President Donald Trump has “determined” that the United States is engaged in a formal armed conflict with “unlawful combatants” in drug cartels, in a move that further escalates the already-deadly situation in the southern Caribbean.
In a confidential notice sent to several congressional committees, the New York Times reports that Trump has classified drug cartels as “nonstate armed groups,” accusing them of facilitating “an armed attack against the United States.”
The determination of the armed conflict comes after three airstrikes on alleged drug smuggling boats from Venezuela by U.S. forces in September. The highly controversial strikes killed 17 people, who were labeled by the Trump administration as “terrorists” without direct evidence.
“Based upon the cumulative effects of these hostile acts against the citizens and interests of the United States and friendly foreign nations, the president determined that the United States is in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations,” the notice read.
Sen. Jack Reed, D- R.I., the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Forces Committee, accused Trump of waging “secret wars.”
“Drug cartels must be stopped,” Reed wrote on X, “but declaring war & ordering lethal military force without Congress or public knowledge – nor legal justification – is unacceptable.”
Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, told the Times that “the president acted in line with the law of armed conflict to protect our country from those trying to bring deadly poison to our shores, and he is delivering on his promise to take on the cartels and eliminate these national security threats from murdering more Americans.”
Trump has not named any specific cartels or drug trafficking organizations, nor has his administration clarified the commitment of U.S. forces in the southern Caribbean.
On Monday, it was reported that White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller is overseeing the airstrikes as an advisor to the Homeland Security Council, in a great expansion of his powers in the Trump administration.
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