-11 cargo planes “out of an abundance of caution.” NTSB anticipates issuing a preliminary investigation report into the crash by early December.

Crews in Louisville continue to work on the site of the crash and have stopped oil from the crash from seeping into the city’s groundwater.