WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has informed Congress that the United States is at war with drug cartels, designating suspected traffickers killed in recent U.S. strikes in the Caribbean as “unlawful combatants,” according to a confidential notice obtained by The New York Times.
The notice outlines the administration’s rationale for three “self-defense strikes” carried out last month by the U.S. Air Force and Navy against suspected narco-terrorist vessels operating in the southern Caribbean Sea off Venezuela’s coast.
The Times continues:
The notice was sent to several congressional committees and obtained by The New York Times. It adds new detail to the administration’s thinly articulated legal rationale for why three U.S. military strikes the president ordered on boats in the Caribbean Sea last month, killing all 17 people aboard them, should be seen as lawful rather than murder.
Mr. Trump’s move to formally deem his campaign against drug cartels as an active armed conflict means he is cementing his claim to extraordinary wartime powers, legal specialists said. In an armed conflict, as defined by international law, a country can lawfully kill enemy fighters even when they pose no threat, detain them indefinitely without trials and prosecute them in military courts.
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.
He did not mince words. “This is not stretching the envelope,” he said. “This is shredding it. This is tearing it apart.”
However, President Trump and senior officials argued that the targets were smuggling drugs for cartels designated as terrorist groups by the U.S. government, invoking the laws of war to justify their killing rather than capture.
The escalation follows Trump’s August 2025 military directive against cartels and the subsequent September buildup in the Caribbean. The moves could broaden U.S. counter-narcotics efforts in Venezuela and across Latin America, where several cartels have recently been listed as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) by the State Department.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
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