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The president has rescinded a Biden-era system that required high-level approval for certain drone strikes and commando raids, reverting to a more permissive system.
March 1, 2025, 2:05 p.m. ET
President Trump has rescinded Biden-era limits on counterterrorism drone strikes and commando raids outside conventional war zones, reverting to the looser set of rules he used in his first term, according to officials familiar with the matter.
Under restrictions imposed by the Biden administration, U.S. military and C.I.A. drone operators generally had to obtain permission from the White House to target a suspected militant outside a conventional war zone. Now commanders in the field will again have greater latitude to decide for themselves whether to carry out a strike.
The relaxation of the rules suggests that the United States is likely to more frequently carry out airstrikes aimed at killing terrorism suspects in poorly governed places that are not deemed traditional battlefield zones, like Somalia and Yemen. It also means there may be greater risk to civilians.
The Trump administration did not formally announce the change, elements of which were reported earlier by CBS News. The report also said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had signed a directive, apparently implementing the change for the U.S. military’s Africa Command, in a meeting last month at its headquarters in Germany. Mr. Hegseth linked to the CBS report in a social media post, stating only: “Correct.”
