In September 2025, following Donald Trump’s orders, the US navy sank several boats and killed about 20 people whom Trump alleges, without any evidence, were members of a gang smuggling drugs into the US. Several experts have questioned the legality of these strikes under both US and international law.

Trump admitted responsibility on his website called Truth Social, which as usual with Trump means it is full of lies:

On my Orders, the Secretary of War ordered a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization conducting narcotrafficking in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility…Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking illicit narcotics, and was transiting along a known narcotrafficking passage enroute to poison Americans.

As usual he presented no evidence to substantiate his claims. The world is supposed to believe that if Trump says something it must be true.

Breaking International Law

The BBC reported that under Article 2(4) of the UN charter, countries can resort to force when under attack and deploying their military in self-defence. Trump has previously accused the Tren de Aragua cartel of conducting irregular warfare against the US, and the state department has designated the group as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation, external.

Professor Michael Becker of Trinity College Dublin told the BBC:

[Calling the group a Foreign Terrorist Organisation] stretches the meaning of the term beyond its breaking point. The fact that US officials describe the individuals killed by the US strike as narco-terrorists does not transform them into lawful military targets. The US is not engaged in an armed conflict with Venezuela or the Tren de Aragua criminal organization.

Not only does the strike appear to have violated the prohibition on the use of force, it also runs afoul of the right to life under international human rights law. [The use of force in this case could amount to an] extrajudicial arbitrary killing [and] a fundamental violation of human rights. Labelling everyone a terrorist does not make them a lawful target and enables states to side-step international law.

Mary Ellen O’Connell, Notre Dame Law School Professor, told the BBC:

[The strike] violated fundamental principles of international law. Intentional killing outside armed conflict hostilities is unlawful unless it is to save a life immediately. Sometimes armed groups waging war against governments deal in drugs to pay for their participation in conflict. There is no evidence the gang President Trump targeted is such a group.

Breaking US Law

The US constitution says that only Congress has the power to declare war. However, Article II – which lays out the president’s powers – says that “the president shall be Commander in Chief of the Army”.

The BBC says that some constitutional experts have suggested that this grants the president the power to authorise strikes against military targets. But it is unclear whether that provision extends to the use of force against non-state actors such as drug cartels.

In addition, Trump may not have complied with the War Powers Resolution which demands that the president “in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities”.

Was this Murder?

United Nations experts have described these killings as extrajudicial executions. There was no need to destroy the boats and kill the occupants. The US navy could easily have stopped the boats and arrested the occupants.

US law defines murder as “the unlawful killing of a human being with malice”. That may well describe what Trump has ordered, and he should be put on trial accordingly.

References

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_United_States_strikes_on_Venezuelan_boats

BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crme4pv224wo and https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdjzw3gplv7o

US department of justice: https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-1536-murder-definition-and-degrees