The Trump administration is trying to justify strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug boats by advancing a novel legal theory that the US is now in a “non-international armed conflict”, according to a person familiar with a notification to Congress.
The notification was provided by senior Pentagon officials as part of an attempt to explain the Trump administration’s legal arguments for the strikes, including a classified briefing to members of the Senate armed services committee on Wednesday.
It comes after the US military conducted strikes on three boats in the Caribbean last month that killed 17 people and triggered widespread international outrage.
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The administration is required by law to report to Congress the US government’s use of armed forces.
The New York Times reported that the administration’s memo cites that statute, and also repeats its past justifications that the strikes were conducted in self-defense and accusing the boats of containing members of a Venezuelan drug gang.
But the memo also reportedly goes further, and frames the US military’s attacks on the boats to be part of a sustained conflict.
The memo also reportedly states that Trump has deemed cartels engaged in smuggling drugs as “non-state armed groups” whose actions “constitute an armed attack against the United States”.
The Trump administration has been increasing its military presence in the Caribbean in recent months, deploying a number of ships and military personnel to Puerto Rico. It has justified the military action as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the US. But some lawmakers and human rights groups have questioned the legality of the attacks.
The notice to Congress represents an aggressive escalation in the US government’s attempts to stop the flow of narcotics. The US government’s drug war in recent years has increasingly focused on political targets, and this latest escalation may be seen as an attempt by the administration to further place pressure on the Venezuelan government.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration determined several criminal groups to be “terrorist” organizations. The designation by the administration included a number of Mexican cartels, the MS-13 gang, the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and the Venezuelan so-called Cartel de los Soles.
For years, the US government has accused the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro of being involved in drug trafficking. The Trump administration earlier this year accused Maduro of directing the activities of Tren de Aragua, and used it as a justification to expel hundreds of immigrants to a notorious Salvadorian prison under the Alien Enemies Act.
Intelligence assessments have determined there is little proof of Maduro’s links to Tren de Aragua.
Maduro and members of his cabinet and military also stand accused by the US of running the Cartel de los Soles and seeking to traffic cocaine to the US. The infrastructure of the cartel has been disputed, with drug trafficking analysts and experts saying that the Cartel de los Soles is a loose network of lower-ranking military officials without a strict hierarchical structure.
Earlier this year, the US government raised its bounty for Maduro to $50m. There is an active indictment in a Manhattan federal court related to the Cartel de los Soles case. A co-defendant and former top Venezuelan military intelligence chief pleaded guilty earlier this year to narco-terrorism crimes.
The three vessels that were targeted by the US in recent weeks were traversing through the Caribbean. Trump administration officials, without proof, have said the vessels were carrying members of Tren de Aragua with drugs destined for the US.
The administration has been adamant in escalating its fight against fentanyl trafficking into the US. However, fentanyl typically arrives across the southern US border from Mexico.
