00:00The U.S. is facing questions over lethal strikes on vessels in international waters
00:05carried out under counter-narcotics operations without congressional approval.
00:10Javid Ali, associate professor at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan,
00:17says the strikes rely on executive authority, not law,
00:20raising concerns over transparency, legal precedent and potential escalation with Venezuela.
00:25The legal basis that the United States has developed to carry out this campaign of strikes
00:34against what are alleged to be vessels and boats carrying drugs from the Caribbean
00:40potentially towards the United States or other transshipment points,
00:45it's a complex set of policy instruments that the Trump administration has devised.
00:56None of those yet have been made public.
00:59Based on media reporting over the past few weeks, it's a combination of three different things.
01:06Ali says those instruments include a presidential directive signed in July,
01:10a Justice Department legal review and a military execute order, but no congressional authorization.
01:17He adds that no war has been declared against Venezuela,
01:20despite suggestions that some vessels may be linked to drug trafficking networks
01:24associated with the Maduro government.
01:26But there's been no law passed by Congress, which is different from other types of campaigns
01:34the U.S. has carried out over the decades, certainly in the post-9-11 environment.
01:39There was something called the 2001 authorization to use military force,
01:42which the U.S. is still using every day.
01:46Now, separately, is there some violation of international law?
01:51Maybe.
01:52But at the same time, the U.S., as long as the U.S. can devise this policy regime
02:00that has been approved through all these different mechanisms internally in the White House,
02:06the Department of Justice, then it's legal under U.S. law,
02:10even though there is no separate law from Congress that is authorizing these operations.
02:17Ali warns the longer the operation continues without results,
02:20the greater the risk of criticism, both over legal ambiguity
02:24and the cost of keeping major U.S. military assets deployed in the region.
02:28If the campaign against the boats is to put pressure on the Maduro regime,
02:35I don't think that's going to be an effective tool because, by and large,
02:39probably most of these boats are not directly linked to the Venezuelan government,
02:43or at least that case hasn't been made publicly.
02:47So I would have to imagine there's going to be a point in the future
02:52where President Trump is going to have to decide,
02:54do I back off either from the boat strikes or this broader campaign to remove Maduro,
03:03put more pressure on him,
03:04or does he keep that what is now relatively large military presence in the region in place
03:15and then keep waiting?
03:17And the longer that goes, the longer the waiting goes on,
03:21there will be criticism of the administration to say,
03:25well, some of those resources could be shifted elsewhere.
03:28So this is going to be the issue.
03:30How long will President Trump wait?
03:32How long can President Maduro wait this out unless President Trump escalates the campaign
03:41to actually engage in these land operations inside Venezuela?
03:47Which President Trump has stated that over the past couple of weeks,
03:50he said these are coming and they are very likely to happen, but they have not yet.
03:55So I think we're from the outside looking in,
03:57we're all just sort of wondering what's the strategy both on the U.S. side
04:01and on the Venezuelan side.
