The Case for Trump's Targeted Attacks on the Venezuelan Narco-State
Critics call Maduro’s arrest and the previous strikes on drug smugglers illegal and reckless; past practice shows a president acting within established constitutional bounds.
In the early hours of Saturday morning, explosions rocked Caracas as a surprise attack struck Venezuela’s ruling regime. Hours after the operation began, the White House announced that self-proclaimed president Nicolas Maduro—who had remained in power despite losing the 2024 election in a landslide—was in U.S. custody. Thus ended a years-long process that began with Maduro’s 2020 indictment in federal court in Manhattan for narcoterrorism and related offenses.
Maduro’s capture culminates months of armed stand-off with his regime. Previously, the Trump administration had launched a series of drone strikes against suspected drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean. These strikes destroyed boats tied to Venezuelan cartels, killing more than 100 alleged narco-traffickers.
In an October memorandum to Congress, the White House explicitly declared this an armed conflict against narco-terrorist cartels, branding them unlawful combatants and enemy belligerents—no longer mere unorganized criminals, but legitimate targets under the laws of war. According to that memo, the strikes were legally justified as acts of self-defense.
Trump then escalated that campaign by deploying the largest military presence in the Caribbean in nearly 40 years—including positioning America’s largest aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, and roughly 15,000 personnel— to support the mission to pressure and ultimately extract Maduro. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in November that the U.S. would designate the Cartel de los Soles cartel as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, which triggers assorted counterterrorism authorities under existing law.
