A reporter raises a hand to ask a question as U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attend a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Greatly influenced by Patrick Buchanan's American First ideology, President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement are often described as "isolationists" who reject the hawkish foreign policy of past GOP presidents like Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. Trump and his allies, from "War Room" host Steve Bannon to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, are openly disdainful of neocons.

But in 2025, Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are being increasingly confrontational with Venezuela — carrying out a series of military strikes against Venezuelan boats they claim were smuggling illegal drugs to the United States and reportedly pushing for regime change with leftist Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

One of the attacks on a Venezuelan boat involved a fatal second strike after the people on board had already been shipwrecked because of a first strike. And according to Business Insider's Kelsey Baker, that reported second strike is a violation of the Pentagon's own guidelines.

"The Pentagon's manual on the law of war doesn't list every possible illegal order," Baker explains, "but on some points, it's explicit. 'Orders to fire upon the shipwrecked,' it says, 'would be clearly illegal.' The 1200-page manual repeatedly stresses that a combatant who is unable to continue fighting is entitled to fundamental protections. It uses shipwreck survivors as a key example — which is why a September 2 counter-narcotics strike in the Caribbean is drawing intense scrutiny."

Baker continues, "During the mission, which Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has said he watched live, the U.S. military struck a suspected drug-smuggling vessel twice. The first strike appeared to kill nine people on the vessel; then, the U.S. military launched a second strike on the stricken boat that killed the two remaining survivors, the Washington Post reported last week, citing seven people with knowledge of the strike."

Business Insider discussed the September 2 strikes with Ohio Northern University law professor and former U.S. Army judge Dan Maurer — who considers the second strike a "patent violation" of military law.

Maurer told Business Insider, "No one who is at all trained on the law of war would think that that's OK. Whether they're wounded or sick or a POW or shipwrecked at sea, unless they're shooting at you, they are not a threat, and they cannot be attacked. There's actually an affirmative duty to pick them up, to rescue them, so they don't drown."

Read Kelsey Baker's full article for Business Insider at this link.