The Trump administration has set a new precedent by conducting twenty lethal pre-emptive strikes against alleged drug cartels from Venezuela, resulting in the deaths of around 80 individuals. According to the administration, the vessels operating in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific were carrying narcotics from Venezuela, and the victims of the attacks were labelled “narco-terrorists,” with the drug cartels equated to terrorist organisations.
In the recent past, seeking to build military pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the United States has carried out its largest naval deployment in the southern Caribbean, attacked vessels allegedly engaged in drug trafficking, and deployed an aircraft carrier to the region. President Trump has also authorised the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela. The administration argues that Maduro presides over an unpopular regime lacking public legitimacy, relying on repression and suppression of democratic voices and institutions. Maduro refused to accept the results of the 2024 presidential election, which signalled his political defeat. The administration additionally accuses Venezuela of supporting anti-US activities, acting as a source of drug trafficking and illegal migration, and strengthening ties with adversaries such as China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba. Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has openly supported American military pressure.
Against this backdrop, the maritime strikes executed over three months appear designed to exert sufficient military pressure to create expectations of direct intervention and enable regime change, while also attempting to curb drug trafficking, illegal migration, and rising energy-related concerns.
By authorising and executing such lethal strikes, the executive branch in the United States has dangerously expanded its power, jeopardising democratic principles at home. Montesquieu’s doctrine of separation of powers, internalised by the American Constitution through checks and balances, requires that the president seek congressional authorisation before conducting military operations of this magnitude. President Trump has ignored these constitutional constraints.
The administration has also violated national and international legal norms by engaging in what critics describe as unlawful and extrajudicial killings. Unlike the post-9/11 period—when the United States faced an armed attack and subsequently received United Nations Security Council authorisation to act in self-defence—no such conditions apply in the current context. The administration’s argument that drug trafficking constitutes an “armed attack” fails to provide legal justification for this redefinition. Nor has President Trump sought authorisation from Congress or the UN Security Council, despite Article II of the U.S. Constitution not permitting unilateral military action against external threats without such approval.
The drug cartels do not constitute organised armed groups comparable to Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or ISIS, lacking a military command structure, organisational coherence, or weaponry that would justify classification as combatants under international humanitarian law. The administration’s attempt to frame cartels as Designated Terrorist Organisations—and its flexible use of the term to extend force against perceived threats including immigrants or domestic opponents—raises concerns about political misuse of counterterrorism frameworks.
A former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has described the strikes as potential crimes against humanity involving systematic attacks against civilians. European allies have distanced themselves, with Britain restricting intelligence sharing and France condemning the actions as violations of international law. Such unilateralism has further strained the transatlantic alliance, historically grounded in joint responses to legal and security challenges.
The Trump administration has now created a precedent of politically redefining and strategically broadening the concept of an armed attack to serve narrow interests. Without collective international efforts to restore legal barriers, the United States may be emboldened to label minor or perceived threats as existential challenges to national sovereignty and justify disproportionate military responses in the name of self-defence.
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*Senior Lecturer in Political Science, SVM Autonomous College, Jagatsinghpur, Odisha
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