JD Vance: I don’t care if strike on Venezuela drug boat is war crime

 JD Vance has weighed in on the debate between jurists, academics and officials on the legality of last week’s unprecedented missile strike on a Venezuelan drug gang’s boat: He doesn’t “give a s---”.

The US vice-president delivered his verdict on X during a back-and-forth with an anti-Trump social media commentator.

But it highlights the muscular approach the Trump administration is taking to gangs and drugs being smuggled into the US.

At its heart are questions about the legal basis used to justify blowing up a speedboat and killing 11 people in international waters, and whether the target is just the smugglers or whether the US also has Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s hard-line leader, in its sights.

“Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,” Mr Vance posted on Saturday.

Brian Krassenstein, an anti-Trump social media influencer, responded: “Killing the citizens of another nation who are civilians without any due process is called a war crime.”

Mr Vance, a graduate of Yale Law School, replied: “I don’t give a s--- what you call it.”

Days after the Trump administration ordered an air strike against a vessel leaving Venezuela, the message cuts to the heart of whether the president overstepped the limits of his legal authority.

Mr Trump said the boat was filled with drugs bound for the US and was operated by the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua group.

“Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!” he posted on Truth Social.

Many details of the operation remain unknown, such as who fired what weapons from where.

A former Drug Enforcement Administration agent said it was an unprecedented way to deal with smuggling, and had destroyed any chance of gathering intelligence.

“Every shipment of cocaine essentially comes with a fingerprint, so if you seize it you can track where it came from and how it got here,” he said.

“You can also interrogate the crew and use its comms equipment to gather intelligence.”

Administration officials say the attack is the shape of things to come. “This sends a very clear message,” said a source close to Mr Trump.

That message comes with a huge amount of muscle.

Three guided US missile destroyers have sailed to the Caribbean, along with a nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine, and an amphibious assault ship.

Their deployment is billed as the next step in intercepting drugs coming from Venezuela, but this presence has also been seen as a way to intensify pressure on Mr Maduro, or maybe even pave the way for regime change.

On Friday, it emerged that 10 F-35 stealth jets were being sent to the region.

At the same time Marco Rubio, secretary of state, and Pete Hegseth, secretary of defence, have both said the strike in the south Caribbean would not be a one-off.

“Instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders, we blew it up – and it’ll happen again,” Mr Rubio told reporters.

Officials have broadly justified the strike as an attack on a legitimate military target because the criminal gang Tren de Aragua has been designated as a terrorist organisation.

Anna Kelly, White House spokesman, said the strike was “conducted against the operations of a designated terrorist organisation and was taken in defence of vital US national interests”.

It was “fully consistent” with the laws of war, she added.

Trump may go even further

Legal analysts say her comments reflect a 2001 determination that the US was at war with al-Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks. That made its operatives “combatants” and legal targets under international and domestic law.

However, no such determination has been made about Tren de Aragua. Labelling it “terrorist” means the president has the authority to impose financial and legal sanctions but does not make its members “combatants”.

“I worked at the department of defence. I literally cannot imagine lawyers coming up with a legal basis for lethal strike of a suspected Venezuelan drug boat,” said Ryan Goodman, retired professor of law.

“Hard to see how this would not be ‘murder’ or war crime under international law that DoD considers applicable.”

Yet the Trump administration may be considering going even further.

Sources last week told CNN that the president was considering military strikes against cartels operating inside Venezuela, as part of a broader strategy to weaken Mr Maduro’s position.

The US is one of more than 50 countries that does not recognise him as the rightful leader of Venezuela after contested elections.

Geoff Ramsey, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said the threats and build-up of fire power sent a signal to the Venezuelan opposition.

“I think this is more than anything an attempt to signal to disaffected elements inside the Venezuelan military that now is the time to rise up against the regime,” he said. “The reality, though, is that we’ve seen that this approach has been tried and failed over the last 25 years.”