‘A Significant Rupture’: Trump's Boat Bombing Spree Leads UK to Curb Intel-Sharing With US

President Donald Trump's policy of bombing purported drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean, which multiple legal experts have decried as an illegal act extrajudicial murder, is now meeting resistance from a top US ally.

CNN reported on Tuesday that the UK has now stopped sharing intelligence related to suspected drug-trafficking vessels with the US because the country does not want to be complicit in strikes that it believes violate international law.

CNN's sources say that the UK stopped giving the US information about boats in the region roughly a month ago, shortly after Trump began authorizing drone strikes against them in a campaign that so far has killed at least 76 people.

"Before the US military began blowing up boats in September, countering illicit drug trafficking was handled by law enforcement and the US Coast Guard, [and] cartel members and drug smugglers were treated as criminals with due process rights," explained CNN.

Last month, after his administration had already launched several strikes, Trump declared drug cartels enemy combatants and claimed he has the right to launch military strikes against suspected drug-trafficking boats.

Appearing on CNN on Tuesday to discuss the story, reporter Natasha Bertrand described the decision to stop sharing intelligence as "a really significant rupture" between the US and its closest ally.

"We're told that the UK is deeply uncomfortable with [the boat strikes], and they believe that it is pretty blatantly illegal," Bertrand explained. "It really underscores the continued questions surrounding the legality of this US military campaign."

The US military began its boat attacks in the Caribbean in September, and has since expanded them to purported drug boats operating in the Pacific Ocean.

Reporting last month from the Wall Street Journal indicated that the administration was also preparing to attack a variety of targets inside Venezuela, whose government Trump has baselessly accused of running drug cartels. Potential targets include “ports and airports controlled by the military that are allegedly used to traffic drugs, including naval facilities and airstrips.”

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier has now arrived off the coast of Latin America, in a move that the paper notes "has fueled speculation the Trump administration intends to dramatically escalate its deadly counternarcotics campaign there, possibly through direct attacks on Venezuela."

Reports from the US government and the United Nations have not identified Venezuela as a significant source of drugs that enter the United States, and the country plays virtually no role in the trafficking of fentanyl, the primary cause of drug overdoses in the US.

The administration's military aggression in Latin America has also sparked a fierce backlash in the region, where dozens of political leaders last month condemned the boat attacks, while also warning that they could just be the start of a regime change war reminiscent of Cold War-era US-backed coups like ones that occurred in Chile, Brazil, and other nations.