Trump admin says US in ‘armed conflict’ with drug smugglers after four boat strikes
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration informed Congress Wednesday that the US is engaged in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels.
A Pentagon notice to lawmakers on several committees stated that “hostile acts” against Americans and allied nations led to the determination, the New York Times and Associated Press reported Thursday.
President Trump had boasted about recent airstrikes eliminating four alleged Venezuelan drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean during a speech Monday at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia.
“If you try to poison our people, we will blow you out of existence,” Trump said, referencing the sinking of ships allegedly smuggling cocaine and fentanyl into the US. “That’s the only language they really understand. That’s why you don’t see any more boats on the ocean.”
At least 17 people were killed in the initial three strikes, the first of which targeted members of a Venezuelan prison gang trafficking drugs Sept. 2.
Roughly 100,000 Americans die every year from drug overdoses. In 2024, at least 70,000 fatalities were attributable to cocaine or synthetic opioids like fentanyl, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We’re blowing boats out of the water in the Caribbean because they’re connected to international narco-terrorist groups,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said during a Judiciary Committee hearing last month.
At the same hearing, Graham told FBI Director Kash Patel that Venezuela would be “a good candidate to be labeled as a state sponsor of terrorism under US law.”
When asked whether the administration had the legal authority to conduct airstrikes on the ships, Patel referred the question to the Pentagon.
“We will provide the intelligence necessary for anyone who meets the threshold to be a state sponsor of terror,” the FBI boss said.
The State Department has also designated some cartels — including Venezuela’s vicious Tren de Aragua prison gang — as foreign terrorist organizations.
In the unclassified notice sent to lawmakers, the War Department refers to the cartels trafficking drugs as “nonstate armed groups” and “unlawful combatants” that are carrying out “an armed attack against the United States,” according to the Times.
“The vessel was assessed by the U.S. intelligence community to be affiliated with a designated terrorist organization and, at the time, engaged in trafficking illicit drugs, which could ultimately be used to kill Americans,” the notice stated, per the outlet.
“This strike resulted in the destruction of the vessel, the illicit narcotics, and the death of approximately three unlawful combatants.”
The notice added: “Based upon the cumulative effects of these hostile acts against the citizens and interests of the United States and friendly foreign nations, the president determined that the United States is in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations.”
Congress has not formally declared war on any nation since World War II, but the US has been involved in dozens of other conflicts without lawmaker approval.
The Post contacted the White House and Department of War for comment.