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Trump Is Moving Relentlessly Toward Illegal War in Venezuela

The lawful procedure would have been to arrest people if there was probable cause they were involved in drug trafficking and bring them to justice in accordance with due process.

Venezuela isn’t even mentioned in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s National Drug Threat Assessment 2024.

The Trump administration’s murderous strikes on small boats at sea constitute unlawful extrajudicial killings.

By Marjorie Cohn , Truthout, October 30, 2025

s the Trump administration continues to murder people in small boats on the high seas and mounts the largest U.S. military buildup in decades in the Caribbean, it is moving inexorably toward an all-out, illegal attack and forcible regime change in Venezuela.

Despite Team Trump’s feeble attempts to legally justify its ocean strikes, which have now killed 57 people since early September, those extrajudicial killings are also unlawful.

Donald Trump’s murderous campaign came into focus on February 20, when the State Department designated eight drug trafficking organizations, including Tren de Aragua, as foreign terrorist organizations. Although the administration has attempted — so far unsuccessfully — to use that designation to justify sending immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador, Trump is now invoking it in an effort to validate his illegal strikes at sea.

Moreover, on March 15, Trump issued “A Proclamation,” alleging that Tren de Aragua has been engaged, in association with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in “irregular warfare” in the United States, with no explanation of what is meant by irregular warfare. But on February 26, most U.S. intelligence agencies had made a finding that Tren de Aragua was neither controlled by the Venezuelan government, nor was it committing crimes in the United States on its orders.

On September 2, Trump announced that the U.S. had conducted a “kinetic strike” against an alleged drug smuggling vessel in the Caribbean, even though Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. military could have interdicted the vessel rather than killing all of those on board. Trump wanted to “send a message,” hardly an excuse for premeditated murder.

The lawful procedure would have been to arrest people if there was probable cause they were involved in drug trafficking and bring them to justice in accordance with due process. Both U.S. and international law provide for the arrest of alleged drug traffickers or individuals suspected of acts of terrorism, both on the high seas and in U.S. territorial waters.

In a post on social media accompanied by a video clip of the strike, Trump declared that the attack was “against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists” and referred to the February 20 foreign terrorist organization designation. This did not provide a lawful basis for murdering alleged drug dealers.

Although Trump’s stated rationale is preventing drugs from Venezuela entering the United States, Venezuela isn’t even mentioned in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s National Drug Threat Assessment 2024.

No State of Armed Conflict, No Unlawful Combatants, No Self-Defense

It was reported in early October that Trump had notified several congressional committees that the U.S. is engaged in a formal “armed conflict” with drug cartels that his administration has branded terrorist organizations, and that suspected drug smugglers are “unlawful combatants” in order to justify the strikes as self-defense………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

There is no current state of armed conflict, there is no evidence that the people on the boats were combatants, and it is illegal to deliberately attack civilians. “This is not stretching the envelope,” Geoffrey Corn, a retired judge advocate general lawyer who was formerly the Army’s senior adviser for law-of-war issues, told The New York Times. “This is shredding it. This is tearing it apart.”

The strikes on boats also violate the right to life enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the U.S. has ratified, making it part of U.S. law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. The covenant says that “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.” It outlaws extrajudicial killing outside the context of armed conflict or by law enforcement when necessary to protect against an imminent threat to life.

An Attack on Venezuela Would Be an Unlawful Act of Aggression

In addition to its increasing numbers of murders of alleged drug smugglers at sea, the Trump administration is positioning tremendous military firepower for what appears to be an imminent attack on Venezuela.

Hegseth ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft-carrier strike group with five destroyers to deploy to the region to “bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States,” according to a Pentagon spokesperson.

“The only thing you could use the carrier for is attacking targets ashore, because they are not going to be as effective at targeting small boats at sea,”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Forcible Regime Change Violates Venezuela’s Right to Self-Determination

During his first term, Trump repeatedly voiced his desire to invade Venezuela and change its regime. He was preoccupied with the idea of an invasion, the AP reported.

In 2019, the Trump administration orchestrated an unsuccessful strategy led by Rubio to carry out a coup d’état, seize power from Maduro, and install Juan Guaidó as “interim president” of Venezuela…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

National courts around the world should investigate and charge U.S. officials, including Trump, Rubio, and Hegseth, with murder under well-established principles of universal jurisdiction.

And we must mobilize a powerful antiwar movement to demand that the U.S. government stop the illegal boat murders and stay out of Venezuela. https://truthout.org/articles/trump-is-gunning-to-illegally-attack-venezuela-and-change-its-regime/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=33e1b56faa-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_10_30_09_26&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-33e1b56faa-650192793

November 1, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | SOUTH AMERICA, USA, weapons and war