In a move that has stirred legal, political, and moral debate across Washington, President Donald Trump’s administration has defended its continued use of lethal drone strikes against suspected drug-smuggling boats in international waters, even as the 60-day limit imposed by the War Powers Resolution expired on Monday, November 4, 2025. The military campaign, which began with a notification to Congress on September 4, has so far resulted in at least 15 airstrikes and some 65 deaths in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific, according to reporting by The New York Times and corroborated by Common Dreams and other outlets.
The administration’s legal rationale, delivered to Congress last week by T. Elliot Gaiser, head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, hinges on a controversial interpretation of the 1973 War Powers Resolution. Gaiser argued that the current operation does not constitute the kind of “hostilities” that would trigger the 60-day termination requirement, since the strikes are carried out by unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) launched from naval vessels at distances “too far away for the crews of the targeted vessels to endanger American personnel.” This rationale was outlined in a statement provided by an unnamed senior administration official and reported by The New York Times: “The operation comprises precise strikes conducted largely by unmanned aerial vehicles launched from naval vessels in international waters at distances too far away for the crews of the targeted vessels to endanger American personnel.”
President Trump has justified the campaign by framing it as an “armed conflict” with criminal organizations supplying illegal drugs to the United States. He has labeled these groups as “designated terrorist organizations” and described those killed as “unlawful combatants” in a “noninternational armed conflict.” However, critics contend that such language is legally misleading. As Reason pointed out, the “designated terrorist organizations” label typically applies to ideologically motivated groups, not financially driven drug traffickers. The legal implications are stark: the designation authorizes financial sanctions and criminal penalties for support, but it does not grant the president authority to order lethal strikes on alleged affiliates.
Legal scholars and human rights advocates have been quick to challenge the administration’s justification on both domestic and international grounds. Geoffrey Corn, a former senior adviser on the law of war for the U.S. Army, told The New York Times, “This is not stretching the envelope. This is shredding it.” Gabor Rona, a professor at Cardozo Law School, added, “The Trump administration’s summary execution/targeted killing of suspected drug dealers, by contrast, is utterly without precedent in international law.”
The War Powers Resolution, enacted at the close of the Vietnam War, was intended to reassert Congress’s constitutional role in decisions of war and peace. It requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of introducing U.S. armed forces into hostilities and to terminate such operations within 60 days unless Congress authorizes their continuation. The law’s ambiguity—particularly its failure to precisely define “hostilities”—has been a point of contention for decades. President Richard Nixon vetoed the original bill, calling it an unconstitutional encroachment on executive power, but Congress overrode his veto and enshrined the measure into law.
Trump’s legal team has drawn on a precedent established during President Barack Obama’s 2011 NATO-led air war over Libya. At that time, the Obama administration argued that its air campaign did not count as “hostilities” under the War Powers Resolution because there was minimal risk of U.S. casualties—an argument that faced significant pushback from Congress and even within Obama’s own legal team. As Brian Finucane, a former State Department legal adviser and now with the International Crisis Group, noted in Common Dreams, “The Obama administration’s interpretation of ‘hostilities’ was not well received, including by the US Congress.”
The Trump administration’s application of this rationale has, if anything, gone further. The strikes are not part of a multilateral, NATO-led mission, nor are they conducted under a United Nations Security Council resolution. Instead, they are unilateral actions targeting suspected drug traffickers, often without presenting concrete evidence. The initial strike, which killed 11 people accused of smuggling drugs from Venezuela, was authorized without public evidence, as reported by Common Dreams.
Rebecca Ingber, a law professor, and Jessica Thibodeau, a former State Department lawyer, have emphasized that the War Powers Resolution’s requirements apply even when the president is acting under his constitutional authority to use force. “The statute requires that the operations terminate after 60 days if Congress has not yet approved of the operations,” they wrote. Despite this, the Trump administration’s Office of Legal Counsel maintains that the current campaign can continue indefinitely, so long as U.S. personnel are not at risk.
This interpretation has alarmed both legal experts and members of Congress. Finucane warned that the administration’s narrow definition of “hostilities” “paves the way for the US government to continue its killing spree at sea, notwithstanding the time limits imposed by the War Powers Resolution.” He went on to call it “a power grab in the service of killing people outside the law based solely on the president’s own say so.”
Political opposition has begun to coalesce around the issue, with bipartisan efforts in Congress to rein in the president’s unilateral use of force. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, one of the Republican lawmakers who criticized Obama’s Libya campaign, is now backing a war powers initiative aimed at preventing Trump from expanding the current operation, particularly amid reports that the administration is considering strikes inside Venezuela, Colombia, or Mexico.
Human rights organizations and United Nations experts have also condemned the strikes as blatant violations of both U.S. and international law. They argue that the summary execution of suspected drug traffickers, without due process or judicial oversight, undermines the rule of law and sets a dangerous precedent for future presidents. The practice of interdicting and arresting suspected smugglers—standard until September 2—has been replaced, critics say, by a policy that amounts to imposing the death penalty on criminal suspects at sea.
For now, the Trump administration shows no signs of backing down. At an Oval Office meeting in early October, officials reportedly discussed plans to escalate the campaign, potentially targeting sites on land in Venezuela and expanding the so-called “drug cartel target list” to include Colombia and Mexico. When asked in a televised interview if he believed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s days were “numbered,” Trump replied, “I would say yeah.”
As the 60-day clock runs out and the legal arguments intensify, the broader implications for presidential war powers and congressional oversight remain unsettled. The precedent set by the current campaign could well shape the limits of executive authority for years to come, leaving Congress, the courts, and the American public to grapple with the consequences of a war on drugs that now plays out with lethal force on the high seas.
