WAR ON DRUG CARTELSArmed Conflict? Trump’s Venezuela Boat Strikes Test U.S. Law
President Trump has declared that the United States is now engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels and has suggested further escalation. He has since signaled that his administration is preparing military options to target drug traffickers inside Venezuelan territory. These moves could mark a major shift in U.S. counternarcotics policy and raise legal and diplomatic questions by blurring the lines between law enforcement, interdiction, and war.
The U.S. military has struck at least four vessels that originated from Venezuela since the start of September, killing more than twenty people. President Donald Trump and his administration have alleged that these boats were carrying narcotics and were operated by Venezuelan cartels, like Tren de Aragua, which it designated a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) earlier this year. The White House has framed the operations as acts of national self-defense against “narco-terrorism” in the Caribbean Sea.
Trump has declared that the United States is now engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels and has suggested further escalation. He has since signaled that his administration is preparing military options to target drug traffickers inside Venezuelan territory, saying on September 30 that the United States would “look very seriously at cartels coming by land.” A White House notice sent to Congress in early October also reportedly referred to suspected drug smugglers as “unlawful combatants.”
These moves could mark a major shift in U.S. counternarcotics policy and raise legal and diplomatic questions by blurring the lines between law enforcement, interdiction, and war.
A New U.S.“Armed Conflict”—and Past Precedent
Trump reportedly determined and notified Congress that the U.S. government is involved in an “armed conflict”—i.e. a legal state of war— with drug cartels, marking the latest in an escalating series of legal moves by the administration. It previously designated some cartels as FTOs, unlocking certain criminal law, immigration, and sanctions authorities. It has invoked a 1798 law authorizing the swift removal from the United States of “enemy aliens,” and applied it to suspected Tren de Aragua members. It has used lethal force against alleged Tren de Aragua drug vessels in the Caribbean, claiming national self-defense.
One of the most significant implications of this declaration is that it purports to justify using lethal force against some unspecified categories of cartel members, essentially treating them as enemy soldiers. Because the Trump administration has provided so little information about the strikes and their legal justifications, however, it’s unclear how far the White House is stretching this theory.
