President Donald Trump at the White House on Oct. 10. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
By Tara Copp
The U.S. military killed six alleged drug smugglers Tuesday off the coast of Venezuela, President Donald Trump said, the latest development in an ongoing military campaign that has raised questions about his legal authority to use lethal force against vessels suspected of transporting illicit narcotics.
Writing on social media, Trump said that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered the strike “under my Standing Authorities as Commander-in-Chief.”
Trump claimed the six men killed were “narcoterrorists” affiliated with what he said was a designated terrorist organization, though he did not name it.
The strike hit a vessel in international waters “just off” Venezuela’s coast, Trump said. In a video taken from the air accompanying his social media post, a boat can be seen idling before being hit and bursting into flames.
This is the fifth reported strike by U.S. forces since September against vessels the administration has alleged were carrying drugs. The operations have killed 27 people, the Trump administration has said. It has not disclosed evidence verifying that the vessels were carrying drugs, that the people aboard them were confirmed criminals or which country they came from.
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Trump has argued that he has the legal authority to conduct these strikes because he has determined that the United States is in “armed conflict” with Latin American drug cartels.
Some in Congress, which has the sole authority to declare war and has not formally authorized the use of force in this instance, have pushed back against the president’s claims. Lawmakers from both parties have been frustrated with what they say is a lack of information from the administration about its objectives.
However, last week, Senate Republicans narrowly defeated an effort led by Democrats that would have blocked the U.S. military from continuing the strikes.
In January, Trump issued an executive order designating a number of Latin American groups as foreign terrorist organizations. He has leaned into that declaration in recent weeks as he and his administration have sought to justify its lethal campaign in the Caribbean.
In a recent notice to Congress that was reviewed by The Washington Post, the White House indicated that Trump directed the attacks pursuant to the law of armed conflict after he “determined that the United States is in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations” and must conduct the strikes in self-defense.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that more than 300,000 U.S. citizens die of drug overdoses annually. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 87,000 overdose deaths for the year ending in September 2024, an almost 27 percent decline from the previous year.
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