On Friday, President Donald Trump announced a third fatal U.S. strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug-smuggling boat. The operation, which killed what Trump called three “male narcoterrorists,” follows two U.S. strikes earlier this month also on alleged Venezuelan drug boats. The attacks are not just likely illegal and unconstitutional— Congress has done nothing to authorize the use of such military force—but a deeply flawed way to tackle drug smuggling in the Western Hemisphere.

The strikes have come with a fair bit of hyperbole from the White House. Trump has warned Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, who in 2020 was indicted by the U.S. Justice Department on drug-trafficking charges and now has a $50 million bounty on his head , to stop sending drugs and members of the Tr

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