The United States’ campaign of military strikes on boats allegedly involved in drug trafficking across the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean has escalated sharply since early September 2025, igniting fierce debate in Congress and among international legal experts. At least 61 people have been killed in 14 separate strikes, with the most recent attack on October 29, 2025, destroying a vessel in the eastern Pacific and killing all four people aboard, according to a social media post by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (USNI News, Associated Press).
These operations, which President Donald Trump and his administration have framed as a necessary escalation in the fight against so-called “narcoterrorists,” have been justified as military self-defense actions under U.S. Title 10. The administration claims that drug cartels represent “foreign terrorist organizations” and that their operations amount to an “armed attack against the United States” (FactCheck.org, USNI News). Yet, the lack of transparency, legal clarity, and hard evidence behind the strikes has provoked a storm of criticism from lawmakers, legal scholars, and foreign leaders alike.
The campaign began shortly after Trump’s inauguration for his second term, when he signed an executive order designating drug cartels as terrorist entities and declared a national emergency to address what he described as an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States” (FactCheck.org). The first strike, announced on September 2, 2025, targeted what Trump said were members of the Tren de Aragua cartel in international waters between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago, resulting in 11 deaths. Since then, the U.S. has deployed 6,000 sailors and Marines, eight warships, and aircraft based in Puerto Rico, intensifying its military presence in the Caribbean and off the coast of Venezuela (FactCheck.org).
While the administration claims the targets are vessels “transiting along known narco-trafficking routes” and carrying narcotics, details about the specific drugs involved or the identities of those killed have been scant. In a rare instance, Trump posted on social media that a submarine destroyed in the Caribbean was “loaded up with mostly fentanyl, and other illegal narcotics,” but experts and U.S. government reports suggest fentanyl is rarely trafficked by sea from Venezuela or Colombia. The State Department’s 2025 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report points to Mexico—not South America—as the only significant source of illicit fentanyl affecting the United States, while Venezuela and Colombia are mainly transit routes for cocaine (FactCheck.org).
Despite the administration’s assertions, the strikes have not been without controversy. Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused the U.S. of killing a fisherman, Alejandro Carranza, rather than a cartel member, in one of the early attacks. Trump, in response, publicly dismissed Petro as an “illegal drug leader” and cut U.S. funding to Colombia for narcotics enforcement (FactCheck.org, The New York Times).
Legal experts have raised significant concerns about the lawfulness of the strikes. John B. Bellinger III, a former senior associate counsel to President George W. Bush and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, argued that while presidents have historically used military force without Congressional approval for national interest, “as a matter of international law, the boats are not lawful military targets.” He added, “There has been no evidence that the boats and their occupants were planning armed attacks against the United States justifying the use of military force in self-defense.” Bellinger further noted, “Most Americans will recognize that comparing drug cartels to Al Qaida is a false comparison. Al Qaida was directly responsible for killing over 3,000 Americans on [Sept. 11, 2001] and in prior terrorist attacks against American soldiers and civilians. Drug cartels commit violent acts and supply drugs that have resulted in the tragic deaths of thousands of Americans, but unlike Al Qaida, these groups are not engaged in an armed conflict with the United States and their members are not combatants.”
Michael Becker, an assistant professor at Trinity College Dublin School of Law, echoed these concerns, telling BBC Verify, “The fact that U.S. officials describe the individuals killed by the U.S. strike as narco-terrorists does not transform them into lawful military targets. … The U.S. is not engaged in an armed conflict with Venezuela or the Tren de Aragua criminal organization.”
On Capitol Hill, the strikes have prompted a sharp partisan divide and a broader constitutional debate over the limits of presidential authority. Democratic lawmakers have repeatedly criticized the administration for failing to provide evidence, a clear legal rationale, or even basic information about the targets. Senator Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, protested that Democrats were excluded from briefings on the strikes, stating, “Shutting Democrats out of a briefing on U.S. military strikes and withholding the legal justification for those strikes from half the Senate is indefensible and dangerous.” Representative Jason Crow (D-Colo.) said after a classified House Armed Services Committee meeting, “Our job is to oversee the use of lethal force by our military outside of the United States, and I’m walking away without an understanding of how and why they’re making an assessment that the use of lethal force is adequate here.”
Republican Senator Rand Paul, a vocal critic, argued on social media, “Blowing up boats without proof isn’t justice; it’s what China or Iran would do. There’s no evidence of fentanyl and no due process.” He elaborated in an interview, “So far, they have alleged that these people are drug dealers. No one said their name. No one said what evidence. No one has said whether they’re armed. And we’ve had no evidence presented. So, at this point I would call them extrajudicial killings.”
Yet, some Republicans have defended the campaign’s legality and necessity. Senator Lindsey Graham stated, “This is not murder, this is protecting America from being poisoned from narco-terrorists coming from Venezuela and Colombia.” He insisted that Trump “has all the authority in the world” to order such strikes.
Meanwhile, the practical impact of the strikes remains uncertain. U.S. drug overdose deaths, while still tragically high, have begun to decline since 2023, with synthetic opioids like fentanyl remaining the leading cause. But most of the fentanyl supply comes from China and Mexico, not the South American routes targeted by the strikes (Council on Foreign Relations, CDC data).
As the Trump administration continues its campaign, the debate over its legality, transparency, and efficacy shows no signs of abating. The administration maintains its stance that these are acts of military self-defense against unlawful combatants, but the lack of public evidence and bypassing of Congressional authorization have left many lawmakers and experts unconvinced. The stakes are high—not just for those targeted at sea, but for the very principles of oversight and accountability in the use of American military power abroad.
With each new strike, the U.S. government faces mounting pressure to clarify its legal rationale and provide evidence for its actions, as the world watches and the debate over America’s war on drugs enters an even more contentious chapter.
