President Donald Trump reportedly informed Congress through a confidential Pentagon memo that the United States is now engaged in what is described as a “non-international armed conflict” against Latin American drug cartels. Among the groups named are Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, and Venezuelan organizations like Tren de Aragua and the Cartel de los Soles. The memo designates these cartels as terrorists and their members as unlawful combatants, thereby invoking the international law of armed conflict. This designation expands the authority of the US military, allowing for pre-emptive strikes without proof of imminent threat, indefinite detention of suspects, and trials before military tribunals instead of traditional civilian courts.
According to reports, three lethal military strikes were already conducted in September against Venezuelan boats suspected of fentanyl smuggling, resulting in the deaths of at least eleven people. The White House characterized the operations as self-defense measures, framing drug trafficking as an “armed attack.” This stance equates narcotics smuggling and cartel operations with acts of war, raising concerns that presidential authority is being stretched beyond constitutional limits. Supporters of the approach praised it as decisive leadership against the drug trade, while critics warned of executive overreach and potential violations of international law.
This dramatic shift is not occurring in a vacuum. The United States has been waging a war on drugs for more than half a century, with mixed results. The official declaration of the War on Drugs dates back to 1971, when President Richard Nixon publicly labeled drug abuse “public enemy number one.” Nixon’s administration moved policy away from treatment and rehabilitation, instead focusing on criminalization, enforcement, and interdiction. He created the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to consolidate federal power over drug control and pushed through the Controlled Substances Act, which classified marijuana and several other substances as highly dangerous and without medical use.
Nixon’s measures coincided with the counterculture movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and many scholars and former aides later admitted that the policy was partly designed to target anti-war activists and Black communities under the guise of combating drug abuse. Despite heavy funding of enforcement, drug use among youth increased in the 1970s, and heroin addiction became widespread, especially among Vietnam War veterans. This revealed the gap between the intended impact of militarized drug policy and the realities on the ground.
The trajectory of US drug policy since then has followed a familiar cycle of heightened enforcement, militarization, and criminalization, often with devastating consequences in Latin America. The Reagan administration escalated the fight further in the 1980s, aligning it with Cold War strategies and expanding US involvement in Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. Subsequent administrations maintained variations of this approach, and today fentanyl trafficking has become the latest frontier in what some see as a never-ending war.
By framing cartels as unlawful combatants under armed conflict law, the Trump memo places drug trafficking in the same legal category as international terrorism. This opens the door to indefinite detentions, drone strikes, and extrajudicial actions that bypass civilian courts. Human rights advocates argue that equating economic crimes with acts of war stretches the law beyond recognition and could set troubling precedents. If drug smugglers are treated like wartime enemies, then the safeguards of due process and constitutional rights risk being undermined in the pursuit of security.
At the same time, proponents insist that the crisis justifies these extraordinary measures. Fentanyl overdoses have devastated American communities, and violence linked to cartels continues to destabilize regions of Mexico and South America. For them, a military-style solution is the only viable response to the scale of the threat. But history suggests otherwise: despite decades of militarized enforcement, the drug trade has proven resilient, adapting to every new strategy deployed against it.
As the United States doubles down on this latest phase of the War on Drugs, the central question remains whether repeating old tactics under a new legal framework will yield different results. The Nixon-era shift toward criminalization failed to curb addiction or demand. Today’s expansion of military powers risks creating new problems, from civilian casualties abroad to the erosion of legal protections at home. The story of America’s drug policy is one of persistent struggle between enforcement and public health, between power and liberty, and the Trump memo marks the newest, and perhaps most controversial, chapter in that long history.
