During the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump infamously declared, “I am the candidate of peace,” and decried his opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, as the candidate of “death and destruction.” Since taking office, Trump has continued to claim the mantle of peacemaker, even going so far as to actively lobby for a Nobel Peace Prize. But as is so often the case with Trump, the facts point in a different direction.
In only eight months in office, Trump is on pace to launch more airstrikes than Joe Biden did during his entire presidency. He reversed a Biden-era policy and ramped up U.S. military operations in Yemen, leading to a dramatic increase in civilian casualties. Over the summer, he ordered the U.S. military to bomb three of Iran’s nuclear facilities. And for all his bluster about acting as a peacemaker, he’s largely backed Israeli military operations in Gaza and has made zero progress in ending the war in Ukraine.
Yet, there is perhaps no better example of Trump’s less-than-peaceful instincts than what’s been taking place recently in the Caribbean.
To date, the Trump administration has provided no evidence that those targeted and killed were smuggling drugs into the United States.
Since early September, the U.S. military has, on three separate occasions, conducted strikes on suspected drug smugglers and what Trump claims are members of the Venezuelan criminal organization, Tren de Aragua. Seventeen people have died in these attacks.
To date, the Trump administration has provided no evidence that those targeted and killed were smuggling drugs into the United States. But even if that evidence existed, as international law experts have repeatedly pointed out, there is no reasonable legal basis for them.
For example, Marty Lederman, a professor at Georgetown University’s law school and a former deputy assistant attorney general at the Office of Legal Counsel, has written that these attacks violate numerous domestic and international laws. He points out that Trump has no domestic legal authority to target Venezuelan drug smugglers, and Trump’s actions almost certainly violate a long-standing executive order that forbids assassination. Furthermore, he writes, that because those targeted were not at war with the United States — and were not members of any recognized armed forces — the killings also likely violate domestic laws forbidding murder.
Defenders of the president may cite that Lederman previously served in the Obama and Biden administrations. But even Republican legal experts are casting doubts on Trump’s actions. Former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo created the legal basis for the use of torture during the global war on terrorism, yet earlier this week, he penned a column for The Washington Post criticizing Trump’s anti-drug boat war and warning that it risks “crossing the line between crime-fighting and war.”
The White House has defended the strikes by arguing that the U.S. is at war with narco-traffickers and terrorists. The strikes, the administration claims, were targeted at “a designated terrorist organization … in defense of vital U.S. national interests and in the collective self-defense of other nations who have long suffered due to the narcotics trafficking and violent cartel activities of such organizations.”
While the Trump White House has designated Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization, that designation does not give the U.S. military legal authority to kill its members.
The Trump administration has reversed the once-sacrosanct military prohibition against using the nation’s armed forces against civilian targets.
Trump, as well as past presidents, have argued that Article II of the Constitution gives the president broad authority to use military force even without congressional authorization. There is one major problem in applying that standard to Tren de Aragua: its members are civilians. Even if one accepts the Trump administration’s argument that narcotics trafficking represents a direct military threat to the United States (and that is a major stretch), the fact that drug smugglers are civilian members of a criminal organization is not a legal basis for killing them.
Indeed, with little national debate, the Trump administration has reversed the once-sacrosanct military prohibition against using the nation’s armed forces against civilian targets. Yet, according to Vice President JD Vance, “Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military.” When it was pointed out to him that killing civilians without due process is likely a war crime, he responded, “I don’t give a s— what you call it.” In keeping with this cavalier attitude, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said publicly that military officials could have interdicted the drug boats but chose instead to kill those on board because the administration wanted to “send a message.” No provision of international or domestic law allows the U.S. government to murder people to send a message. Rather, Rubio has unintentionally admitted that the U.S. likely broke the law in targeting suspected narco-traffickers. Moreover, “American officials … speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter” told The New York Times that in at least one of the attacks, the military destroyed the targeted boat even though it had turned around. This directly contradicts claims by the Trump administration, and Rubio himself, that the drug vessels represented an “immediate threat” to the United States. Not only has Trump shown no signs of discontinuing the strikes, but he has also escalated the rhetoric against Venezuela. In his speech at the United Nations earlier this week, he threatened to “blow out of existence” Venezuelan “terrorist thugs” involved in drug trafficking. This follows veiled threats to use military force against Venezuela if it refuses to accept prisoners the U.S. is seeking to deport. The fact is, being a “president of peace” is about more than just not starting wars or using military force — though Trump is hardly batting 1,000 on that front. It also requires a president to respect and adhere to international laws and norms. For much of the past 80 years, these rules have helped keep the peace, albeit imperfectly. Employing the military in the pursuit of criminals and violating not just international law, but also domestic law are not the actions of a restrained president who is committed to preventing future wars. If Trump wants to win a Nobel Peace Prize, he could start by not shooting first and asking questions later.
Michael A. Cohen is a political writer and a fellow with the Eurasia Group Foundation. 
