Pentagon officials informed members of Congress of the development after strikes were carried out on boats in the Caribbean.
President Donald Trump declared drug cartels to be “unlawful combatants” and said that the United States is now in a “non-international armed conflict,” according to an administration report sent to Congress and obtained by The Epoch Times.
The report is a notification mandated by federal law following any incident in which U.S. forces are involved in an attack or hostilities. A White House official told The Epoch Times that the report was sent to Congress following the second U.S. strike on a drug smuggling vessel and “does not convey any new information.”
The Trump administration has carried out three strikes in recent weeks on boats it said were smuggling drugs in the Caribbean, starting with a Sept. 2 strike that administration officials said killed 11 members of Tren de Aragua, a criminal group that originated in Venezuela and was designated as a terrorist organization by the United States earlier this year.
“Although friendly foreign nations have made significant efforts to combat these organizations, suffering significant losses of life, these groups are now transnational and conduct ongoing attacks throughout the Western Hemisphere as organized cartels,” the report, obtained by The Epoch Times on Oct. 2, states.
“Therefore, the President determined these cartels are non-state armed groups, designated them as terrorist organizations, and determined that their actions constitute an armed attack against the United States.”
Trump issued an executive order directing the designation of cartels as terrorist groups on his first day in office. The State Department issued a formal designation on Feb. 20. Those records didn’t refer to cartel members as “unlawful combatants” or describe their activity as “an armed attack against the United States.”
A Pentagon spokesperson referred a request for comment to the White House.
“As we have said many times, the President acted in line with the law of armed conflict to protect our country from those trying to bring deadly poison to our shores, and he is delivering on his promise to take on the cartels and eliminate these national security threats from murdering more Americans,” Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, told The Epoch Times via email.
The first strike in early September came because Tren de Aragua was ferrying a lot of drugs in a boat, officials said. A second strike, announced on Sept. 15, came after the military positively identified narcoterrorists transporting drugs, according to Trump. The third strike, announced on Sept. 19, targeted “a vessel affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization conducting narcotrafficking,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Senators recently introduced a measure under the War Powers Act that would prohibit using the military against non-state groups involved in drug trafficking, barring authorization from Congress.
“Drug cartels must be stopped, but declaring war & ordering lethal military force without Congress or public knowledge—nor legal justification—is unacceptable,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, wrote on X Thursday.
Others expressed support for the determination.
“From the United States Congress, I can assure you that we will support any measure President Trump takes to annihilate the cartels led by [President] Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela,” Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), a member of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, said on X.
Officials have said the strikes are necessary to protect Americans.
“We’re not going to sit back anymore and watch these people sail up and down the Caribbean like a cruise ship,“ Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in September. ”It’s not going to happen.”
Emel Akan contributed to this report.
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