“The Trump administration originally planned to go after Mexican drug cartels, but pivoted to Venezuela, according to current and former officials. A trio of legal documents and directives have subsequently authorized an unorthodox lethal campaign.” (Nakashima, Horton & Lamothe, 2025).
White House homeland security adviser Stephen Miller in July at the White House.
In the first months of the administration, Miller, the architect of Trump’s anti-immigration and border policies, and his team discussed starting a new war on drugs by striking cartels and alleged traffickers in Mexico.
The deviation of the original plan
What followed was a sharp redirection of U.S. counternarcotics policy. As Mexican military operations and cooperation constrained cartel activity, senior White House officials began looking further south. The focus shifted to Venezuela and surrounding waters, where the administration launched an unprecedented campaign of lethal military strikes against alleged drug-smuggling groups. Since September, U.S. forces have hit at least 26 boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. At least 99 people were killed, according to officials, without publicly identifying the victims.
At the center of the strategy is Stephen Miller. He was described by multiple sources as the driving force behind an effort to merge drug enforcement, migration control and long-standing ambitions to pressure or remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Trump has accused Maduro of overseeing “narco-terrorists” attacking the United States. A claim that underpins the administration’s legal and political justification for the campaign.
The White House insists the policy reflects Trump’s own priorities. “President Trump’s counternarcotics policies come from President Trump himself,” said spokeswoman Anna Kelly. Adding that the administration aims to eliminate “the scourge of narco-terrorism that takes tens of thousands of American lives every year.”
Widening the scope
A still frame from a video posted on social media by President Donald Trump shows a boat allegedly transporting illegal narcotics after a lethal strike on Sept. 2, through U.S. military imagery. (Department of Defense)
A classified directive signed by Trump in July authorized the use of lethal force against two dozen foreign criminal groups labeled “designated terrorist organizations.” A term many legal experts say has no grounding in existing law. That directive paved the way for a Defense Department “execute order” issued in August. This set permissive targeting rules modeled on post-9/11 counterterrorism campaigns.
Originally confined to waters off Venezuela, the order was later expanded to include the eastern Pacific, dramatically widening the operational theater. Critics inside and outside government argue the campaign stretches international law, turning what has traditionally been a law enforcement challenge into a quasi-war.
Todd Huntley, a former military lawyer, warned that the operations “are now stretching the limits of international law so that it’s now totally unrecognizable.”
Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser. (Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice)
Identification and delegation
Under an executive order, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was designated as the authority who approves strike targets, with the option to delegate. The targeting standard requires only “reasonable certainty” that adult males are members of, or affiliated with, a designated group, while demanding “near certainty” that no women or children are present.
That standard alarms former officials, who say affiliation can be inferred from factors such as a boat’s route or the presence of drugs. “When you define DTO and affiliate so loosely and you’re attacking boats, [the guidelines are] basically meaningless.” This was said by a former official. Sen. Mark Warner echoed concerns that some of those killed were low-level participants, not cartel leaders. Noting the difference between a hardened trafficker and “a fisherman that’s getting paid a hundred bucks a couple times a year.”
Lifting language from the “war on terror”
The language of the order borrows heavily from the U.S. “war on terror,” but without the same legal foundation. Unlike campaigns against al-Qaeda or ISIS, there is no new congressional authorization for the use of force. Ryan Goodman, a former Pentagon lawyer, said killing people based on “reasonable certainty” outside an armed conflict is “beyond the pale”. Which would likely be deemed as a human rights violation by international bodies.
A U.S. Marine Corps helicopter approaches to land at the Roosevelt Roads naval base in Ceiba, Puerto Rico, on Friday.
Former military officials also stress a key difference. Past counterterrorism strikes typically targeted known individuals with established roles in hostile networks. “We knew who we were going after,” one retired officer said. “I don’t see that in some of what [the U.S. is] doing right now.”
‘Anybody . . . is subject to attack’
A U.S. Navy light amphibious vehicle moves through the water toward the beach during military movements in Arroyo, Puerto Rico, on Dec. 5.
The very large crude carrier Skipper, right, is believed to have been seized by U.S. forces off the coast of Venezuela
Analysts note that Venezuela is not a major source of fentanyl, the drug driving the U.S. overdose crisis. Meanwhile, many strikes have occurred along routes serving non-U.S. markets. This has fueled speculation that the campaign’s broader purpose is political pressure on Caracas. Trump himself has hinted at further expansion, declaring that “anybody that’s doing that and selling it into our country is subject to attack.”
The administration has since escalated pressure on Venezuela through oil seizures and a sweeping blockade of sanctioned tankers. Trump’s chief of staff, Susan Wiles, summed up the strategy bluntly. The president intends to keep up the pressure “until Maduro cries uncle.”
Together, the strikes, legal innovations and rhetoric signal a dramatic shift in how the U.S. is willing to use military force in the name of counternarcotics. One that supporters frame as decisive and critics see as legally and morally perilous.
Reference
Nakashima, E., Horton, A., & Lamothe, D. (2025, December 18). Stephen Miller’s hard-line Mexico strategy morphed into deadly boat strikes. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/12/18/stephen-miller-boat-strikes-mexico-venezuela-execute-order/