President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the United States has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela as tensions mount with the government of President Nicolás Maduro.

 

The U.S. has built up the largest military presence in the region in decades and launched a series of deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

 

The campaign is facing growing scrutiny from Congress.

 

Col. (Ret.) Greg Thompson, a professor of national security at Cedarville University, says the administration is using an argument of national self-defense to continue their strikes as a way of stopping the flow of drugs from entering the United States.

 

“So, I do think the president has an opportunity here to carve out, based on the circumstances that exist today, based on how many deaths we've seen in our country due to drugs, this position of national self-defense,” Thompson said.

 

The counter-argument would be that, based on international law, typically with a non-international conflict, self-defense would be allowed if there was an armed attack or an imminent armed attack.

 

“Well, of course, that is not what this is. So that would be the counter-argument,” Thompson said.

 

But Thompson added that the administrations argument of national self-defense could hold even if it strikes via land.

 

“If the US were to target cocaine factories, storage areas and things of that nature, the same argument would certainly apply,” Thompson said.