The moment of the attack on the vessel from Venezuela. (The White House).

One of President Trump’s first executive orders since returning to the presidency in January was the designation of certain drug cartels as “terrorist” organizations. In doing this, Trump signaled a renewed war on drugs with the possibility of the United States military acting unilaterally throughout Latin America.

As with much of Trump’s foreign policy, it was not immediately clear how literally one should take his threats to strike cartels and deploy special forces south of the U.S.-Mexico border. After all, the United States already has partnerships with repressive forces from Mexico to Colombia, which it established through an earlier war on drugs in the 1970s. Could these threats of military action in Latin America be nothing more than a bargaining tactic meant to secure more economic and geopolitical advantages for U.S. imperialism in Latin America?

If Trump’s recent military aggression toward Venezuela is any indication, the administration’s threats to launch a new war on drugs at the expense of any vestige of regional sovereignty should be taken very seriously.

Following the deadly U.S. attack on a small boat in the Caribbean Sea on September 2 — justified under dubious claims that the boat was trafficking drugs with the backing of Venezuela’s government — the Trump administration has consistently said that it is prepared to carry out more such strikes. In an interview with Fox News on September 3, Pete Hegseth said, “President Trump is willing to go on offense in ways that others have........

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