Just a couple of weeks ago, we heard about a military strike on a boat in international waters that, according to President Trump, was full of drug smugglers from Venezuela and resulted in 11 deaths. There was no proof of this, but Trump felt that he could do whatever he wanted in international waters to civilian boats from other countries. Now, just as questions were piling up about the legality and justification of that first strike, the president has gone and announced two more.
Per NBC, President Trump announced that U.S. forces had carried out a second strike on a Venezuelan vessel. He said the ship was helmed by “narcoterrorists” and was carrying “illegal narcotics” headed to the U.S.. This time, he said the strike killed three people, and that “no U.S. forces were harmed”. The president and his team have been pretty tight-lipped about the specifics of these operations, including the legal justification, but he wasn’t shy about claiming what was on the boats.
When asked for evidence, Trump said, “Well, we have proof. All you have to do is look at the cargo that was, like, it spattered all over the ocean, big bags of cocaine and fentanyl all over the place”. A White House spokesperson also chimed in, saying the administration “acted in line with the laws of armed conflict to protect The administration” from “evil Tren de Aragua narcoterrorists”.
Trump won’t stop bombing civilian boats, regardless of whether its murder or not
The first strike, which happened on September 2, was a big deal. The White House struggled to answer questions about the legality of the action, and people were demanding proof that the boat was actually carrying drugs or that the people on board were indeed “narcoterrorists” as the administration claimed. Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, was pretty blunt about it.
He said, “President Trump’s actions are an outrageous violation of the law and a dangerous assault on our Constitution”. He went on to say that “no president can secretly wage war or carry out unjustified killings—that is authoritarianism, not democracy”. You’d think after all that, there would be at least some kind of pause.
Venezuela has an illegal authoritarian government but bombing civilian boats in international waters is murder under international and US federal law. This must not be normalised and Trump and Hegseth must be held accountable one day https://t.co/OLxUzVSWuU
— peter a (@peteral85987942) September 16, 2025
It’s a little unsettling, to be fair. Standard procedure for suspected drug boats involves stopping and searching the vessel, seizing any drugs, and arresting the crew. In these cases, that’s not what happened. The boats were just blown up. In fact, someone close to it told ABC that the boat had even turned around before it was destroyed by the military. This means that, even in war, no military or police could justify deadly force. You absolutely cannot kill someone who is retreating or surrendering; that is considered murder.
If a second strike wasn’t enough, Trump has already announced a third. The day after the second strike was made public, Trump told reporters that U.S. naval forces in the Caribbean had now “knocked off” a third boat. It wasn’t totally clear if this was true or not, but it certainly shows the administration is not backing down. On top of that, Trump has been threatening more to come, saying his administration will go after drug smugglers on land as well. He said, “When they come by land, we’re going to be stopping them the same way we stopped the boats”.
In a rather odd moment, Trump also seemed to acknowledge that these strikes could be affecting innocent people, specifically fishermen. He told reporters, “I mean, to be honest, if I were a fisherman, I wouldn’t want to go fishing, either… I’d say, ‘Man, maybe they think I have drugs downstairs, I don’t want that.’ I think the fishing business has probably been hurt”.
