Experts skeptical of legality of Trump’s strike on alleged drug boat

 https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/06/politics/venezuela-boat-strike-trump-legality

The president has the authority under Article II of the Constitution to use military force when it is in the national interest, and when it does not amount to “war” in the constitutional sense, which requires an act of Congress. Past administrations have interpreted these standards fairly broadly — especially in the decadeslong war against al Qaeda, ISIS and other evolving Islamist terror groups — and Trump officials have also claimed the president was exercising his inherent Article II powers here.

But again, legal experts say, there is a wrinkle: That amorphous power still requires that the president establish that its targets are legitimate military targets who should be treated as combatants under both international and domestic law. Cartel members and drug smugglers have traditionally been treated as criminals with due process rights — not enemy combatants — and the Trump administration has yet to offer a justification beyond the FTO defense that it is in a state of armed conflict with Tren de Aragua.

Finucane and others pointed to Rubio’s admission that the boat could have been interdicted rather than destroyed — as has been done in the past — but that the president ordered a lethal strike as a matter of first, not last, resort.