The Trump administration has ramped up military operations across the Caribbean in recent weeks, including attacks on targets the U.S. alleges are trafficking drugs. In doing so, Washington is further blurring the line between law enforcement and military operations, utilizing questionable authorizations while providing few details on strikes targeting small vessels said to be from Venezuela. These actions raise serious questions about both the balance of power between U.S. branches of government and how the military adheres to transparency in its operations.
As of this writing, U.S. military personnel have targeted and destroyed at least three small vessels in the Caribbean that the administration claims were Venezuelan cartel-operated drug smuggling ships. Those strikes occurred on September 2,15, and a third unknown date, killing at least 17 people.
Officials have justified these decisions by citing Trump’s designation of various Latin American cartels and gangs as terrorist organizations, arguing that these groups have steadily “invaded” the United States for years to poison American society with drugs. These same officials argue that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is an illegitimate head of state who leads multiple gangs and cartels smuggling drugs into the country and targeting U.S. citizens.
This use of terror designations does more than merely aim to legitimize military buildup and action to the south of the United States. In designating the groups as terror organizations akin to Al-Qaeda, as some Trump officials argue, the administration likely aims to connect them to previously passed Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) declarations that have driven Washington’s so-called global “War on Terror.”
Thus, the strikes represent the latest iteration of that never-ending war, but in a new form. For decades, U.S. officials have used the 2001 AUMF against Al-Qaeda and “nations, organizations, or persons” who aided the group in the 9/11 attacks to expand military operations exponentially across the globe. Examples of this expansion include operations in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and wide swaths of Africa.
Those claims already stretched the limits of seriousness and legality, targeting splinter groups – at best – and other bad actors completely unassociated with Al Qaeda at worst. That dynamic, which has afforded undue warmaking powers within an already increasingly powerful executive branch, is now being cited as a thin legal justification for expanding counterterrorism operations into the Caribbean.
However, possibly acknowledging the fallacies of any potential argument for attaching the 2001 AUMF to Latin American cartels, the Trump administration has offered little legal reasoning for the strikes, going so far as to exclude senior House staffers from briefings on the strikes. Instead, it has committed to a public relations campaign, spinning the strikes as necessary to protect vague “U.S. interests” and deter “immediate threats” to the homeland. The finer details are left to the imagination.
What little information the public does have has come from government leaks or members of Congress. Earlier this month, U.S. Senator Rand Paul revealed that the September 2 operation was a drone strike, going so far as to have a bitter public feud with Vice President JD Vance on Twitter, calling the administration’s killing of non-combatants without trial “despicable and thoughtless.” In this regard, the strikes are likely to constitute extra-judicial killings.
In another instance, a Department of Defense official described the boat strikes as a criminal attack on civilians, arguing that, “The U.S. is now directly targeting civilians. Drug traffickers may be criminals, but they aren’t combatants.” This anonymous official went on to accuse the Trump administration of firing the military’s top lawyers to avoid legal scrutiny around strikes they knew were illegal.
That assessment would match other leaks, including information that the first boat targeted had altered its course, appearing to turn around before the strikes. If true, the additional information would strongly refute any argument that the boat, still hundreds or thousands of miles away from U.S. territory, posed an “immediate threat” to the country.
With more information likely to become available over time, concerns regarding the legality and necessity of these strikes contribute to serious public concern. If the president and his team are confident that these boats were operated by drug smugglers and contained drugs headed for U.S. territories, they should be able to prove such claims by declassifying intelligence for the American public. The ongoing lack of transparency suggests that the administration either does not know or, worse, is aware that their actions were illegal – possibly on the most basic grounds of who was targeted and why.
Regardless, any so-called strategy that utilizes military tools in clear law enforcement operations violates numerous domestic and international laws surrounding the legal use of military force. To further shroud the details around such operations, in what could be an effort to unilaterally bypass those laws, is an affront to the American people, who have vested warmaking powers to the Congress.
Even when the U.S. does undertake legally authorized military action, there are rules in place for a reason to protect all non-combatants – including criminals – to avoid real and avoidable harm to civilians. The Trump administration would be wise to adjust course if it hopes to succeed in any anti-cartel efforts in Latin America today.
Alexander Langlois is a Contributing Fellow at Defense Priorities.