Trump Won't Stop With Venezuela: Rubio Indicates Broader Campaign of Lawless Executions

As rights groups and Democratic lawmakers condemned the Trump administration's bombing of a boat it claims—without evidence—was carrying drugs off the coast of Venezuela, Secretary of State Marco Rubio made clear on Thursday that targeting vessels linked to drug smuggling in Latin America, and possibly elsewhere, will be part of the White House's ongoing policy.

At a news conference in Quito, Ecuador, Rubio suggested Latin American governments have a choice: Work with the Trump administration to crack down on drug trafficking or see the US kill more citizens suspected of trying to smuggle illegal substances.

"For cooperative governments, there's no need because those governments are going to help us," said Rubio. "They're going to help us find these people and blow them up, if that's what it takes."

Some governments in the region have avoided criticizing this week's bombing of a boat off the coast of Venezuela, which the US has said killed 11 people it had identified at "narco-terorrists" connected to Tren de Aragua, and which was conducted under the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force.

The White House has not provided evidence of the suspected drug smuggling or that the victims were connected to the gang. US intelligence agencies have also called into question President Donald Trump's claims that Tren de Aragua is a high-level gang that terrorist organization working with the Venezuelan government.

Ecuador's government said Thursday it intends to revise its extradition agreement with the US, and President Daniel Noboa praised the US for its efforts to "actually eliminate any terrorist threat." On the same day, Rubio announced $20 million in new security assistance for Ecuador.

"Under Trump, if the president declares you a terrorist, the U.S. military will apparently execute you on his behalf, no questions asked."

The White House has also turned its attention to two Ecuadorian gangs, Los Lobos and Los Choneros, with Rubio announcing they have been designated as terrorist groups. The designation gives the Trump administration "all sorts of options," Rubio claimed, for cracking down on the gangs' activities, including potentially killing those suspected of being leaders or traffickers for the groups.

"This time, we're not just going to hunt for drug dealers in the little fast boats and say, 'Let's try to arrest them,'" Rubio said. "No, the president has said he wants to wage war on these groups because they've been waging war on us for 30 years and no one has responded."

As Rubio spoke in Quito, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at Fort Benning in Georgia on Thursday that while Trump said he ordered the strike on the boat in the Caribbean this week, low-ranking military officers will soon be empowered to make final decisions on such attacks—strikes which international law experts have decried as nothing less than extrajudicial murder.

"The understanding is that those authorities are better made, those decisions are better made, by men and women in the professional arms," Hegseth said.

Despite the administration's use of the military to attack the boat near Venezuela this week and Rubio's rhetoric about being at "war" with groups involved in the drug trade, human rights advocates and other Latin American leaders have stressed in recent days that drug trafficking is a crime that must be confronted by law enforcement—not an entity that the US can defeat through military action.

"We have been capturing civilians transporting drugs for decades without killing them. Those who transport drugs are not the big drug traffickers, but the very poor young people of the Caribbean and the Pacific," said Colombian President Gustavo Petro.

Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America told The Washington Post that "you don't just simply blow boats out of the water. You follow law enforcement procedures."

Sara Haghdoosti, executive director of Win Without War, said that with this week's deadly attack—and plans to conduct more strikes—Trump has brought former President George W. Bush's "dream to full fruition."

"Under Trump, if the president declares you a terrorist, the U.S. military will apparently execute you on his behalf, no questions asked," said Haghdoosti. "That should deeply alarm us all, especially at a time when the president thinks nothing of labeling anyone from a USAID worker to a college student as a terrorist."

The killing of 11 suspected Venezuelan gang members, added Haghdoosti, will make "no difference whatsoever in the lives of people struggling with their own or a loved one's addiction," particularly as the Republican Party's budget cuts have "ravaged" funding for substance use disorder treatment and overdose prevention.

"There is no military solution to the overdose crisis, but there is a political solution to a president with authoritarian ambitions," said Haghdoosti. "Congress must act now to end unauthorized military action in the Caribbean, investigate these apparently lawless killings, and restore the proven health and harm reduction programs that people struggling with the scourge of fentanyl desperately need."