The president of the United States, Donald Trump, formally declared that his country is involved in a “non -international armed conflict” against drug trafficking cartels, a measure that allows him to justify military attacks against vessels from Venezuela.
This determination is a new escalation in the Trump administration strategy against the great Latin American cartels, which at the beginning of the year cataloged as terrorist organizations for the damage produced by drugs to Americans.
The Government sent to several Congress Committees a notification, which was advanced by The New York Times and the one that had EFE access, which details that Trump determined that the cartels are “non -state armed groups” whose actions “constitute an armed attack against the United States.”
“Based on the cumulative effects of these hostile acts against citizens and interests of the United States and Foreign Friendly Nations, the President determined that the United States is in a non -international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations,” he says.
“The president ordered the war department to carry out operations against them in accordance with the right of armed conflicts,” he adds.
According to the notice, “the United States has now reached a critical point in which we must use the force in self -defense.”
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With this argument, the document gives a legal justification for why at least three US military attacks that the president ordered against boats in the Caribbean Sea should be considered last month, which caused 17 dead.
At least two of these operations were carried out in vessels from Venezuela.
According to legal specialists consulted by The New York Times, Trump’s decision to formally consider his campaign against cartels as an active armed conflict means that he is consolidating his right to extraordinary powers in times of war.
The president of the United States is legally obliged to notify Congress on military operations abroad, but only Congress has the power to formally declare a war.
The notification points out that “US forces remain prepared to carry out military operations as necessary to avoid more deaths or injuries to US citizens.”
The United States has deployed at least eight warships in the region and a rapid attack submarine of nuclear propulsion, as well as more than 4,500 soldiers, as part of an operation in the Caribbean Sea. He has also sent last generation fighters F-35b to Puerto Rico.
The Trump government accuses the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, to lead the so -called Los Soles Cartel, indicated by the US as a terrorist organization allegedly linked to drug trafficking, an affirmation that Caracas rejects.
Maduro’s government considers the American deployment in the Caribbean as a threat of aggression and has mobilized the army already reserved as a deterrence strategy.
With EFE information.
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