The U.S. boat strikes on Venezuela: Legal or illegal use of force?
- WULR Team
- Mar 16
- 3 min read
An analysis of the Sept. 2 strike on suspected Venezuelan drug-trafficking vessels
Published March 16th, 2026
Written by Eleni Karamanos
In one of the Trump administration’s most controversial foreign policy moves, the U.S. strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats off the coast of Venezuela have set a new precedent for how the United States defines war, one of the Trump administration’s most controversial foreign policy moves. In fact, many legal scholars deem it illegal. The campaign began in September, when U.S. forces struck a suspected drug-trafficking vessel twice off the coast of Venezuela, as reported by CBS News. More than 20 strikes have killed over 80 people, according to The Guardian, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth allegedly ordered lethal force against survivors, as stated by the Washington Post. This claim was supported by officials, yet was based on disputed evidence.
The legal problem sits at the root of a much larger concern. Under international law, drug smugglers remain civilians, not combatants. The U.N. Charter permits military force only in self-defense against armed attacks or with Security Council authorization. Drug trafficking qualifies as neither. As outlined in the Codification Division Publications, Article 51 of the charter requires an actual or imminent threat by another state, not simply criminal activity.
Michael Schmitt, a professor of international law and an expert on the law of armed conflict, has critiqued the Trump administration’s legal theory for these attacks. Writing for Just Security, Schmitt explains that the Sept. 2 strike on the Tren de Aragua boat could not be justified as self-defense and that the United States is not engaged in an armed conflict with the cartel. Schmitt rejects the argument that drug trafficking alone could qualify as an armed attack that would trigger the right of self-defense under Article 51. Under international law, entering a state’s territory without consent is an unlawful use of force, a principle grounded in Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter.
Schmitt warns that stretching the law to justify these strikes creates a “normative slippery slope,” meaning that when the U.S. chooses to stretch the rules, it risks inviting other states to do the same. This endangers the use of force right for self-defense by the very means it sought to prevent. In a separate Just Security article, Schmitt and his co-authors write that the U.S. “is not in an armed conflict with any cartel”, making the law of armed conflict not applicable to the military operations that started on Sept. 2. Taken together, Schmitt’s analysis emphasizes that neither drug trafficking nor criminal violence meets the legal threshold required to justify the use of force under the U.N. Charter.
Matthew Waxman, a former senior Pentagon and State Department lawyer, raises similar concerns from a U.S. national security perspective. In a brief for the Council on Foreign Relations, Waxman notes that the White House declared an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, without making a “legal case that cartels are waging war against the United States.” Waxman compares the Trump administration's theory to its armed conflict against al-Qaeda, where al-Qaeda attacked U.S. embassies, warships and cities. He describes the framework the U.S. applies to drug cartels as a “dangerous stretch” as there are no armed operations against the U.S. Despite these legal warnings, the Trump administration has continued to defend these strikes by generalizing its interpretation of when force may be used.
The Trump administration’s defense for these attacks shows a shift in how the United States views when it may use force. Trump declared that the U.S. would “kill people [who] are bringing drugs into our country”, rather than asking Congress for authority, according to an article by ABC News. This reveals an explicit claim of authority to execute civilians for criminal activity, disregarding the legal framework that determines when a state can claim self-defense or declare an armed conflict.
The danger extends beyond Venezuela. If the United States can bypass international law by reclassifying criminals as combatants, other countries may feel able to do the same. This result highlights that the laws designed to preserve peace and restrain aggression become optional, raising the concern that powerful states may feel free to act above the law.
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