Lethal U.S. military strike on alleged drug traffickers sets a dangerous precedent in the 'war on drugs'

Yesterday, the President of the United States shared a video that appears to show a U.S. military strike on a boat off the coast of Venezuela. President Trump’s social media post stated that 11 of those aboard were killed. 

So far, the only publicly available information about this incident is the video that President Trump shared and brief statements from the Secretaries of State and Defense. Much remains to be learned about exactly what transpired, and Pentagon officials have said that they intend to provide additional details.

Ascertaining the legitimacy and legality of the use of force in this case will depend on the factual answers to numerous questions. It is not clear whether the U.S. military forces deployed to the southern Caribbean tried to contact the people aboard the boat, tried to board the boat, fired warning shots, or tried to disable the engine by firing on a part of the boat where humans were not present. U.S. authorities should also address the question of whether there is any evidence that those aboard were threatening U.S. personnel in a way that would justify using lethal force in self-defense.

If the evidence shows that the U.S. military, apparently on the orders of President Trump, engaged in the unlawful use of force that caused the deaths of 11 people in international waters, those responsible, especially at the political and military command levels, must be held accountable in the U.S. criminal justice system and under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The U.S. Congress should also require the Administration to disclose all the relevant facts.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in an interview on September 3 that he watched the video live and that those under his command knew “exactly who was in that boat, we knew exactly what they were doing, and we knew exactly who they represented, and that was Tren de Aragua,” referring to a Venezuelan gang. Hegseth went on to say that “this is a deadly serious mission” for the Trump administration and that the operation “won’t stop with just this strike, anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narcoterrorist will face the same fate.”

What we have seen so far suggests that the U.S. armed forces did something that it has never done, to our knowledge, in more than 35 years of military involvement in drug interdiction in the Caribbean Sea: an instant escalation to disproportionate lethal force against a civilian vessel without any apparent self-defense justification.

In the late 1980s, the U.S. Congress made the Department of Defense the single lead agency for overseas interdiction of illegal drugs. In the decades since, Navy and Coast Guard personnel have boarded a large number of vessels, interdicting thousands of tons of cocaine and other drugs. WOLA has sought to monitor those activities, and we know of no cases of those military and Coast Guard personnel using lethal force during these operations without a claim of self-defense.

Using lethal force on suspicion of illegal activity violates the letter and spirit of more than a century of international standards and the United States’ own regulations for maritime operations against civilian vessels in international waters. These measures include the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Article 51 of the UN Charter, the UN Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs, the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea, the Defense Department’s Law of War Manual, and the Joint Chiefs’ Standing Rules of Engagement and Standing Rules for the Use of Force (though key language in the counter-drug section is classified).

These measures all call for restraint in the use of force, especially lethal force, when the lives of civilian non-combatants are at risk: a gradual and proportionate response that carefully escalates force in order to avoid exactly the kind of outcome that President Trump’s video depicts. These standards explicitly or implicitly prohibit the use of lethal force when there is no self-defense justification.

The President claimed that the people aboard the boat were carrying “illegal narcotics,” though he did not specify the type or amount of drugs. But proportionality in the use of force is a fundamental principle of international law. Mere suspicion of carrying drugs, or merely being pursued by (much faster) naval vessels or other military assets in international waters, are not offenses that carry a death sentence, much less summary execution.

Secretary Rubio stated that the president “has been clear that the days of acting with impunity and having an engine shot down or a couple drugs grabbed off a boat, the – those days are over. Now it is we are going to wage combat against drug cartels that are flooding American streets and killing Americans.” If yesterday’s act is a harbinger of more U.S. military actions involving excessive force when conducting drug interdiction operations, then it sets a bleak and dangerous precedent for more unlawful killings and violations of fundamental human rights principles, and threatens to undermine international norms that serve to prevent and to punish lawlessness on the seas.

It’s also essential to consider the context in which this strike occurred, particularly the increasing tensions in U.S.-Venezuelan relations amid the U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean. As WOLA highlighted previously, this buildup began following the Trump administration’s designation of the Cartel de los Soles as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGTs) group in early August. (Rather than a hierarchical organization, this group is more like a label for the nexus of relations between Venezuelan government officials and drug traffickers.) This move came with an increase, to $50 million, in the reward that the administration is offering for information leading to authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro’s capture.

In their comments about the strike, President Trump and Secretary Hegseth both claimed that those aboard the boat were members of Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan criminal group that the administration designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in February 2025. According to an August 2025 investigative series by InSight Crime, this networked Venezuelan crime group has been declining in power and has not been linked to “cases of large cocaine shipments… especially not in connection with the U.S. market.”

Pending greater clarity than we have now, we cannot ascertain how yesterday’s strike may fit into a broader U.S. strategy of escalating pressure on the Maduro regime. To be sure, the situation of impunity in Venezuela allows illicit economies, including illegal drug trafficking, to operate with the acquiescence and complicity of government officials. At the same time, any use of military force, whether by the U.S. or other governments, must abide by prevailing international laws, norms, and standards.