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The U.S. military on Friday carried out another air strike on a boat in international waters near Venezuela, killing four alleged drug smugglers. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared a video of the strike, insisting without putting forward any evidence that the men killed were “narco-terrorists” carrying out an “attack” on the U.S. because they were “transporting substantial amounts of narcotics — headed to America to poison our people.” It was the fourth such attack on alleged drug smugglers on the Caribbean Sea since early September amid a massive buildup of U.S. warships in the region, and it was the first air strike since President Donald Trump and his administration informed Congress that the U.S. is now in “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels. Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, who the U.S. alleges runs a cartel out of his country, is warning against U.S. invasion and alleging that Trump’s real goal is regime change. Below is a closer look at what’s happening, including commentary and analysis.

Is this technically a war?

The Trump administration is attempting to justify its actions as self-defense and counterterrorism, and it has been laying that legal groundwork for a while, as the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reported on Friday:

Hegseth’s post claimed the boat was “affiliated with Designated Terrorist Organizations”, a term the administration introduced for the first time in a confidential memo sent to Congress that attempted to legally justify the strikes. The Guardian reviewed a copy of the memo.

Until this week, the administration has referred to Tren de Aragua and other cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, or FTO. Legal experts suggested that simply characterizing drugs cartels as an FTO did not give the administration any additional authority to use lethal force.

White House officials have sought to justify the strikes internally and externally by claiming Trump was exercising his article II powers, which allows the president to use military force in self-defense in limited engagements.

The self-defense argument revolves around Trump’s designation of Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization, a claim advanced by Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, in order to defend the deportations of dozens of Venezuelans earlier this year under the Alien Enemies Act. The administration claimed that Tren de Aragua had infiltrated the regime of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro – and so the presence of the cartel’s members in the US amounted to a “predatory incursion” by a foreign nation, allowing for the deportation of any Venezuelan national. But the administration has yet to provide concrete evidence that Tren de Aragua has become an instrument of the Venezuelan government, and legal experts contacted for this story said the White House could only justify the strikes if it could make that showing.

Is Trump’s military campaign against drug cartels against the law?

Numerous legal experts have been sounding the alarm. Per the New York Times:

Geoffrey S. Corn, a retired judge advocate general lawyer who was formerly the Army’s senior adviser for law-of-war issues, said drug cartels were not engaged in “hostilities” — the standard for when there is an armed conflict for legal purposes — against the United States because selling a dangerous product is different from an armed attack.

Noting that it is illegal for the military to deliberately target civilians who are not directly participating in hostilities — even suspected criminals — Mr. Corn called the president’s move an “abuse” that crossed a major legal line.

“This is not stretching the envelope,” he said. “This is shredding it. This is tearing it apart.”

At Just Security, law professor Marty Lederman has repeatedly argued that Trump’s military strikes on Venezuelan boats violate both U.S. and international law. He writes that Trump’s armed-conflict justification is “groundless”:

No one—in the public, in Congress or, most importantly, in the military itself—should treat it as a plausible legal basis that might justify lethal strikes on the alleged drug vessels and the civilians on those boats. …

[T]he United States is not engaged in an armed conflict with any drug cartel. Under the well-established understanding of the preconditions for a “noninternational armed conflict,” it is necessary (at a minimum) (i) that the non-State entity is an “organized armed group” with the sort of command structure that would render members targetable on the basis of their status because they’re subject to commanders’ direction and control and (ii) that the organized armed group has engaged in armed violence against the State that is of some intensity (think of al Qaeda’s attacks on Sept. 11, 2001) and that has been protracted. …

The Trump administration hasn’t made any effort—not publicly, anyway—to demonstrate that any of the drug cartels in question are “organized” armed groups with the sort of command structure that would render members targetable on the basis of their status. But even if it could do so, those cartels haven’t engaged in any protracted or intense armed violence against the United States.

At The New York Review, David Cole writes that Trump is effectively getting away with murder:

The “war on drugs” is a metaphor, not a legal term of art that authorizes killing the “enemy.” The human beings on these boats were civilians, and even if there were an actual war going on, the laws of war prohibit targeting civilians unless they are directly engaged in hostilities. Even if the boats’ occupants were, as the administration alleges, carrying illegal drugs, that offense would at most have authorized their arrest, trial, and, if convicted, incarceration for a period of years. It would not authorize the death penalty, much less their summary execution without trial. …

Prior presidents have invoked war authorities on dubious grounds to justify the use of lethal force and other unlawful measures, as when Ronald Reagan ordered the invasion of Grenada on the pretense of protecting Americans in medical school there, or when George W. Bush asserted the authority to disappear suspected al-Qaeda terrorists into secret CIA “black sites” and torture them, or when Barack Obama resorted to drones to assassinate suspected members of al-Qaeda or ISIS. Each questionable exercise of executive authority eases the way for further expansions. But never before has a US president asserted the authority to order the cold-blooded execution of civilians outside any even arguable military conflict. And never before has a US president then turned around and boasted about his own crimes to the public at large. If the president can order the summary killing of drug dealers on the high seas, why not elsewhere—say, Mexico, or Chicago?

Is Trump going to invade Venezuela?

Nobody seems to think that is likely at this point, but there could still be further escalation, the Igarapé Institute’s Robert Muggah notes at the Conversation:

[E]xpectations of a military clash are edging upward. Several forecasters now put the odds of some form of U.S. strike against Venezuela before year’s end at roughly 1 in 3, with the chances rising further into 2026.

Yet the prospect of an outright invasion remains, I believe, remote. U.S. domestic politics may act as a brake: Opinion polls show most Americans oppose military action to topple Maduro, and an even larger majority reject the idea of a full-scale invasion.

Even so, three factors could shape if and when Washington steps up its action: a deadly incident at sea involving civilians or U.S. personnel; hard evidence that Venezuelan officials are directly tied to large-scale trafficking to the U.S.; and regional governments lining up behind stronger action.

While the odds of a strike and even regime change are rising, Washington’s strategy in the very near term appears to remain one of pressure without full commitment, using shows of force, sanctions and selective strikes to weaken Caracas while avoiding being dragged into a messy war or sparking an oil shock.

How big a role does Venezuela play in supplying illicit drugs to the U.S.?

Not as big as the Trump administration suggests. As the New York Times explained last month, the country plays virtually no role in supplying fentanyl to the U.S. and is only a middleman when it comes to the cocaine trade:

Venezuela is not a major producer of cocaine but serves as a transit hub for it. The country’s long, porous border with Colombia — the world’s largest producer — and long coastline provide traffickers access to global markets. Weak state institutions and widespread corruption have entrenched the trade. U.S. indictments and leaked Colombian records describe Venezuelan security forces as overseeing drug shipments worth billions of dollars.

Estimates by the United States in 2020 said that 200 to 250 metric tons of cocaine flowed through Venezuela annually — roughly 10 to 13 percent of the global supply. But other countries have a much bigger hand in moving cocaine. In 2018, 1,400 metric tons of cocaine moved through Guatemala, U.S. data shows. And Venezuela’s domestic cocaine cultivation is negligible, experts said.

Unlike Mexican cartels, Venezuelan gangs rely more on local extortion than on drug trafficking to generate money, according to David A. Smilde, a sociologist who studies violence in Venezuela at Tulane University.

In addition, in 2019 the DEA estimates that only about a quarter of cocaine shipments moved through the Caribbean. The majority were via the Pacific. and the other issue is the misleading use of the term “cartel” to describe Maduro and other Venezuelan leaders’ involvement in the drug trade. Per the Times:

U.S. prosecutors have accused Venezuela’s president of leading the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns), a term used to describe networks of military and political elites who profit from drug smuggling and other illicit trades. …

[A]nalysts say illicit revenues — from corrupt contracts, drug trafficking, illegal gold mining and the diversion of funds meant for state programs — help secure their loyalty and sustain his rule. These funds flow to Mr. Maduro and his inner circle, experts say, including the armed forces and party elites — an example of how the Cartel de los Soles functions. …

Experts say the Cartel de los Soles is not a cartel in the conventional sense, but shorthand for Venezuela’s criminal patronage system. The phrase, used since the 1990s, refers to the sun insignia worn by Venezuelan generals who have been implicated in trafficking.

Is the U.S. naval buildup in the Caribbean just about drugs?

Preceding this conflict, the U.S. has also sought to bolster Guyana — a U.S. ally and rising petrostate — against threats from neighboring Venezuela.

Does Trump even know what he’s doing?

Guardian columnist Simon Tisdall doesn’t think Trump has an actual plan:

[G]iven his hapless blundering on other key foreign issues, the most likely explanation for Trump’s behaviour is that, typically, he hasn’t got a clue what he’s doing – in Venezuela or Latin America as whole. There’s no plan. He throws his weight about, makes impetuous misjudgments, stokes fear of foreigners and bases policy on whether he “likes” other leaders. In 2019, with Maduro on the ropes, Trump blinked. Today, full-scale military intervention in Venezuela remains unlikely. More probable is an intensified pressure campaign of destabilisation, sanctions, maritime strikes, and air and commando raids.

Far from weakening and isolating the regime, Trump may achieve the exact opposite. Maduro is already using the crisis to assume dictatorial “special powers” and rally public opinion behind patriotic calls for national solidarity. Trump’s bullying of other left-leaning Latin American countries such as Colombia – and presumptuous cheerleading for rightwing populists in Argentina and El Salvador – is spurring a regional backlash, too. Most governments abhor the thought of a return to the bad old days of Yanqui meddling in Washington’s “back yard”.

He also argues that it plays into China’s hands:

Trump’s efforts to reprise the role of Latin American neighbourhood policeman, emulating former president Theodore Roosevelt – a big stick-wielding serial interventionist – are regressive, dangerous and self-defeating. Long-term, the big winner will most likely be Beijing, an increasingly influential regional actor, investor and leading member of the Brics group of nations. As the US burns its bridges across the world, Trump is making China great again.

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