Creating Zones of Lawlessness: Trump, Venezuela, and the Piecemeal Construction of an Authoritarian State - Western States Legal Foundation
Title: Creating Zones of Lawlessness: Trump, Venezuela, and the Piecemeal Construction of an Authoritarian State
Source: Western States Legal Foundation
Date of Publication: December 4, 2025
Author: Andrew Lichterman (Andrew Lichterman is a policy analyst and lawyer at the Oakland, California-based Western States Legal Foundation.)
Introduction: The United States Government has deployed a large military task force to the waters in the Caribbean Sea, while making a variety of threats against the government of Venezuela and against drug traffickers it alleges are operating in that country and elsewhere. It is also conducting a campaign of killings against alleged drug traffickers, using drones and aircraft to attack and destroy small boats without warning far from U.S. shores, in almost every instance leaving no survivors.
The Trump administration has provided publicly only the bare outline of a legal rationale for either the threats of armed force against Venezuela or the use of military force against small craft far from the United States. It has offered only broad-brush, factually unsubstantiated claims that the top officials of the Venezuelan government, including its president, lead and direct drug cartels responsible for the deaths of large numbers of American from drug use and to the use of violence by the cartels in the U.S. and elsewhere, claiming the actions of the cartels constitute an “armed attack against the United States.” It has further labeled those drug cartels as “terrorist” organizations, despite having provided no substantial evidence of any motive, political or otherwise, beyond the accumulation of profit through the drug trade, human trafficking, and other ventures involving clandestine international transportation of people and things. Such activities heretofore have been addressed as a matter of law enforcement under U.S. statutes and international agreements governing extraterritorial application of U.S. law.
The use of military force to kill alleged drug traffickers without warning and without legal process violates both human rights principles and international law governing the use of military force. A direct use of military force against Venezuela in these circumstances would further fray a post-World War II international order already severely strained. These actions signal the tightening of the grip of a lawless, authoritarian faction on the executive and military powers and functions of the United States Government.
The first part of this essay describes the Trump administration’s threats of military force against Venezuela and its killings of alleged drug traffickers in small boats in the Caribbean, providing an analysis of relevant law. The concluding section, “States of Emergency: The Wars Abroad and the Wars at Home,” examines how the administration has combined narratives about the drug trade, terrorism, and immigration to assemble a legal and ideological toolbox for the construction of an authoritarian state.
The full article can be found in PDF format here.
