Washington — President Donald Trump on Thursday said he does not need a formal declaration of war from Congress to authorize lethal strikes against alleged drug traffickers overseas, signaling a potential expansion of U.S. operations against cartels in countries such as Venezuela.
“I’m not going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war,” Trump told reporters. “We’re going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country… they’re going to be like, dead.” He added that he would inform Congress before any operations on “land,” but predicted little resistance on Capitol Hill: “We’re going to tell them what we’re going to do and I think they’ll probably like it, except for the radical left lunatics.”
The comments come amid heightened scrutiny of recent U.S. strikes on small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific the administration has labeled “narco-terrorist” vessels. Lawmakers and legal analysts have questioned the evidence threshold and statutory authority for such actions, noting Congress has not passed a specific authorization for force against criminal syndicates.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth defended the maritime operations, saying the military confirmed each targeted craft was trafficking drugs. He described the transfer of two survivors from a recent strike to their home countries as “standard” wartime practice, noting detainee transfers were common in Iraq and Afghanistan. “They were treated by American medics and handed immediately over to their countries,” Hegseth said.
Tensions with Venezuela flared the same day after open-source flight data showed a U.S. B-1 Lancer bomber flying near the country’s coastline. The aircraft appeared within Venezuela’s Flight Information Region for roughly 15 minutes, though it was unclear whether it entered sovereign airspace. Trump denied the U.S. dispatched the bomber, while accusing Caracas of fueling drug flows and sending prisoners to the United States. “We’re not happy with Venezuela for a lot of reasons,” he said.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, for his part, said Wednesday that his forces had deployed 5,000 Russian-made Igla-S short-range anti-air missiles at “key air defense positions,” as Caracas warns Washington’s counter-drug deployment in the Caribbean could mask regime-change aims.
Trump’s assertion that he can direct lethal force absent new congressional authorization is likely to revive debates over executive war powers, including the War Powers Resolution and the limits of existing Authorizations for Use of Military Force, which address terrorism but not transnational criminal cartels. Civil liberties groups and some lawmakers have cautioned that using wartime authorities against non-state criminal actors risks legal overreach and unintended escalation with foreign governments.
