The United States has made a great military deployment in the Caribbean and Donald Trump has assured that his country is at war with drug cartels.
The United States Army has already developed five operations in the Caribbean Sea since its deployment in that area at the end of August. The last one took place this Friday 3, one day after a memorandum of the Trump administration was made public. “The US has now reached a critical point in which we must use the force in self -defense and others against the continuous attacks of these designated terrorist organizations,” brand The document could access the American media and news agencies.
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The US Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, ordered the last attack on a small boat he accused of transporting drugs against Venezuela and in which he claimed the lives of four people. In this way, operations have already left 21 dead in boats allegedly linked to drug trafficking from Venezuela. Washington’s military deployment includes eight ships, a nuclear submarine and combat fighters found in Puerto Rico.
“Our intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this boat was trafficked narcotics, people on board were narco -terrorist and operated on a traffic route known to drug trafficking,” Hegseth said regarding the most recent attack. Meanwhile, Trump held in a publication on social networks that the last boat was “Loaded with enough drugs to kill 25 to 50 thousand people.”
The work of Congress
Prior military procedure of the United States in the Caribbean, drug trafficking was being fought within the framework of international police operations and with the support of anti -drug agencies such as DEA. However, in the first half of the year, the Trump administration had already taken an important step by designating Mexican cartels, Aragua’s train and the Los Sol Cartel – operated by the Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and high military commanders – as “terrorist organizations”.
Now, after the five attacks and by qualifying the action as a “non -international armed conflict,” Donald Trump places the cartels in the same category as the terrorists and enables the Armed Forces to use rules of a war. According to international law, a Niaac occurs when a State faces an armed group organized with territorial intensity and control criteria that are attack against national security. Precisely, under this same framework the United States fought Al Qaeda after the 11-S attacks.
Image of the Narcolacha in the Caribbean minutes before the United States attack. Photo: X / Pete Hegseth
“Clearly this statement sent to the Congress aims for Trump to be legally covered. He seeks to justify his actions from the legal point of view. Now, the dilemma is that the issue is whether that is effectively a sufficient justification or not. Several US specialists consider that drug traffickers cannot be compared with terrorists or with enemy combatants, which are totally different situations. Now it will be seen if Congress, which has a majority of Republicans, accepts the explanation ”indicates the international analyst Francisco Belaunde Matossian to El Comercio.
Meanwhile, Venezuelan political analyst Maibort Petit holds this newspaper that the structure of US law allows Trump to declare the “non -international armed conflict”, which is a capacity that the president has according to the federal norm. However, this declaration, in this case against the previously designated terrorist organizations that exercise internal action considered as a threat to national security, forces the president to consult with Congress through permanent communications every time a significant event occurs. Precisely, one of these documents is the one that leaked on Thursday 2.
A ship from Venezuela, before being destroyed by the United States Armed Forces, in the Caribbean Sea, on September 15, 2025. (Video capture)
“Everything is within the framework of the Law. There is also article 3 of the Geneva Convention. This says that federal governments can deploy extraordinary war powers, including lethal operations such as those that passed with the boats, with arrests without prior trial and the use of military courts against members of terrorist groups. That already happened in the US with Al Qaeda. It is not a new matter that Trump is doing. In addition, in international humanitarian law there is a Niaac clause, which also supports the declaration, but to reach all this, first the drug cartels had to be designated as terrorist organizations, as the US government did ”, Point out.
Belaunde Matossian agrees with Petit that Congress must be aware of the operations that the Trump administration is carrying out in the Caribbean, but that the president does not need an approval or permission from the legislative to attack vessels, since now these groups are considered terrorist organizations.
“What Trump has sought is to put them at that same level. Therefore, his attacks on the drug traffickers are covered by the same norm that allows him to make attacks on terrorists. Now, if the US is really in a real war there he needs the support of Congress, but it is a specific attack. For example, when Bombardó Iran announced that he attacked terrorists and did not need an authorization. Everything is linked to the legal interpretation of who says something, it is a gray area of law at the US level of of course, another thing is the issue of public international law. Attacking a sovereign country like Venezuela would be a violation, and from the point of view of US law there is a discussion, ” affirms.
Imminent attack?
For Francisco Belaunde, the declaration of “non -international armed conflict” could also be a movement prior to a direct offensive about Venezuela. “This measure may indicate that Trump is preparing the land for an attack on the country”, The analyst holds, because Washington argues that Nicolás Maduro and his dome are part of the Los Soles Cartel, considered by the US as a terrorist organization and with this legal coverage he could even try to capture Maduro or members of his environment. “That seems to be the next step”, Add the expert.
Nicolás Maduro speaks during a press conference with international media at the Eurobuilding Hotel in Caracas, Venezuela, on September 15, 2025. (Photo by Federico Parra / AFP).
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Maibort Petit, meanwhile, warns that the stage is even more complex because it is played at several levels, inside and outside Venezuela.
“There are two very strong narratives: the regime tries to convince the international community that any US military action would be an illegal invasion, while opposition sectors drive the opposite thesis, that an intervention can overthrow Maduro. But it is not just internal narratives: Maduro is not alone, he has the strategic support of Russia, China and Cuba. That raises the conflict to an international dimension, with a geopolitical background and natural resources that makes a quick exit much more difficult ”, Explain.
The controversial international law
Mayte Dongo, internationalist and professor of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP), sustains El Comercio that the decree implies a legal change of enormous reach. “A non -interest armed conflict with a non -state actor implies the power of the use of force. The problem is that the cartels do not function as an organized armed group, but in a decentralized way, and its action cannot be compared with that of an enemy army ”, Point out.
For Dongo, the central risk is that under this framework the use of lethal force without previous judicial processes is enabled as allowed. “This would allow people who are not really, imprison them as ‘combatants’, imprison them without judgment or judge them in military fueros. In the end, international law is being distorted to justify operations that do not correspond to the type of threat that the cartels represent, ”he adds.
The specialist also emphasizes that drug trafficking should be understood as a problem of co -responsibility, since there is a large group of people who are consumers of narcotics who illegally arrive at the US. “It is not only the existence of vendors in Venezuela, but also buyers in the US. In addition, most deaths from addiction in the US are related to fentanyl, and that does not come from Venezuela. That is why it surprises that the attacks are concentrated in Venezuelan vessels ”, Dongo points out.
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