Trump Insists He Can Strike Alleged Drug Traffickers Abroad Without Congress Declaring War

United States President Donald Trump maintained on Friday, October 24, that he could persist in ordering strikes against suspected drug traffickers overseas without Congress initially approving a formal declaration of war.

“I’m not going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war,” he said. “I think we’re just doing to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. Okay? We’re going to kill them, you know, they’re going to be like, dead.”

Trump’s rejection emerged as he indicated his administration would shortly start targeting individuals identified as cartel members inside nations such as Venezuela, alongside sustaining strikes on presumed drug vessels in international waters. The president mentioned he would inform Congress prior to initiating any operations on “land” but argued the strategy would encounter no opposition from legislators.

“We going to go. I don’t see any loss in going” to Congress, Trump said. “We’re going to tell them what we’re going to do and I think they’ll probably like it, except for the radical left lunatics.”

The deadly attacks on ships in the Caribbean and east Pacific have disturbed certain lawmakers, considering the scant evidence the administration has offered demonstrating that the targets were alleged narco-terrorists.

On Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asserted that the military has verified that every targeted vessel is transporting drugs. He justified the choice to repatriate two survivors from a recent strike as “standard” procedure in war. He explained that in previous wars such as Iraq and Afghanistan, the overwhelming majority of captured individuals were transferred to their country of origin. “So in this case, those two, they were treated by American medics and handed immediately over to their countries where they came from.”

Trump’s comments occurred as an American B-1 Lancer bomber flew close to the Venezuelan coast on Thursday, though the president refuted that the U.S. dispatched the bomber.

“No, it’s not accurate. No. It’s false. But we’re not happy with Venezuela for a lot of reasons. Drugs being one of them, but also they’ve been sending their prisoners into our country for years under the Biden administration, not anymore, we have a closed border,” Trump said.

The aircraft initially showed up on flight-tracking screens southwest of the Dallas Fort Worth region around 4:30 a.m. ET on Thursday. At its nearest approach, it was slightly over 50 miles from the Venezuelan mainland. Open-source flight information subsequently revealed the bomber reemerging for approximately 15 minutes inside Venezuela’s flight information region (FIR), although it was not instantly evident whether the aircraft entered Venezuelan airspace.

The flight takes place as frictions keep escalating between the two nations after the positioning of U.S. warships in the Caribbean as part of what Washington describes as a counter-drug trafficking initiative. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday asserted his country possessed 5,000 Russian-made Igla-S anti-aircraft missiles in “key air defense positions,” systems able to down small aerial threats like low-flying aircraft.

A Gentle Reminder: Every obstacle is a stepping stone, every morning; a chance to go again, and those little steps take you closer to your dream.

Nnamdi Okoli