Trump’s war on the international order threatens us all 

While the world focuses on the war with Iran, the Trump administration has quietly accelerated its attacks on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.  

Earlier this month, the U.S. military destroyed three boats in five days, bringing the total to 57, with almost 200 people killed. The strikes, which legal experts consider illegal extrajudicial killings under international law — and murder under U.S. law — are part of a systematic effort by the administration to normalize the unilateral use of force as an instrument of foreign policy. In the process, the U.S. is alienating allies, undermining the international order it took the lead in creating, and weakening its legitimacy both at home and abroad. 

Under the United Nations Charter, states may not use force abroad unless authorized by the Security Council or undertaken in self-defense against an armed attack. The Trump administration claims the U.S. is effectively at war with Latin American drug cartels because they “illegally and directly cause the deaths of tens of thousands of American citizens each year.” But drug trafficking, however devastating its consequences, is criminal activity that calls for a law enforcement response — arrests, charges and trials — not deadly military strikes.  

By blurring the distinction between war and policing, the administration is eroding limits on when states may use lethal force. 

Administration officials have increasingly framed international relations as a system governed by the power to coerce. When U.S. forces seized Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, for example, President Trump declared........

© The Hill