Can US strikes on suspected drug boats off Venezuela be legally justified?

The US military’s caller strikes connected boats allegedly transporting drugs adjacent the Venezuelan seashore person raised questions astir the legality of specified actions and heightened fears of a subject escalation successful the region.

In the latest onslaught connected Friday, astatine slightest 4 radical were killed, taking the decease toll to 21 since the archetypal vessel was attacked connected September 3 arsenic portion of the Trump administration’s “war connected cartels”.

US President Donald Trump has declared cause cartels to beryllium unlawful combatants and determined that the United States is successful “a non-international equipped conflict” with them, the medication notified Congress connected Thursday.

But critics reason that the administration’s subject actions perchance interruption the US Constitution successful summation to planetary laws, with rights observers and ineligible scholars saying the deadly attacks magnitude to “extrajudicial killing” and usurpation of quality rights.

Since taking bureau successful January, Trump has designated respective cause cartels, including the Tren de Aragua cartel based successful Venezuela, arsenic “global violent organisations”.

In the past respective weeks, the Trump medication has deployed warships successful the Caribbean to people boats that it says are progressive successful “narco-trafficking”, ratcheting up subject and governmental unit against Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, who has condemned the “US aggression” against his country.

So are Trump’s strikes legal, and volition they pb to subject confrontation with Venezuela? And what is the past of Venezuela-US tensions?

A vas burns successful this inactive representation taken from a video released September 15, 2025, depicting what US President Donald Trump said was a US subject onslaught connected a Venezuelan cause cartel vas that had been connected its mode to the US, the 2nd specified onslaught carried retired against a suspected cause vessel successful caller weeks [Handout/Donald Trump/Truth Social/via Reuters]

What we cognize truthful far

The US has carried retired astatine slightest 4 strikes successful caller weeks connected tiny vessels successful the Caribbean Sea, adjacent Venezuelan waters, that Washington claims were carrying amerciable drugs.

The astir caller strike, connected Friday, destroyed a vas that was accused of carrying narcotics. Two different strikes past period killed astatine slightest six people. At slightest 11 radical were killed successful the archetypal onslaught connected September 3.

The Pentagon, however, has not disclosed precise locations oregon grounds linking the targeted boats to drug-trafficking networks. Washington has not provided immoderate impervious of its claims astir the boats carrying drugs.

US officials accidental the operations were conducted successful planetary waters, portion Venezuelan authorities importune they occurred dangerously adjacent to, oregon inside, the country’s territorial zone.

What has Trump said?

Speaking astatine Naval Station Norfolk connected Sunday, Trump applauded the US Navy’s efforts to combat “cartel terrorists”, noting that different vas disconnected Venezuela’s seashore had been deed connected Saturday.

Trump besides postured for further enactment wrong Venezuelan territory. “In caller weeks, the navy has supported our ngo to stroke the cartel terrorists the hellhole retired of the h2o … we did different 1 past night. Now we conscionable can’t find any,” helium said.

“They’re not coming successful by oversea anymore, truthful present we’ll person to commencement looking astir the onshore due to the fact that they’ll beryllium forced to spell by land,” Trump added.

Later, speaking with the reporters astatine the White House, the US president noted that the US subject build-up successful the Caribbean had halted cause trafficking from South America. “There’s nary drugs coming into the water. And we’ll look astatine what signifier 2 is,” helium said.

Al Jazeera, however, could not independently verify Trump’s claims.

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro says the US deployments were ‘the top menace that has been seen connected our continent successful the past 100 years’ [File: Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/Reuters]

How has Maduro responded?

Venezuelan person Maduro, who has called the strikes “heinous crimes”, has said that helium is prepared to state a authorities of exigency successful the lawsuit of a US subject onslaught amid a ample US subject build-up successful the confederate Caribbean.

The US has deployed astatine slightest 8 warships and 1 submarine to the eastbound Caribbean arsenic good arsenic F-35 craft to Puerto Rico, bringing thousands of sailors and marines to the region, reported Reuters.

In August, the US doubled its existing bounty connected Maduro to $50m and accused the Venezuelan person of being 1 of the world’s starring narco traffickers and moving with cartels to flood the US with fentanyl-laced cocaine.

In a televised code past Monday, Maduro announced that a “consultation process” had begun to invoke what helium called a “state of outer unrest” nether the Constitution of Venezuela, aimed astatine protecting the people.

Maduro has repeatedly claimed that the Trump medication wants to overthrow his authorities – an allegation that Trump has denied, saying, “We’re not talking astir that.”

Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said that the exigency declaration would assistance Maduro peculiar powers to mobilise the equipped forces and adjacent Venezuela’s borders if needed.

She said the measurement was intended to support the nation’s sovereignty and territorial integrity against “any superior usurpation oregon outer aggression”.

Caracas has staged subject drills, mobilised militias, and postured its Russian-made combatant jets nether a “defence of the nation” campaign.

Are US strikes legal?

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said the maritime strikes magnitude to “extrajudicial killings”.

“US officials cannot summarily termination radical they impeach of smuggling drugs,” said Sarah Yager, Washington manager astatine HRW. “The occupation of narcotics entering the United States is not an equipped conflict, and US officials cannot circumvent their quality rights obligations by pretending otherwise.”

Salvador Santino Regilme, a governmental idiosyncratic who leads the International Relations programme astatine Leiden University, said that nether Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, the usage of unit by 1 authorities against different is prohibited but erstwhile authorised by the UN Security Council oregon exercised successful morganatic self-defence nether Article 51.

And the US assertion that strikes against “drug traffickers” adjacent Venezuela magnitude to self-defence “appears legally untenable”, Regilme told Al Jazeera.

He noted that cause trafficking, adjacent erstwhile transnational, does not represent an “armed attack” nether customary planetary law.

“Unless Washington tin beryllium that the targeted actors carried retired oregon imminently threatened a large-scale equipped onslaught attributable to Venezuela, these actions hazard violating the charter’s halfway prohibition connected the usage of unit and undermining different state’s territorial integrity,” Regilme said.

To suffice arsenic a non-international equipped conflict, arsenic the Trump medication notified Congress, said Regilme, determination indispensable beryllium protracted equipped unit betwixt organised equipped groups oregon betwixt specified groups and a authorities nether the Geneva Conventions. Simply labelling cartels arsenic “terrorists” oregon “narco-terrorists” does not automatically trigger the applicability of planetary humanitarian instrumentality (IHL), helium added.

Expanding the “terrorist” statement to warrant subject targeting risks normalising warlike responses to what are chiefly transgression and socioeconomic problems,” Regilme said, referring to the US strikes.

“It militarises instrumentality enforcement and blurs the boundaries betwixt transgression power and warfare, which has led to terrible quality rights abuses successful the alleged ‘war connected drugs,’ from Mexico to the Philippines,” helium told Al Jazeera.

Celeste Kmiotek, a elder unit lawyer astatine the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based deliberation tank, said successful a study that adjacent extracurricular equipped conflict, striking a vas without imminent menace oregon judicial process whitethorn represent an arbitrary deprivation of life.

Domestically, lethal targeting overseas requires a wide ineligible ground nether US statutes oregon the US Constitution, she said, adding that nary legislature consent oregon circumstantial Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) covers anti-drug operations successful Venezuela.

How person different countries reacted to this?

Several Latin American countries person criticised the actions, with Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro calling the strikes an “act of tyranny” successful an interrogation with the BBC.

“Why motorboat a rocket if you could simply halt the vessel and apprehension the crew? That’s what 1 would telephone murder,” helium said.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has besides condemned the US attacks connected boats, which helium said magnitude to “executing radical without​ a judgement”.

“Using lethal unit successful situations ​that bash not represent equipped conflicts amounts to executing radical without​ a judgement,” President Lula said successful a UN code past month. He has besides expressed his disapproval against the deployment of US naval forces to the Caribbean, calling them a root of “tension”.

Russia has besides condemned the US strikes.

“The ministers expressed superior interest astir Washington’s escalating actions successful the Caribbean Sea that are fraught with far-reaching consequences for the region,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said aft a telephone telephone betwixt Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Venezuelan counterpart Yvan Gil.

China, 1 of Caracas’s largest trading partners, warned that US actions successful waters disconnected Venezuela airs a menace to “freedom of navigation”.

China “opposes usage of menace [or] unit successful planetary relations [and] … immoderate interference successful Venezuela’s interior affairs connected immoderate pretext”, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters successful Beijing.

“The unilateral enforcement actions by the US against overseas vessels successful planetary waters, which transcend tenable and indispensable limits, interruption planetary law, and infringe [on] cardinal quality rights, specified arsenic close to life,” said Guo.

He added that these actions “pose a imaginable menace to the state and information of navigation successful applicable waters and whitethorn impede the state of precocious seas enjoyed by each countries successful accordance with planetary law”.

Members of the National Bolivarian Militia stitchery aft responding to Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro’s telephone to support nationalist sovereignty amid escalating tensions with the US, successful Valencia, Venezuela connected September 5, 2025 [Juan Carlos Hernandez/Reuters]

What does it mean for the US power successful the region?

The scope of accountability of the US strikes connected vessels disconnected the Venezuelan coasts is rather limited, said Regilme.

This occurrence reflects a recurring signifier successful US overseas policy, which helium termed “militarised punishment: the usage of subject unit framed arsenic motivation enforcement alternatively than lawful defence”.

Instead of addressing the analyzable societal and economical roots of cause trafficking, helium said, Washington relies connected coercive displays of powerfulness that task motivation authorization but deficiency a wide ineligible foundation.

Regionally, Regilme said that the strikes could exacerbate distrust toward US interventions successful the Southern Hemisphere.

Latin American states, adjacent US allies, stay profoundly sceptical of Washington’s extraterritorial subject actions justified nether counter-narcotics oregon counter-terrorism rhetoric, helium said, which stands to erode determination practice mechanisms and embolden nationalist oregon anti-imperialist governmental actors.

US ties with Venezuela deteriorated aft the 1998 predetermination of President Hugo Chavez, whose socialist docket sought to reclaim nationalist power implicit Venezuela’s immense lipid wealthiness by expanding royalties connected overseas firms and tightening authorities oversight.

Chavez besides forged adjacent alliances with Cuba, China, and aboriginal Iran, marking a crisp ideological interruption from decades of alignment with Washington.

Under Maduro, who succeeded Chavez successful 2013, the bilateral tensions deepened amid Venezuela’s worsening economical illness and increasing authoritarianism.

Since Trump returned to the White House successful January this year, the tensions person go worse.