U.S. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth claims he has every authorization needed to carry out military strikes on suspected drug smuggling vessels off the coast of Venezuela, just days after the United States carried out another deadly strike on a vessel allegedly carrying illegal drugs.
Hegseth made the comments while speaking during a Fox News interview on Sunday, following the fourth such military strike on a suspected drug smuggling vessel in international waters in recent weeks, moves that many experts have said violate U.S. and international law.
“We have every authorisation needed. These are designated as foreign terrorist organisations,” Hegseth said in an interview on Fox News’ “The Sunday Briefing.”
The defense secretary did not provide any additional details about the authorisation. The Trump administration has cited the U.S. Constitution, war powers, designation of drug cartels as terrorist organisations,the right to self-defence, and international law on unlawful combatants as the legal justification for the strikes.
Legal experts and many U.S. lawmakers have asserted that the use of military force in international waters against alleged criminals bypasses due process, violates law enforcement norms and lacks a clear legal justification under U.S. and international law, and is not justified by the cartels’ terrorist designation.
Hegseth and President Donald Trump have not provided any concrete evidence to support the claims that the vessels targeted in the four military strikes were in fact, smuggling illegal drugs. Trump told Congress last week that he had determined the U.S. to be in “a non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels, without providing any new legal rationale.
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Critics of the president have said Trump is using the strikes as yet another way for him to test the limits of presidential power. Legal experts have also questioned why the military is being used to carry out these strikes, instead of the U.S. Coast Guard, the country’s primary maritime security force.
“If you’re in our hemisphere, if you’re in the Caribbean, if you’re north of Venezuela and you want to traffic drugs to the United States, you are a legitimate target of the United States military,” Hegseth said.
Trump on Sunday claims the U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean had halted drug trafficking from South America.
“There’s no drugs coming into the water. And we’ll look at what phase two is,” he told reporters at the White House.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told his Venuzaulan counterpart that his country condems the U.S. strikes, and is concerned about the dangers of potential U.S. escalation in the Caribbean.