Trump Calls for Non-International Armed Conflict

On Thursday, in a memorandum to Congress, President Trump has called for a formal “non-international armed conflict” against Venezuelan drug cartels. The War Department has been engaged in interdicting and destroying suspected Venezuelan drug smugglers in the open ocean, and this would appear to place an official approval for those actions – or, at least, an official notification to Congress.

🚨 BREAKING: Trump admin tells Congress that US is now in ‘non-international armed battle’ with drug cartels designated as terrorist organizations pic.twitter.com/prH6ATwUQl

— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 2, 2025

A Fox News piece on the matter has only a few more particulars:

“The President directed these actions consistent with his responsibility to protect Americans and United States interests abroad and in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests, pursuant to his constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive to conduct foreign relations,” the memo states. 

The Trump administration would appear to be wandering into uncharted waters right here. While the drug cartels could have the eye-wink approval of the Venezuelan authorities, they don’t seem to be an official department of Maduro’s dictatorship, merely a legal group to which it is in El Presidente’s curiosity to flip a blind eye.

There could also be a historic precedent, though, back in the very early years of our republic, when Thomas Jefferson was president: The Barbary pirates. These have been pirates and slave-traders, working out of Tripoli in what is now Libya. They have been in the behavior of amassing financial tribute from ships passing through the Mediterranean, and when President Jefferson, in 1801, told them where to stick their tribute calls for, the pasha of Tripoli declared conflict on the United States.

Here, the analogy falls aside a little bit; while these have been pirates, they have been supported by an precise national ruler, the pasha of Tripoli. But there’s an argument to be made that any nation ruled by pirates is certainly not a reputable nation, but merely a cartel of another, bigger type. 

President Jefferson wasn’t deterred, and in what turned recognized as the First Barbary War, he despatched a squadron of U.S. Navy ships to the Mediterranean to show the pirates the “or else.” The preventing went on until 1804, when a younger American lieutenant, Stephen Decatur, led a detachment into the harbor of Tripoli to destroy the captured U.S. frigate Philadelphia. It is from this episode in American historical past that the Marine Corps anthem derives the road, “…to the shores of Tripoli.”

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We ought to be aware that President Trump has not, as yet, invoked this as a precedent or justification, and a New York Times piece on Thursday has raised some legal questions as to the transfer.

Geoffrey S. Corn, a retired decide advocate basic lawyer who was previously the Army’s senior adviser for law-of-war points, said drug cartels weren’t engaged in “hostilities” — the usual for when there’s an armed battle for legal functions — against the United States because promoting a harmful product is different than an armed assault.

Noting that it’s unlawful for the army to intentionally goal civilians who usually are not instantly collaborating in hostilities — even suspected criminals — Mr. Corn called the president’s transfer an “abuse” that crossed a major legal line.

“This is not stretching the envelope,” he said. “This is shredding it. This is tearing it apart.”

Note that Mr. Corn shouldn’t be in any official place. It’s doubtless that the president has at least consulted with his own legal advisors before issuing this memo. And, we must always be aware, the United States carried out a related conflict against a non-national entity very not too long ago: Al Qaeda.

After the terrorist assaults on Sept. 11, 2001, when the United States went to conflict against Al Qaeda — a nonstate actor working across a number of nations — some legal students objected that the nation was stretching the principles to justify utilizing wartime powers against a group they likened more to a legal band of pirates.

But the Supreme Court discovered that the battle with Al Qaeda was a real conflict. It blessed as lawful the Bush administration’s use of the wartime energy to maintain captured Qaeda members in indefinite detention without trial, while also saying the federal government was certain by the Geneva Conventions to deal with such prisoners humanely and not torture them.

This will doubtless be taken to the courts, and again, could proceed to the Supreme Court, as did the Al Qaeda case. But one would suppose at the very least, the actions of the cartels could be akin to piracy, aggressive actions against a goal nation by a non-state actor, and therefore the cartels are eligible to be positioned in the crosshairs of the United States armed forces.

One wonders, what would Thomas Jefferson have performed?

Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is right here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the unconventional Democrats pressured a authorities shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

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