Trump's 'extraordinary' new war declaration skewered by legal experts

President Donald Trump sent a letter to select members of Congress announcing that the United States is officially at war with drug cartels, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Trump decided that the country had entered a formal “armed conflict” with drug cartels, and those suspected of smuggling drugs are now deemed “unlawful combatants," the confidential letter says.

"Mr. Trump’s move to formally deem his campaign against drug cartels as an active armed conflict means he is cementing his claim to extraordinary wartime powers, legal specialists said. In an armed conflict, as defined by international law, a country can lawfully kill enemy fighters even when they pose no threat, detain them indefinitely without trials and prosecute them in military courts," the report said.

Retired Judge Geoffrey Corn told the outlet that the move crosses a line.

"This is not 'stretching the envelope,'" Geoffrey Corn told the Times. "This is shredding it."

"On administration's confidential note to Congress Completely right. Drug cartels not = 'armed conflict.' The people killed are civilians Corn is retired judge advocate general, former Army law-of-war senior adviser," said Just Security's Ryan Goodman.

A Just Security editor, Brian Finucane, commented that "the administration is trying to backfill a legal rationale for US strikes in the Caribbean. Seems by 'determining' there is an armed conflict—without any basis in fact or law—POTUS is giving himself a license to kill."

International lawyer Ben Farley wrote on Bluesky, "Just so we're clear, the President labeling something an armed conflict does not make it an armed conflict, legally or factually."

‪Ex-lawyer turned commentator Max Kennerly‬ said, "So at the time the admin bragged they were cartel drug runners, then they joked about killing fisherman, then it seems someone realized all of that proves it was simply murder, and now they're retroactively claiming it was an undeclared war. Still just murder, still can't blow up civilian boats."

International human rights lawyer Alka Pradhan said she saw this coming. "The entirely foreseeable and logical extension of all of the United States' law of war violations post 9/11.

"The 'peace president' is quick to determine we're at war if it helps him claim legally dubious power," said right-leaning lawyer Gregg Nunziata, executive director of the Society for the Rule of Law.