New York/Washington.- The President of
the United States, Donald Trump, formally declared that his country is involved in a
“non-international armed conflict” against drug cartels, a measure that allows him to justify military attacks against vessels coming from Venezuela.
This determination represents a new escalation in the Trump Administration’s strategy against the major Latin American cartels, which at the beginning of the year it classified as terrorist organizations for the damage that drugs cause to Americans.
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The Government sent a notification to several Congressional committees, which was reported by The New York Times and accessed by EFE, detailing that Trump determined that the cartels are “non-state armed groups” whose actions “constitute an armed attack against the United States”.
“Based on the cumulative effects of these hostile acts against the citizens and interests of the United States and friendly foreign nations, the president determined that the United States is in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations,” it indicates.
“The president ordered the War Department to carry out operations against them in accordance with the law of armed conflict,” it adds.
According to the notice, “The United States has now reached a critical point where we must use force in self-defense.”
With this argumentation, the document provides a legal justification for why at least three U.S. military attacks that the president ordered against vessels in the Caribbean Sea last month, which caused 17 deaths, should be considered legitimate actions and not assassinations.
At least two of those operations were carried out on vessels from Venezuela.
According to legal specialists consulted by The New York Times, Trump’s decision to formally consider his campaign against the cartels as an active armed conflict means he is consolidating his right to extraordinary wartime powers.
The President of the United States is legally obligated to notify Congress about military operations abroad, but only Congress has the power to formally declare war.
The notification indicates that “U.S. forces remain prepared to carry out military operations as necessary to prevent further deaths or injuries to U.S. citizens.”
The United States has deployed at least eight warships in the region and a nuclear-powered fast attack submarine, as well as more than 4,500 soldiers, as part of an operation in the Caribbean Sea. It has also sent latest-generation F-35B fighter jets to Puerto Rico.
The Trump administration accuses Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of leading the so-called Cartel of the Suns, designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization allegedly linked to drug trafficking, a claim that Caracas rejects.
The Maduro government considers the US deployment in the Caribbean as a threat of aggression and has mobilized the Army and reservists as a deterrence strategy.
