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Lawmaker Demands Hearing on U.S. Strikes on Boats in Caribbean

October 20, 2025
in News
Lawmaker Demands Hearing on U.S. Strikes on Boats in Caribbean
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The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee called on Monday for his panel to hold a hearing to examine the Trump administration’s use of the military in the Caribbean Sea to kill people suspected of smuggling drugs as if they were enemy soldiers in a war, rather than arresting them as criminals.

The demand by the lawmaker, Representative Adam Smith of Washington, came a day after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the military had attacked another vessel — the seventh since early September — in the region.

The Trump administration has acknowledged killing more than 30 people in the strikes.

“President Trump and his administration continue to fail to answer pressing questions regarding the president’s orders to carry out lethal U.S. military strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea,” Mr. Smith said in a statement.

“They have failed to demonstrate the legality of these strikes, provide transparency on the process used or even a list of cartels that have been designated as terrorist organizations,” he added. “We have also yet to see any evidence to support the president’s unilateral determinations that these vessels or their activities posed imminent threats to the United States of America that warranted military force rather than law enforcement-led interdiction.”

Holding any committee hearing would be up to the House Republican leadership. Speaker Mike Johnson has kept the House in recess during the three-week government shutdown.

The Republican-led Congress (especially the House) has ceded its oversight powers since Mr. Trump returned to office, opting not to scrutinize policies and actions that push the boundaries of presidential power.

Mr. Smith also called on Adm. Alvin Holsey, the head of the Pentagon’s Southern Command, which oversees military operations in Latin America, to testify before the committee. Admiral Holsey unexpectedly announced last week that he was stepping down, less than a year into what is typically a three-year job and during the biggest operation in his 37-year career.

Admiral Holsey had raised concerns about the mission and the attacks on the alleged drug boats, according to one current and one former U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.

“Never before in my over 20 years on the committee can I recall seeing a combatant commander leave their post this early and amid such turmoil,” Mr. Smith said.

The White House has told Congress that Mr. Trump “determined” that the United States was in a formal armed conflict with various drug cartels that his team had deemed terrorists, making the boat crews “unlawful combatants.”

The administration’s recent strategy of designating various Latin American drug cartels as terrorists has been disputed because the groups are motivated by profit, not ideology.

Some Trump administration officials, including Marco Rubio, who is both the secretary of state and the national security adviser, have argued that designating a drug cartel as a terrorist organization conveys the authority to use military force against it.

That is false as a matter of legal reality. The law that empowers the executive branch to deem foreign groups terrorists enables steps like freezing their assets and making it a crime to do business with them — not to attack them.

Eric Schmitt is a national security correspondent for The Times. He has reported on U.S. military affairs and counterterrorism for more than three decades.

The post Lawmaker Demands Hearing on U.S. Strikes on Boats in Caribbean appeared first on New York Times.

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