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The move deepened the idea that a Vietnam-era law, which says congressionally unauthorized deployments into “hostilities” must end after 60 days, does not apply to airstrike campaigns.
Nov. 1, 2025, 9:34 p.m. ET
The Justice Department told Congress this week that President Trump could lawfully continue his lethal military strikes on people suspected of smuggling drugs at sea, notwithstanding a time limit for congressionally unauthorized deployments of armed forces into “hostilities.”
In a briefing, the official who leads the department’s Office of Legal Counsel, T. Elliot Gaiser, said the administration did not think the operation rose to the kind of “hostilities” covered by the 60-day limit, a key part of a 1973 law called the War Powers Resolution, according to several people familiar with the matter.
In a statement provided by the White House, an unnamed senior administration official said that American service members were not in danger because the boats suspected of smuggling drugs were mostly being struck by drones far from naval ships carrying U.S. forces.
“The operation comprises precise strikes conducted largely by unmanned aerial vehicles launched from naval vessels in international waters at distances too far away for the crews of the targeted vessels to endanger American personnel,” the official said.
The U.S. military has killed about 62 people across 14 airstrikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific so far, and the administration has told Congress that Mr. Trump “determined” that the operation counts as a formal armed conflict.
But the stance that the operation does not count as “hostilities” because the people on the boats could not shoot back builds on a precedent established by President Barack Obama during the 2011 NATO air war over Libya, to significant disagreement at the time in Congress and within Mr. Obama’s own legal team.
