Queens Democratic Congressman Gregory W. Meeks, the ranking member of the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, is demanding answers from the Trump administration for the legal justification for the US Armed Forces’ strike on an alleged drug vessel in the Caribbean Sea.
“I am deeply concerned by the Trump administration’s shifting narratives, contradictory facts, and utter failure to provide a legal justification for this strike,” Meeks, who represents New York’s 5th Congressional District in Queens, said on Tuesday, Sept. 9.
“It is unacceptable that, a week after the strike, Members of the Foreign Affairs Committee have yet to be briefed by the administration on this use of force, despite the Committee’s clear jurisdiction,” added Meeks, who formerly served as the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “We are a nation of laws, not of one man’s whims.
“Donald Trump does not have the authority to order strikes in international waters,” the congressman continued. “Only Congress has the constitutional power to declare war or authorize military force. The administration must make its legal justification for these strikes clear, because this strike appears unlawful under both US and international law.”
Meeks also wants the Trump administration to provide Congress intelligence, including what immediate threat to the United States justified the extrajudicial killing of 11 individuals.
“Unjustified unilateral actions like this emulate the behavior of authoritarian leaders, such as Maduro (the Venezuelan leader), rather than counter them,” he said.
“The Trump administration’s credibility is already in tatters, from deporting people to foreign gulags based on false claims and cherry-picking intelligence that suits its political agenda, to now contradicting itself about where the boat was heading when it was struck,” Meeks added. “The American people deserve the truth.
“With both the United States and Venezuela taking further escalatory steps, it is time for Congress to reassert its congressional authority over matters of war and peace,” he continued. “We cannot allow Donald Trump to unilaterally drag us into a war that we have not authorized.”
As tension rises between the United States and Venezuela over the deployment of US military forces in the Caribbean Sea off Venezuela allegedly to combat narco-trafficking, the Trump administration on Sept. 8 reaffirmed the strength of its partnership with the Trinidad and Tobago Government of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.
US Department of State Principal Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Piggott said on Sept. 8 that Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau spoke with Persad-Bissessar “to reaffirm the strength of the US–Trinidad and Tobago partnership.
“The Deputy Secretary commended Trinidad and Tobago as a strong US partner in the Caribbean,” said Piggott in a statement. “He acknowledged Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar’s public support for US military operations in the South Caribbean Sea and both our governments’ commitment to curbing illegal narcotics and firearms trafficking.”
Last week, Persad-Bissessar applauded Trump’s military build-up in the Caribbean Sea off Venezuela, as the US military struck an alleged drug boat, killing “11 terrorists.”
“I, along with most of the country, am happy that the US naval deployment is having success in their mission,” said Persad-Bissessar in a statement. “The pain and suffering the cartels have inflicted on our nation is immense.
“I have no sympathy for traffickers; the US military should kill them all violently,” she declared.
Trump disclosed on his social media platform that he ordered US Armed Forces to strike a boat that they claimed was carrying alleged Tren de Aragua drug smugglers in the Caribbean Sea.
“You had massive amounts of drugs. We have tapes of them speaking,” said Trump in Oval Office remarks on Sept. 3. “It was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people.
“You see it, you see the bags of drugs all over the boat, and they were hit,” he added. “Obviously, they won’t be doing it again. And I think a lot of other people won’t be doing it again.”
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth doubled down, stating on Fox News: “We knew exactly who was in that boat. We knew exactly what they were doing, and we knew exactly who they represented.
“And that was Tren de Aragua narco-terrorist organization designated by the United States as trying to poison our country with illicit drugs,” he added. “Anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is a deadly terrorist will face the same fate.”
On Sept. 8, Hegseth made an unanticipated visit to Puerto Rico, as Trump heightens military build-up in the Caribbean under the pretext of combatting drug cartels.
Accompanied by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, Hegseth told US Marines deployed in Puerto Rico that they were front and center in “defending the American homeland.”
