GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY
After Bombing Boats, Trump Tells Congress US Is in ‘Armed Conflict’ With Drug Cartels
“This is not stretching the envelope,” said a retired judge advocate general lawyer. “This is shredding it. This is tearing it apart.”
This image was posted on social media by President Donald Trump and shows a boat that was allegedly transporting cocaine off the coast of Venezuela when it was destroyed by US forces on September 2, 2025.
(Photo: President Donald Trump/Truth Social)
Oct 02, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
President Donald Trump’s administration claimed that the United States is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels in a confidential notice to Congress this week intended to justify his deadly bombings of alleged smuggling boats in the Caribbean.
Democrats in Congress and legal officials have been challenging the legality of the three military strikes Trump announced last month. A woman who identified herself as the wife of one of the at least 17 people extrajudicially killed in the US bombings said her husband was a fisher.
‘Patently Illegal’: Experts Raise Major Red Flags About Trump’s Drug Boat Bombings
“Congress was notified about the designation by Pentagon officials on Wednesday,” according to The Associated Press, one of several outlets that obtained the notice. The New York Times reported that it “was sent to several congressional committees.”
NewsNation‘s Kellie Meyer posted the full memo on social media:
After citing a relevant section from the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2024, the notice describes decades of law enforcement efforts to stem the flow of illicit narcotics into the United States as “unsuccessful,” and says that cartels “illegally and directly cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of American citizens each year.”
“The president determined these cartels are nonstate armed groups, designated them as terrorist organizations, and determined that their actions constitute an armed attack against the United States,” the document continues. Trump also “determined that the United States is in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations” and directed the US Department of Defense, which he has dubbed the Department of War, “to conduct operations against them.”
“The United States has now reached a critical point where we must use force in self-defense and defense of others against the ongoing attacks by these designated terrorist organizations,” adds the memo, which notes the second strike on September 15.
Lawmakers and legal experts again challenged the administration’s claim that, as the notice put it, Trump directed the bombings under “his constitutional authority as commander in chief and chief executive to conduct foreign relations.”
As the Times reported:
Geoffrey S. Corn, a retired judge advocate general lawyer who was formerly the Army’s senior adviser for law-of-war issues, said drug cartels were not engaged in “hostilities”—the standard for when there is an armed conflict for legal purposes—against the United States because selling a dangerous product is different from an armed attack.
Noting that it is illegal for the military to deliberately target civilians who are not directly participating in hostilities—even suspected criminals—Mr. Corn called the president’s move an “abuse” that crossed a major legal line.
“This is not stretching the envelope,” he said. “This is shredding it. This is tearing it apart.”
New York University School of Law professor Ryan Goodman, who served as special counsel to the general counsel of the Defense Department during the Obama administration, said on social media that Corn was “completely right.”
“Drug cartels not = ‘armed conflict,‘” Goodman added, stressing that the “people killed” in such strikes “are civilians.”
Rutgers University law professor Adil Haque similarly pushed back on social media, saying: “The United States is not in a ‘non-international armed conflict’ with drug cartels. Cartels are not organized as armed groups, nor are they engaged in intense hostilities. These are dangerous criminal organizations and should be confronted using law enforcement tools.”
Members of Congress also publicly weighed in, including Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Jack Reed (D-RI), who said that “every American should be alarmed that President Trump has decided he can wage secret wars against anyone he labels an enemy. Drug cartels must be stopped, but declaring war and ordering lethal military force without Congress or public knowledge—nor legal justification—is unacceptable.”
At least two of the strikes have occurred off the coast of Venezuela, elevating fears of an armed conflict with the country.
“Trump’s actions are illegal, unconstitutional, and dangerous,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said in response to the new memo. ”He is leading us willy-nilly into war with Venezuela. I have ‘determined’ that this is a terrible idea.”
Video: U.S. Reports New Strike on Suspected Drug Cartel Boat off Venezuela
The U.S. military reports that it has struck an additional suspected drug cartel boat off Venezuela earlier today, Friday, October 3. The announcement came after word leaked of a White House briefing memo to the U.S. Congress declaring that the country is in a “non-international armed conflict” with South American drug cartels.
Pete Hegseth posted a video and a brief report to social media Friday morning. It shows a small boat, which they said was in international waters near Venezuela, being tracked, struck, and left burning on the surface. The U.S. says four males aboard the boat were killed by the strike.
Hegseth asserts that the boat was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics headed to the United States. “Our intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this vessel was trafficking narcotics,” the message asserts. It says the vessel was operating on a known narco-traffic transit route and calls the individuals aboard “narco-terrorists.”
The strike comes as the U.S. Southern Command reported at the beginning of the week that U.S. forces working with allies seized or disrupted more than one million pounds of cocaine during counterdrug operations in the past 12 months. They valued the drugs at an estimated $11.34 billion and said they could have been 377 million potentially lethal doses.
This was the fourth or fifth strike the White House and Hegseth have acknowledged since the start of September. The first, which came on September 2, is the most controversial as it reportedly killed 11 people, leading to questions about whether it could have been a migrant boat. The U.S. confirmed a second strike on September 15 and a third on September 19, each of which it said killed three individuals. No proof was provided that the boats were loaded with drugs and that they were operated by cartel members.
The notification to Congress required under the National Defense Authorization Act was first reported by The New York Times and has subsequently also been seen by CBS News. The organizations report more forceful language, including “armed attacks” and “unlawful combatants,” used to describe the actions in mid-September.
U.S. law requires the notifications and prohibits the military from deliberately killing civilians. Congress has not authorized the use of lethal force, although the Trump administration is now telling Congress it has determined that the U.S. is engaged in an armed conflict with the drug cartels, which the White House has designated as terrorist groups.
It comes as there have also been reports of a U.S. military buildup in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. Venezuela asserts the U.S. is attacking with unconfirmed reports that the U.S. is preparing to strike Venezuela's harbors and airfields.
Hegseth, in his message today, said the strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over.
‘This Is Murder’: Trump Bombs Another Boat
in Caribbean
“The US government must be held accountable,” said Amnesty International USA.
US President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that they bombed another boat in the Caribbean on October 3, 2025.
(Photo: screenshot/Donald Trump/Truth Social)
Jessica Corbett
Oct 03, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced on social media Friday that they bombed another boat in the Caribbean—at least the fourth alleged drug-smuggling vessel attacked by the US military since early September.
Critics, including congressional Democrats, legal scholars, and human rights groups, have stressed that even if any of the boats recently bombed by the Trump administration were trafficking drugs, the strikes still violate international and federal law. Such criticism has not deterred the administration.
Hegseth, who leads what Trump renamed the Department of War, said Friday that “earlier this morning, on President Trump’s orders, I directed a lethal, kinetic strike on a narco-trafficking vessel affiliated with designated terrorist organizations. Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike, and no US forces were harmed in the operation.”
“The strike was conducted in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela while the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics—headed to America to poison our people,” wrote the Pentagon chief, including a video of the bombing, but no evidence that the boat was involved in running drugs.
Hegseth claimed that “our intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this vessel was trafficking narcotics, the people onboard were narco-terrorists, and they were operating on a known narco-trafficking transit route. These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over!!!!”
Trump similarly said, without offering any proof, that “a boat loaded with enough drugs to kill 25 TO 50 THOUSAND PEOPLE was stopped, early this morning off the Coast of Venezuela, from entering American Territory.”
Responding to the latest lethal bombing, Amnesty International USA declared: “This is murder. The US government must be held accountable.”
Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor who served as chief White House ethics counsel under former President George W. Bush, said, “Again, this is a violation of international law, and without the consent of Congress a violation of federal law.”
The strikes come amid Trump’s ”aggressive pursuit” of a Nobel Peace Prize. Nodding to this, Congressman Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) wrote on social media Friday, “To President Trump: They don’t give Nobel Peace Prizes to people who murder civilians without a trial.”
The first confirmed bombing, on September 2, killed 11 people. The second and third, on September 15 and 19, each killed three. In at least one case, a woman who identified herself as the wife of one of the men killed said her husband was a fisher.
Friday’s bombing followed the leak of a confidential notice that the administration sent to multiple congressional committees this week, attempting to legally justify the bombings. It says in part, “The president determined these cartels are nonstate armed groups, designated them as terrorist organizations, and determined that their actions constitute an armed attack against the United States.”
Multiple legal experts and members of Congress publicly weighed in on the memo, including Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Jack Reed (D-RI), who said that “every American should be alarmed that President Trump has decided he can wage secret wars against anyone he labels an enemy.”
After the Friday attack, Tess Bridgeman, co-editor-in-chief of Just Security and a nonresident senior fellow at New York University School of Law, emphasized that “if it can happen at sea, it can happen anywhere.”
“Trump has offered no definition or limiting principle for who can be labeled a ‘terrorist’ and summarily killed,” she added. “And no plausible legal theory for why an armed conflict exists.”
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