The Washington Office on Latin America releases a detailed statement on issues around the lethal US attack on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat, and more.

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Foreign Policy

Trump Weighs Striking Cartel Targets Inside Venezuela. In what would be a dramatic escalation of the Trump administration's fight against drug trafficking groups, President Trump is considering a number of options for military strikes against groups operating in Venezuela, including possibly hitting targets inside Venezuelan national territory.

The Trump administration also seeks to weaken Venezuelan President Roberto Maduro, who is under indictment for drug trafficking in New York -- a longtime goal of Secretary of State Marco Rubio. But it is being a bit coy.

Asked by a reporter on Friday if he would like to see regime change in Venezuela, Trump said, "We're not talking about that. "But we are talking about the fact that [Venezuela] had an election, which was a very strange election, to put it mildly," Trump said, referring to last year's presidential race in Venezuela marred by accusations of electoral fraud.

The administration has already deployed substantial military firepower into the region in recent weeks, and last week blew a suspected Venezuelan drug boat out of the water, killing 11 people.

Trump has authorized the military to mount lethal operations against drug trafficking groups it has designated as terrorist groups, with the president appearing to claim he can treat smuggling suspects not as criminals but as enemy combatants.

Secretary of State Rubio last week refused to rule out possible military strikes on Venezuelan territory, which, if done without the consent of the government there would be an act of war.

"This is a counter-drug operation," Rubio said. "We are going to take on drug cartels wherever they are, wherever they are operating against the interests of the US."

He also promised more murderous attacks on suspected drug boats.

"Instead of interdicting it, on the president's orders, we blew it up. And it'll happen again. Maybe it's happening right now," he said.

Whether such acts are even legal is unclear, and administration has yet to offer a serious legal justification for them. A briefing for Congress that was supposed to take place Friday was abruptly canceled with no explanation.

Experts Cast Doubt on Legality of Lethal US Attack on Alleged Venezuelan Drug Boat. After the US military killed 11 people in an attack on what the US claimed was a Venezuelan boat full of drugs, legal experts are questioning whether the strike complied with domestic and international law.

While the US Constitution gives only Congress the power to declare war, presidents of both parties have conducted military attacks overseas without seeking congressional approval. The Trump administration's Office of Legal Counsel released a memo saying that presidents have justified the limited use of military force when it was in the national interest, was not restricted by Congress, and did not rise to the level of war.

But those attacks have been aimed at enemy combatants, designated terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda or ISIS, or groups like the Houthis in Yemen, who have attacked US shipping. When it comes to drug traffickers on the high seas, however, it would be the responsibility of the Coast Guard to intercept such ships, seize their cargos, and detain their crews -- not blow them out of the water.

In the case of last week's lethal attack, the Trump administration has not provided any evidence that the US was under imminent threat of attack, that the vessel was armed, or that the ship was carrying people involved in a terrorist attack. Although the Trump administration has designated the Venezuelan crime gang Tren de Aragua as a "narco-terrorist organization," that group is not actively at war with the US, unlike Al Qaeda or ISIS. Legal experts said many people will view the attack as the extrajudicial killing (murder) of civilians on the high seas.

While the Trump administration can argue that it undertook an "anticipatory" self-defense action and claim that Tren de Aragua is under the control of the Venezuelan government (a claim disputed by its own intelligence agencies), legal experts said that without evidence of an imminent attack or past attacks by Tren de Aragua, its justifications for the attack fall short of international law.

Despite the dubious legality of the attack, Congress has in recent decades willingly ceded its war power to the executive, is especially supine under Republican control in the current administration, and is unlikely to move to constrain such actions.

Similarly, any legal challenge to Trump's authority to carry out such attacks face long odds with the US courts generally deferring to the executive on national security affairs and foreign relations. Families of victims could attempt to win damages in a civil case, but that would take years and lots of money for lawyers. It looks like the Trump administration will get away with murder.

Statement from the Washington Office on Latin America on the US Military's Lethal Attack on an Alleged Venezuelan Drug Boat. The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) released the following statement on the US military's lethal attack on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat last week:

Lethal US military strike on alleged drug traffickers sets a dangerous precedent in the "war on drugs"

[On September 2], the President of the United States shared a video that appears to show a US 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 US 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. US authorities should also address the question of whether there is any evidence that those aboard were threatening US personnel in a way that would justify using lethal force in self-defense.

If the evidence shows that the US 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 US criminal justice system and under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The US 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 US 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 US 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 US 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 US-Venezuelan relations amid the US 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 administrationdesignated 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 US market."

Pending greater clarity than we have now, we cannot ascertain how yesterday's strike may fit into a broader US 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 US or other governments, must abide by prevailing international laws, norms, and standards.

US, Mexico Agree to Increased Cooperation in Anti-Drug Fight. In a meeting last Wednesday in Mexico City, the US and Mexico agreed to cooperate more in the effort to suppress the illicit drug trade, including cooperating on dismantling the so-called cartels and addressing illegal immigration (even though there is little link between the drug trade and migration north of the Rio Grande).

"The aim is to work together to dismantle transnational organized crime through enhanced cooperation between our respective national security and law enforcement institutions, and judicial authorities," the two governments said in joint statement. "Additionally, we are working to address the illegal movement of people across the border."

The agreement said both countries would designate teams to follow up on their commitments, including "measures to counter the cartels, strengthen border security and eliminate clandestine border tunnels, address illicit financial flows, enhance collaboration to prevent fuel theft, increase inspections, investigations and prosecutions to stop the flow of drugs and arms."

The statement was released after Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as the administration's national security advisor, met with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. In came in the context of intense pressure on Mexico, both to crack down on drug trafficking and to reach agreements on trade issues to avoid new tariffs from the Trump administration.

"During the meeting the Secretary emphasized the importance of resolving trade and non-trade barriers to further the prosperity of both of our nations," State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said on Wednesday.

But in the wake of the lethal US attack on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat a day earlier, Mexico Foreign Affairs Secretary Ramón de la Fuente said that Mexico City would prefer "nonintervention, peaceful solution of conflicts."

"Our close coordination has allowed us to secure the border, reduce fentanyl trafficking, and advance intelligence sharing, all within our respective legal frameworks," the US and Mexico said in the statement. "The two governments further intend to strengthen collaboration in public health and coordinate campaigns to prevent the abuse of illicit substances and opioids."