Trump and Hegseth Have Been Mass Murdering Foreign Nationals in the Caribbean

Over the 2 September to 15 November 2025, the US Trump administration has killed at least 83 foreign nationals in boats, which involved military strikes upon 22 vessels in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Venezuela. And while the White House claims it is carrying out the operations to stop narcotraffickers, the tactics being used appear to amount to mass murder.

The second coming of Trump has involved a yearlong assault on the sensibilities of US civil society, and its amongst this shock treatment that US secretary of war Pete Hegseth was able to order dozens of extrajudicial killings of alleged drug smugglers, who are more broadly understood to likely be local fishermen, with the ultimate goal apparently being the securing of Venezuela’s sizable oil reserves.

The large number of extrajudicial killings are now being given more scrutiny by US congress and the public, as The Washington Post last week reported that the initial strike on a “drugboat” on 2 September involved Hegseth ordering commanders to kill everybody. So, after the first strike left two of the 11 crew members clinging live to debris, a second highly criminal missile strike took them out.

The Trump administration has been advancing the idea that the military strikes against suggested narcotraffickers are justified under the war on drugs. This drug war pretext suggests that the US military is killing enemy combatants. Yet, the “double strike” tactic used on the first boat either represents a murder or extrajudicial killing if not at war, but if at war, it represents a war crime.

These revelations led the US president and his war secretary to appear before the press on Tuesday, with Donald Trump underscoring that the intel used in the Caribbean military operations was clear that the drugboats were carrying narcoterrorists, despite no evidence provided at the time, while Hegseth said US Admiral Frank Bradley ordered the second strike, while he was out of the room.

Extrajudicial killings

There is no legitimate basis for the Trump administration to be attacking these alleged drug smugglers, who are more likely fisher people, off the coast of Venezuela, even if the vessels were being driven by narcoterrorists. Under international law, the US cannot attack Venezuela, as the South American nation has not posed any threat to America, and the nations are not at war.

The White House formerly announced Operation Southern Spear mid-last month, but it’s been progressed since August. It comprises of over a dozen US warships, including the world’s largest aircraft carrier, amassed off the coast of Venezuela. There are 15,000 US military troops on these vessels, which mark the largest US military deployment to Latin America for decades.

As the new head of Defence, which has since been renamed the War Department, Hegseth told a gathering of US military commanders in September that they should throw out the “stupid rules of engagement”, which are the post-World War II established ethical actions that troops must abide by during military engagements. Trump’s operations in the Caribbean definitely breach these rules.

Trump has long labelled Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro the head of outlaw drug organisation the Cartel de los Soles, despite any evidence, and the cartel was designated a terrorist organisation by the US on 24 November this year. The US president has this week, whilst distancing himself from the follow up killings in September, proposed a potential ground attack on Venezuela.

The Trump administration has framed itself as isolationist and therefore, not interested in engaging in wars around the planet or in being responsible for securing Europe militarily. The turning towards the continent south of the border is being seen as something of a return to the 19th century conceived Monroe Doctrine, which considers Latin America the US’s backyard and its responsibility.

Misconstruing metaphor for real conflict

“This entire operation, from the outset, is illegal,” Georgetown University Law Professor David Cole told Democracy Now this week. “It is not legal to engage in premeditated targeting of people because you believe they’re engaged in criminal activity. We have a system in this country for trying people, convicting them, sentencing them.”

“Even if you are found to have been guilty of smuggling massive amounts of drugs, you cannot be executed,” the legal expert continued on Tuesday. “The president says this is a war, but he’s mixing metaphor with reality. The ‘war on drugs’ is a metaphor, like the war on cancer.”

According to Cole, a war on drugs doesn’t allow people who use drugs to be killed, just as a war on crime doesn’t permit the murder of criminals. The expert further underscored that not only has the operation been unlawful from inception, but it has now come to light that certain targets have been murdered in cold blood.

Even if the deceased were enemy combatants, it is a war crime to go back and kill those struck militarily and no longer posing the same threat they were understood to have originally posed. While six Democratic congresspeople recently released a video warning troops that they are not obliged to follow commanders’ orders if they are in breach of the rules of engagement.

Cole further told the news program that the “entire operation is a pretext” as “there is no war going on”. He added that Trump has simply decided to tackle a suggested crime issue and use the military illegally to pursue it, which Hegseth turned this into a kill them all order. If the US launches land attacks against Caracas as repeatedly suggested, this would too be in breach of international law.

“The fact that people are maybe — probably are — smuggling drugs into this country from Venezuela doesn’t distinguish that country from Mexico, from Canada, from many other countries… from which drugs are smuggled,” the professor continued matter-of-factly.

“It doesn’t give us the authority to kill Canadians. It doesn’t give us the authority to kill Mexicans. It doesn’t give us the authority to kill Venezuelans. And it certainly doesn’t give us the authority to go to war with a country,” Cole made clear.

Killing fishermen to progress war

The Colombian family of one of the people who have been murdered by the Trump administration off the coast of Venezuela have lodged a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights this week. The submission makes clear that Alejandro Carranza was a fisherman riding on a vessel that was not carrying illegal drugs.

“We know that Pete Hegseth, US secretary of defence, was responsible for ordering the bombing of boats like those of Alejandro Carranza Medina and the murder of all those on such boats,” the complaint reads, and adds that Hegseth gave the orders, “despite the fact that he did not know the identity of those being targeted for these bombings and extrajudicial killings”.

Law Professor Cole further told Democracy Now this week that even if the foreign nationals in the 20-odd boats had been attempting to smuggle drugs into the United States, the use of the death penalty in that nation is limited to “people who have actually committed a homicide”. Drug traffickers cannot be executed by the United States criminal justice system.

Yet, just as the Trump administration is only receiving heated scrutiny in respect of these extrajudicial killings, or murders that might one day be tried in the International Criminal Court, now, in the same manner, the White House has ignored multiple court orders during its time in office and continued to act illegally, when ordered not to. So, it’s likely the pursuit of Venezuela will also continue.