Commentary: Donald Trump brings the war on terrorism to the Caribbean

On Friday, the United States destroyed what the Defense Department alleged was a boat affiliated with the National Liberation Army, a Colombian rebel group, using the Southern Caribbean to smuggle drugs into the country. The latest operation, which reportedly killed three people, is the seventh since the aerial campaign began in September. It took place on the same day that President Donald Trump claimed another successful strike earlier in the week, this time against a semi-submersible that took off from Venezuela. Two people were killed in that attack, according to the government.

We’ve heard the phrase “war on drugs” before. President Richard Nixon declared it in the early 1970s, and each successive president since has largely used the war paradigm to describe the campaign against drug traffickers. Yet up until last month, the tagline has always been associated with aggressive law enforcement action at home and intelligence collaboration with other countries that have a vested interest in reducing the scourge of illegal narcotics. The Trump administration, however, is taking the “war” part literally. Bombs have replaced arrests as Washington’s principal tool. The terminology being deployed sounds eerily similar to what former President George W. Bush used to say when he was talking about America’s fight against al-Qaida.

Indeed, senior Trump administration officials are branding drug traffickers as terrorists who need to be eliminated. The global war on terrorism we saw during the presidencies of Bush and Barack Obama is expanding under Trump to include a whole suite of new enemies. The fisherman allegedly doubling as a drug smuggler to make some extra cash is now on a par with the likes of Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Referring to Latin American drug cartels, FBI Director Kash Patel told Congress in September that the United States “must treat them like the al-Qaidas of the world because that’s how they’re operating.” Ditto Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has labeled the cartels“the Al-Qaida of the Western Hemisphere.”

It doesn’t take a genius to understand what the White House is doing: It’s trying to justify its ongoing U.S. military campaign against the cartels by tapping into language that is still quite sensitive to Americans’ ears. The cartels are, after all, ruthless organizations that often use terrorist tactics — car bombings, indiscriminate killings, beheadings and assassinations of public figures — to scare the population, consolidate their control over territory and intimidate the state. And despite the reduction in overdose deaths since mid-2023, the organizations producing and trafficking these drugs are still responsible for tens of thousands of American fatalities every year. Nobody is shedding a tear when some of these traffickers are killed, arrested and extradited to a U.S. courtroom for prosecution.

Yet this is almost beside the point. The question U.S. policymakers and Americans at large need to ask is whether waging an actual war against drugs is the most efficient way to tackle the problem.

There are three considerations at play. The first is the legality. Trump and lawyers throughout the executive branch have argued that because narcoterrorists are killing Americans, any drug trafficking vessel inbound to the United States can be considered an armed attack against the United States. Trump, the argument goes, therefore has the constitutional power to take out these vessels in an act of self-defense.

But let’s be honest: When the Founders gave the president the power to use the U.S. military to avert an armed attack against the United States, they didn’t have this scenario in mind. Rather, they were talking about another state using its armed forces to strike the continental United States, not drug pushers selling their product to Americans. The White House’s entire legal justification reads less like a legitimate argument and more like a flailing attempt to purposely avoid the formal process outlined in the U.S. Constitution of going to Congress and attaining its approval. U.S. lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats alike, are increasingly confused and angry about the administration’s total lack of transparency; some even doubt the people being killed are involved in the drug trade as the Pentagon states.

The second issue goes to policy: Will using military means to fight drug trafficking solve the problem? The administration obviously thinks so, but the evidence for this is lacking. We aren’t talking about armies or even insurgent movements with political motivations. Instead, we’re talking about organizations driven by monetary considerations — that is, grabbing as much of the market as they can and keeping the profits moving. Next to Europe, the United States is one of the most lucrative markets for traffickers the world has to offer. As long as this is the case, the financial motives will outweigh the risks associated with moving cocaine or fentanyl over land and at sea. In which case, all the Trump administration is doing is playing Whac-A-Mole for short-term effect.

Finally, diplomatic variables should be discussed as well. Right now, Latin American governments are largely biting their lip as the U.S. military continues to project power in the region. To think this status quo will continue, though, is simply naive, particularly if the United States begins to hit targets on land, as Trump has threatened to do. Colombian President Gustavo Petro is already in a war of words with Trump about the U.S. operation, blaming the White House for waging an extra-territorial campaign of murder without any semblance of due process. Regardless of whether you think Petro is right or wrong, the personal animus between the two men could begin to negatively affect the institutional relationship that Washington and Bogota have established since the Bill Clinton era. If we aren’t careful, counter-drug and counterintelligence cooperation could suffer as a result.

Trump is bringing the war on terrorism to America’s own hemisphere. Unfortunately, the Pentagon’s flashy videos of drug boats getting blown up shouldn’t be confused with victory.

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Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

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