There have now been at least 19 attacks. The administration maintains that the president does not need congressional authorization.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on X that U.S. forces in the Caribbean carried out two more “lethal kinetic strikes” on Sunday, killing six people he described as “narco-terrorists.” There have now been approximately 19 such strikes against vessels the administration claims were transporting narcotics — the two on Sunday were in the Eastern Pacific, off the coasts of South and Central America.
The death toll from the attacks, which began on September 2, is believed to be at least 76.
Congress has not authorized the use of military force. President Trump claims the authority to employ it nonetheless, despite the absence of any military threat against the United States, on the novel theory that the narcotics trafficking is akin to forcible attacks against Americans — such as those carried out by al-Qaeda.
The administration has not identified any of those killed or produced proof that their vessels were transporting narcotics. Secretary Hegseth maintains that the boat operators were members of “designated terrorist organizations”; presumably, this refers to the Venezuelan criminal enterprise known as Tren de Aragua, as well as other drug cartels the Trump State Department designated as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) back in February.
In the most recent announcement, Hegseth did not claim the boats in question were in the act of transporting drugs to the United States; just that they were “known by our intelligence to be associated with illicit narcotics smuggling, and were transiting along a known narco-trafficking route in the Eastern Pacific.”
As I have explained, the definitions of terrorist activity in federal law do not include narcotics trafficking. Our criminal statutes regard drug importation and distribution as serious crimes that call for interdiction, arrest, prosecution, and lengthy prison sentences.
Moreover, the designation of foreign terrorist organizations pursuant to statute does not authorize the use of lethal kinetic force or other combat operations against them — it facilitates criminal prosecutions (mainly for providing material support to terrorists) and the seizure of assets. Notably, the State Department’s designation of TdA and other cartels does not allege that they engage in terrorist activity against the United States — as opposed to in their home countries, especially Venezuela and Mexico. (To be fair, the laws enabling the designation of FTOs permit the designation of entities that engage in terrorist activity even if that activity is not inflicted on Americans. In criminal charges brought by the Justice Department, TdA is alleged to have conspired to kill U.S. law enforcement agents overseas.)
Although it notified Congress that U.S. armed forces are engaged in an armed conflict against “nonstate actors,” the administration has since taken the position that the strikes, despite now having killed over six dozen people, do not rise to the level of “hostilities” because U.S. forces — which direct drone attacks remotely — are not in harm’s way. Consequently, the administration argues that it is not required to shut down the military mission under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which calls for withdrawal after 60 days in the absence of congressional authorization to continue. (I would repeat that the formidable size of the armada the president has ordered to the Caribbean, designed in part to repel any retaliatory attacks, defies the notion that our forces are not in harm’s way.)
Senate Republicans have blocked attempts by Democrats (with sparse Republican support) to end the use of force in the Caribbean unless Congress authorizes it.