Opponents of Trump’s airstrikes on Venezuelan speedboats allegedly involved in the drug trade have cited legal objections, both within US and international law.

President Donald Trump’s recent missile strikes on small vessels off Venezuela’s coast, all allegedly conducted to interdict “narcoterrorists” trafficking drugs, relies upon a legal thesis that is extremely thin. The Trump administration has framed the campaign as a form of low-level war, treating the United States as being in a “non-international armed conflict” with designated narcotics networks—with officials invoking the law of armed conflict and self-defense to justify the use of lethal force in international waters. But those assertions strain domestic and international law in ways that should alarm the general public. 

The Difference Between Law Enforcement and Armed Conflict

The law governing the use of force distinguishes between criminal law enforcement and armed conflict. Drug trafficking—although it is violent, pernicious, and indeed society-eroding—is merely a criminal act, rather than an act of war. And international law, including the UN Charter, permits self-defense when a state suffers an armed attack.

But cross-border crimes like drug trafficking do not historically qualify as armed attacks. To invoke Article 51, or other wartime authorities, the US would need to demonstrate that the narcoterrorists in question are organized armed forces engaging in sustained hostilities against the United States, or that their actions amount to an imminent armed attack. Nothing so far indicates that the narcoterrorists in question have reached such a threshold. 

The President’s War Powers Have Vastly Expanded

The Trump administration’s justifications for launching repeated kinetic strikes against small vessels in international waters appear to be designed to expand presidential authority, an effort to allow the executive to treat suspected traffickers as enemy combatants, employing military rather than law enforcement tools.

While the efforts are morally concerning and legally shaky, they are hardly isolated. Trump’s recent actions follow a through-line that began after September 11, 2001, when the Bush administration initiated a “war on terror” in hyper-expansive, borderless terms—giving presidents the latitude to target non-state actors anywhere. The Obama administration continued with the Bush administration’s initiative, institutionalizing the logic through an expansive and surreptitious drone campaign, framing scores of targeting killings as lawful self-defense under the same broad Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) that Congress had passed against al-Qaeda. Trump, during his first term, and Biden continued this trend, and Trump’s current behavior extends the precedent further, rebranding criminal organizations as combatants, normalizing the use of wartime powers in peacetime contexts.

Congress Has an Oversight Role in Armed Conflict

Domestically, the Constitution vests Congress, rather than the president, with the power to declare war. The War Powers Resolution requires reporting and authorization for sustained hostilities. Congress has issued no such authorization for the ongoing strikes.  

In short, Trump’s current behavior is inconsistent with rhetoric he employed on the campaign trail, where he consistently framed US interventionism as costly and unnecessary and at odds with his “America First” rationale. Trump promised a leaner posture abroad, while prioritizing domestic issues above international ones. Now, however, 10 months into a second term, Trump is using kinetic strikes against small vessels in the Caribbean Sea, building up a naval presence in the region, authorizing CIA action within Venezuela, and increasingly calling for the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro—all of which is to say that campaign promises of restraint have given way to a far more muscular use of force in the Western hemisphere. 

Perhaps the most concerning aspect of the whole episode is the prospective illegality. If the administration believes the drug trade constitutes an armed threat, then the administration should seek the legal authorization required to take lives in international waters, rather than simply doing it first and resolving the legal questions later. 

About the Author: Harrison Kass

Harrison Kass is a senior defense and national security writer at The National Interest. Kass is an attorney and former political candidate who joined the US Air Force as a pilot trainee before being medically discharged. He focuses on military strategy, aerospace, and global security affairs. He holds a JD from the University of Oregon and a master’s in Global Journalism and International Relations from NYU. 

Image: Shutterstock / RRodriguez.

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